they could, talking to their people. Codrington went over in a canoe, and spent four days with them, much pleased. We brought three scholars for George from thence.
'Thursday, Mota.-Codrington says the time is come, in his opinion, for some steps to be taken to further the movement in Mota. Grown-up people much changed, improved, some almost to be regarded as catechumens.
'We left Mota, bringing all that were to come; indeed, we scarcely know what it is nowadays to lose a boy or man-a great blessing. There had been another visit of eleven canoes of Tikopians; friendly, though unable to converse, and promising to return again in two months.
'October 11th.-A topsail schooner in sight, between Ambrym and Paama-one of those kidnapping vessels. I have any amount of (to me) conclusive evidence of downright kidnapping. But I don't think I could prove any case in a Sydney Court. They have no names painted on some of their vessels, and the natives can't catch nor pronounce the names of the white men on board. They describe their appearance accurately, and we have more than suspicions about some of these fellows.
'The planters in Queensland and Fiji, who create the demand for labourers, say that they don't like the kidnapping any more than I do. They pay occasionally from £6 to £12 for an 'imported labourer,' and they don't want to have him put into their hands in a sullen irritable state of mind.'
Touching at Nengone, the Bishop saw Mr. Creagh, who had recently visited New Caledonia, whither Basset, the poor chief who had been banished to Tahiti for refusing to receive a French priest, had been allowed to return, on the Emperor Napoleon forbidding interference with Protestant missionaries or their converts.
Wadrokala and his wife and child were brought away, making up a number of 65 black passengers, besides the 60 scholars already at Norfolk Island. The weather throughout the voyage had been unusually still, with frequent calms, the sea with hardly any swell. And this had been very happy for the Bishop; but he was less well than when he had left Taurarua, and was unequal to attending the General Synod in New Zealand, far more so to another campaign in Australia, though he cherished the design of going to see after the condition of the labourers in Fiji.
He finishes his long letter to his former Primate:-
It is perhaps cowardly to say that I am thankful that I am not a clergyman in England. I am not the man even in a small parish to stand up and fight against so many many-headed monsters. I should give in, and shirk the contest. The more I pray that you may have strength to endure it. I don't think I was ever pugnacious in the way of controversy; and I am very very thankful to be out of it.'
Indeed, the tone of the references to Church matters at home had become increasingly cautious; and one long letter to Mrs. Martyn he actually tore up, lest it should do harm. His feeling more and more was to wish for patience and forbearance, and to deprecate violent words or hasty actions-looking from his hermit life upon all the present distress more as a phase of Church history that would develop into some form of good, and perhaps hardly sensible of the urgency of the struggle and defence. For peace and shelter from the strife of tongues was surely one of the compensating blessings conferred on him. But, as all his companions agree, he was never the same man again after his illness. There was a lower level of spirits and of energy, a sensitiveness to annoyances, and an indisposition to active exertion, which distressed him.
His day began as early as ever, and was mapped out as before, for classes of all kinds, Hebrew and reading; but he seldom left his room, except for Chapel and meals, being unable to take much out-door exercise. He did not see so much of his elder scholars as before, chiefly because the very large number of newer pupils made it necessary to employ them more constantly; but he never failed to give each of them some instruction for a short time every day, though with more effort, for indeed almost everything had become a burthen to him. Mr. Codrington's photograph taken at this time shows how much changed and aged he had become. The quiet in which he now lived resulted in much letter-writing, taking up correspondences that had slumbered in more busy times, as his mind flew back to old friends: though, indeed, the letters given in the preceding Memoir must not be taken by any means to represent the numbers he wrote. When he speaks of sending thirty-five by one mail, perhaps only one or two have come into my hands; and of those only such portions are of course taken as illustrate his life, work, character, and opinions without trenching on the reserve due to survivors. Thus multitudes of affectionate letters, participating in the joys and sorrows of his brother, his cousins and friends, can necessarily find no place here; though the idea of his character is hardly complete without direct evidence of the unbroken or more truly increasing sympathy he had with those whom he had not met for sixteen years, and his love for his brother's wife and children whom he had never seen.
