was fully made up to cast in his lot with the Mission.
It was on August 15 that the first disaster at these islands took place. Not till the 27th could the Bishop-on his sister Fanny's birthday-begin a letter to her, cheering himself most touchingly with the thought of the peace at home, and then he broke off half way, and could not continue for some days:-
'My dearest Fan,-You remember the old happy anniversaries of your birthday-the Feniton party-the assembly of relations-the regular year's festivity.
'No doubt this anniversary brings as much true happiness, the assurance of a more abiding joy, the consciousness of deeper and truer sympathy. You are, I hope, to pass the day cheerfully and brightly with perhaps -- and -- about you.... Anyhow, I shall think of you as possibly all together, the remnant of the old family gathering, on a calm autumn day, with lovely South Devon scenery around you.
'The day comes to me in the midst of one of the deepest sorrows I have ever known-perhaps I have never felt such sorrow...perhaps I have never been so mercifully supported under it. It is a good and profitable sorrow I trust for me: it has made so much in me reveal itself as hollow, worldly, selfish, vainglorious. It has, I hope, helped to strip away the veil, and may be by God's blessing the beginning of more earnest life-long repentance and preparation for death.
'On August 15 I was at Santa Cruz. You know that I had a very remarkable day there three years ago. I felt very anxious to renew acquaintance with the people, who are very numerous and strong.
'I went off in the boat with Atkin (twenty), Pearce (twenty-three or twenty-four years old), Edwin Nobbs, Fisher Young, and Hunt Christian, the last three Norfolk Islanders. Atkin, Edwin and Fisher have been with me for two or three years-all young fellows of great promise, Fisher perhaps the dearest of all to me, about eighteen, and oh! so good, so thoroughly truthful, conscientious, and unselfish!
'I landed at two places among many people, and after a while came back as usual to the boat. All seemed pleasant and hopeful. At the third place I landed amidst a great crowd, waded over the broad reef (partially uncovered at low water), went into a house, sat down for some time, then returned among a great crowd to the boat and got into it. I had some difficulty in detaching the hands of some men swimming in the water.
'Well, when the boat was about fifteen yards from the reef, on which crowds were standing, they began (why I know not) to shoot at us.- (Another letter adds) 300 or 400 people on the reef, and five or six canoes being round us, they began to shoot at us.-I had not shipped the rudder, so I held it up, hoping it might shield off any arrows that came straight, the boat being end on, and the stern, having been backed into the reef, was nearest to them.
'When I looked round after a minute, providentially indeed, for the boat was being pulled right into a small bay on the reef, and would have grounded, I saw Pearce lying between the thwarts, with the long shaft of an arrow in his chest, Edwin Nobbs with an arrow as it seemed in his left eye, many arrows flying close to us from many quarters. Suddenly Fisher Young, pulling the stroke oar, gave a faint scream; he was shot through the left wrist. Not a word was spoken, only my 'Pull! port oars, pull on steadily.' Once dear Edwin, with the fragment of the arrow sticking in his cheek, and the blood streaming down, called out, thinking even then more of me than of himself, 'Look out, sir! close to you!' But indeed, on all sides they were close to us!
'How we any of us escaped I can't tell; Fisher and Edward pulled on, Atkin had taken Pearce's oar, Hunt pulled the fourth oar. By God's mercy no one else was hit, but the canoes chased us to the schooner. In about twenty minutes we were on board, the people in the canoes round the vessel seeing the wounded paddled off as hard as they could, expecting of course that we should take vengeance on them. But I don't at all think that they were cognisant of the attack on shore.'
Several letters were written about this adventure; but I have thought it better to put them together, every word being Bishop Patteson's own, because such a scene is better realised thus than by reading several descriptions for the most part identical. What a scene it is! The palm-clad island, the reef and sea full of the blacks, the storm of long arrows through the air, the four youths pulling bravely and steadily, and their Bishop standing over them, trying to ward off the blows with the rudder, and gazing with the deep eyes and steadfast smile that had caused many a weapon to fall harmless!
Pearce, it should be observed, was a volunteer for the Mission then on a trial-trip.
