All the friends who were thus brought together were like one family, and still called the new Bishop by the never disused abbreviation that recalled his home. He was the guest of the now retired Chief Justice and Lady Martin, who were occupying themselves in a manner probably unique in the history of law and lawyers, by taking charge of the native school at St. Stephen's.
The next two were great days of letter writing. Another long full letter was written to the father, telling of the additional record which each of the three consecrating Bishops had written in the Bible of his childhood, and then going into business matters, especially hoping that the Warden and Fellows of Merton would not suppose that as a Bishop he necessarily had £5,000 a year and a palace, whereas in fact the see had no more than the capital of £5,000 required by Government! He had already agreed with his father that his own share of the inheritance should go to the Mission; and, as he says, on hearing the amount:-
'Hard enough you worked, my dear Father, to leave your children so well off. Dear old Jem will have enough; and my children now dwell in 200 islands, and will need all that I can give them. God grant that the day may come when many of them may understand these things, and rise up and call your memory blessed!
'Your words of comfort and blessing come to me with fresh strength just now, two days only after the time when you too, had you been here, would in private have laid your hand on my head and called down God's blessing upon me. I shall never know in this world what I owe to your prayers.'
There is much, too, of his brother's marriage; and in a separate letter to the sisters there are individual acknowledgments of each article of the equipment, gratifying the donor by informing her that the 'cutaway' coat was actually to be worn that very evening at a dinner party at the Chief Justice's, and admiring the 'gambroon,' which turned out to be the material of the cassock, so much as to wish for a coat made of it for the islands. Apropos of the hat:- 'You know my forehead is square, so that an oval hat does not fit; it would hang on by the temples, which form a kind of right angle with the forehead.'
Another letter of that 26th was from the Bishop of Wellington to Dr. Goodford respecting this much-loved old pupil:-
'Anything more conscientious and painstaking cannot be conceived than the way he has steadily directed every talent, every hour or minute of his life, to the one work he had set before him. However small or uncongenial or drumdrudgery-like his occupation, however hard, or dangerous, or difficult, it seemed to be always met in the same calm, gentle, self-possessed spirit of love and duty, which I should fancy that those who well knew his good and large-minded, large-hearted father, and his mother, whom I have always heard spoken of as saintly, could best understand. Perhaps the most marked feature in his character is his genuine simplicity and humility. I never saw it equalled in one so gifted and so honoured and beloved.
'It is really creditable to the community to see how universal is the admiration for his character, for he is so very good, so exceedingly unworldly, and therefore such a living rebuke to the selfishness of the world; and though so gentle, yet so firm and uncompromising that you would have supposed he would hardly be popular outside the circle of friends who know him and understand him. Certainly he is the most perfect character I ever met.'
The last day of February was that of the Installation.
Again Mrs. Abraham must speak:-
'On Thursday last we had another happy day at Kohimarama, where Bishop Patteson was duly installed in the temporary chapel of St. Andrew's College, as we hope to call it, after the church at Cocksmoor, in 'The Daisy Chain.' The morning was grey, and we feared rain would keep us ladies away, hut we made the venture with our willing squire, Mr. M--, in the 'Iris' boat to help us. The pity was, that after all Lady Martin could not go, as she had an invalid among her Maori flock, whom she could not trust all day by herself. The day lightened, and our sail was pleasant.
'The Primate and Missionary Bishop planted a Norfolk pine in the centre of the quadrangle-'the tree planted by the water side,' The Bishop then robed and proceeded to chapel, and the Primate led the little service in which he spoke the words of installation, and the mew Bishop took the oath of allegiance to him. The Veni Creator was sung, and the Primate's blessing-given. The island boys looked on from one transept, the 'Iris' sailors from another, and Charlie stood beside me. I am afraid his chief remembrance of the day is fixed upon Kanambat's tiny boat and outrigger, which he sat in on the beach, and went on voyages, in which the owner waded by his side, and saw him (Kanambat) skim along the waves like a white butterfly. We all dined in hall, after the boys, on roast beef and plum pudding, melons and water melons, and strolled about the place and beach at leisure, till it was time to sail back again.'