Soon after his return to Norfolk Island came a packet with a three months' accumulation of home despatches. He read and replied in his old conversational way, with occasionally a revelation of his deep inner self:-
'I have been thinking, dear old Fan, about your words, 'there would be a good deal to give and take if you came home for a time;' less perhaps now than before I was somewhat tamed by my illness. I see more of the meaning of that petition, 'from all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; and from all uncharitableness.'
'Alas! you don't know what a misspent life I looked back upon, never losing hold, God be praised, of the sure belief in His promises of pardon and acceptance in Christ. I certainly saw that a want of sympathy, an indifference to the feelings of others, want of consideration, selfishness, in short, lay at the bottom of very much that I mourned over.
'There is one thing, that I don't mention as an excuse for a fault which really does exist, but simply as a fact, viz., that being always, even now, pressed for time, I write very abruptly, and so seem to be much more positive and dogmatic than I hope, and really think, is the case. I don't remember ever writing you a letter in which I was able to write but as I would have talked out the matter under discussion in all its bearings. This arises partly from impatience, my pen won't go fast enough; but as I state shortly my opinion, without going through the reasons which lead me to adopt it, no doubt much that I say seems to be without reason, and some of it no doubt is.'
I need make no excuse for giving as much as possible of the correspondence of these last few months, when- though the manner of his actual departure was violent, there was already the shadow, as it were, of death upon him.
To Sir J. T. Coleridge the letter was:-
'December 9, 1870.
'My dearest Uncle,-How long it is since I wrote to you!... And yet it is true that I think more often of you than of anyone, except Jem, Joan and Fan. In fact, your name meets me so often in one way or another-in papers from England, and much more in books continually in use, that I could not fail to think of you if I had not the true, deep love that brings up the old familiar face and voice so often before my eyes....
'I wish I could talk with you, or rather hear you answer my many questions on so many points. I get quite bewildered sometimes. It is hard to read the signs of our times; so hard to see where charity ends and compromise begins, where the old opinion is to be stoutly maintained, and where the new mode of thought is to be accepted. I suppose there always was some little difference among divines as to 'fundamentals,' and no ready-made solution exists of each difficult question as it emerges.
'There is reason for that being so, because it is part of our duty and trial to exercise our own power of discretion and judgment. But so much now seems to be left to individuals, and so little is accepted on authority. In Church matters I have for years thought Synods to be the one remedy. If men meet and talk over a difficulty, there is a probability of men's understanding each other's motives, and thus preserving charity. If one-twentieth part of a diocese insists upon certain observances which nineteen-twentieths repudiate, it seems clear that the very small minority is put out of court. Yet how often the small minority contains more salt than the large majority!
'I know indeed I am speaking honestly, that I am not worthy to understand dear Mr. Keble on many points. 'The secret of our Lord' is with such men, and we fail to understand him, nous autres I mean, outside the sanctuary. Yet there is, I must confess it to you, my dear uncle, a something about his book on Eucharistic Adoration which has the character to me of foreign rather than of English divinity. I don't want to be exclusive, far from it. I don't want to be Anglican versus Primitive; but yet somehow, to me, there is a something which belongs more to French or Italian than to English character about some parts of the book. It is no doubt because I can't see what to his eye was plain.'
[An account of the voyage follows as before given.] 'The islanders are beginning to find out the true character of the many small vessels cruising among them, taking away people to the plantations in Queensland, Fiji, So now force is substituted for deceit. Natives are enticed on board under promises (by signs of course, for nowhere can they talk to them) of presents, tempted down below into the hold to get tomahawks, beads, biscuit, then the hatches are clapped on, and they are stolen away. I have to try and write a statement about it, which is the last