There was an even more trying time to come on board. The Bishop continues:-
'I drew out the arrow from Pearce's chest: a slanting wound not going in very deep, running under the skin, yet of apparently almost fatal character to an ignorant person like myself; Five inches were actually inside him. The arrow struck him almost in the centre of the chest and in the direction of the right breast. There was no effusion of blood, he breathed with great difficulty, groaning and making a kind of hollow sound, was perfectly composed, gave me directions and messages in case of his death. I put on a poultice and bandage, and leaving him in charge of some one, went to Fisher. The wrist was shot through, but the upper part of the arrow broken off and deep down; bleeding profuse, of which I was glad; I cut deeply, though fearing much to cut an artery, but I could not extract the wooden arrow-head. At length getting a firm hold of the projecting point of the arrow on the lower side of his wrist, I pulled it through: it came out clean. The pain was very great, he trembled and shivered: we gave him brandy, and he recovered. I poulticed the wound and went to Edwin. Atkin had got out the splinter from his wound; the arrow went in near the eye and came out by the cheek-bone: it was well syringed, and the flow of blood had been copious from the first. The arrows were not bone-headed, and not poisoned, but I well knew that lock-jaw was to be dreaded. Edwin's was not much more than a flesh wound. Fisher's being in the wrist, frightened me more: their patience and quiet composure and calm resignation were indeed a strength and comfort to us all.
'This was on Monday, August 15. All seemed doing well for a day or two, I kept on poultices, gave light nourishing food, But on Saturday morning Fisher said to me, 'I can't make out what makes my jaws feel so stiff.'
'Then my heart sank down within me, and I prayed earnestly, earnestly to God. I talked to the dear dear lad of his danger, night and day we prayed and read. A dear guileless spirit indeed. I never saw in so young a person such a thorough conscientiousness as for two years I witnessed in his daily life, and I had long not only loved but respected him.
'We had calm weather and could not get on. By Saturday the jaws were tight-locked. Then more intense grew the pain, the agony, the whole body rigid like a bar of iron! Oh! how I blessed God who carried me through that day and night. How good he was in his very agonies, in his fearful spasms, thanking God, praying, pressing my hand when I prayed and comforted him with holy words of Scripture. None but a well-disciplined, humble, simple Christian could so have borne his sufferings: the habit of obedience and faith and patience; the childlike unhesitating trust in God's love and fatherly care, supported him now. He never for a moment lost his hold upon God. What a lesson it was! it calmed us all. It almost awed me to see in so young a lad so great an instance of God's infinite power, so great a work of good perfected in one young enough to have been confirmed by me.
'At 1 A.M. (Monday) I moved from his side to my couch, only three yards off. Of course we were all (I need not say) in the after cabin. He said faintly, 'Kiss me. I am very glad that I was doing my duty. Tell my father that I was in the path of duty, and he will be so glad. Poor Santa Cruz people! 'Ah! my dear boy, you will do more for their conversion by your death than ever we shall by our lives. And as I lay down almost convulsed with sobs, though not audible, he said (so Mr. Tilly afterwards told me), 'Poor Bishop!' How full his heart was of love and peace, and thoughts of heaven. 'Oh! what love,' he said. The last night when I left him for an hour or two at 1 A.M. only to lie down in my clothes by his side, he said faintly (his body being then rigid as a bar of iron), 'Kiss me, Bishop.' At 4 A.M. he started as if from a trance; he had been wandering a good deal, but all his words even then were of things pure and holy. His eyes met mine, and I saw the consciousness gradually coming back into them. 'They never stop singing there, sir, do they?'-for his thoughts were with the angels in heaven. Then, after a short time, the last terrible struggle, and then he fell asleep. And remember, all this in the midst of that most agonizing, it may be, of all forms of death. At 4 A.M. he was hardly conscious, not fully conscious: there were same fearful spasms: we fanned him and bathed his head and occasionally got a drop or two of weak brandy or wine and water down. Then came the last struggle. Oh! how I thanked God when his head at length fell back, or rather his whole body, for it was without joint, on my arm: long drawn sighs with still sadder contraction of feature succeeded, and while I said the Commendatory Prayer, he passed away.
'The same day we anchored in Port Patteson, and buried him in a quiet spot near the place where the Primate and I first landed years ago. It seems a consecration of the place that the body of that dear child should be resting there.
'Some six years ago, when Mrs. Selwyn stopped at Norfolk Island she singled him out as the boy of special