On the Sunday the new Bishop preached at St. Mary's one of the sermons that broke from him when he was too much excited (if the word may be used) for his usual metaphysical style. The subject was the promise of the Comforter, His eternal presence and anointing, and the need of intercessory prayer, for which the preacher besought earnestly, as one too young for his office, and needing to increase in the Holy Spirit more and more. Very far were these from being unrealised words. God's grace had gone along with him, and had led him through every step and stage of his life, and so mastered his natural defects, that friends who only knew him in these years hear with incredulous indignation of those flaws he had conquered in his younger days. 'Fearless as a man, tender as a woman, showing both the best sides of human nature,' says one of the New Zealand friends who knew him best; 'always drawing out the good in all about him by force of sympathy, and not only taking care that nothing should be done by others that he would not do himself, but doing himself what he did not like to ask of them, and thinking that they excelled him.' Humility, the effort of his life, was achieved at last the more truly because not consciously.
The letter to his father was again almost wholly on money matters; but at the end come two notable sentences:-
'How can I thank you for giving me up to this work, and for all the wise and loving words with which you constantly cheer me and encourage me? Your blessing comes now to strengthen me, as work and responsibilities are fast accumulating upon me. I thank God that He enables us at the two ends of the world to see this matter in the same way, so that no conflict of duties arises in my mind.
'This book, 'Essays and Reviews,' I have, but pray send your copy also; also any good books that may be produced bearing on that great question of the Atonement, and on Inspiration, Authority of Scripture, How sad it is to see that spirit of intellectualism thinking to deal with religion in forgetfulness of the necessary conditions of humility and faith! How different from the true gnosis!'
'Kohimarama: April 29, 1861.
'My dearest Father,-As I read your letters of Feb. 21-25, you are, I trust, reading mine which tell you of what took place on Feb. 24. That point is settled. I almost fear to write that I am a Bishop in the Church of Christ. May God strengthen me for the duties of the office to which I trust He has indeed called me!
'As I read of what you say so wisely and truly, and dear Joan and Fan and Aunt James and all, of my having expected results too rapidly at Mota, I had sitting with me that dear boy Tagalana, who for two months last winter was in the great sacred enclosure, though, dear lad, not by his own will, yet his faith was weak, and no wonder.
'Now, God's holy name be praised for it, he is, I verily believe, in his very soul, taught by the Spirit to see and desire to do his duty. I feel more confidence about him than I have done about anyone who has come into my hands originally in a state of complete heathenism. It is not that his knowledge only is accurate and clearly grasped, but the humility, the loving spirit, the (apparent) personal appropriation of the blessing of having been brought to know the love of God and the redemption wrought for him by the death of Christ; this is what, as I look upon his clear truthful eyes, makes me feel so full of thankfulness and praise.
''But Tagalana, if I should die, you used to say that without my help you should perhaps fall back again: is that true?'
''No, no; I did not feel it then as I do now in my heart. I can't tell how it came there, only I know He can never die, and will always be with me. You know you said you were only like a sign-post, to point out the way that leads to Him, and I see that we ought to follow you, but to go altogether to Him.'
'I can't tell you, my dearest Father, what makes up the sum of my reasons for thinking that God is in His mercy bringing this dear boy to be the first-fruits of Mota unto the Christ, but I think that there is an inward teaching going on now in his heart, which gives me sure hope, for I know it is not my doing.
'All you all say about Mota is most true: I never thought otherwise really, but I wrote down my emotions and impulses rather than my deliberate thoughts, that my letter written under such strange circumstances might become as a record of the effect produced day by day upon us by outward circumstances.
'What some of you say about self-possession on one's going about among the people being marvellous, is just
