And he did not.  He was so frank, so ready to see his own faults, that he was always a favourite.  Uncle Frank remarked of him at this same time:  “He wins one’s heart in a moment”.

Perhaps one ought to call him a Queen’s missionary, for her Majesty saved him from a serious accident in a rather remarkable manner.

In 1838 when the Queen was driving in her carriage the crowd was so dense that Patteson, then at school at Eton, became entangled in the wheel of the carriage and would have been thrown underneath and run over had it not been for the young Queen’s quick perception.  Seeing the danger she gave her hand to the boy, who readily seized it, and was thus able to get on his feet again and avoid the threatened peril.

He was a boy who, when he had done wrong, always blamed himself—­not any one else.  Thus, when he was twelve, having spent a good deal of his time one term at Eton enjoying cricket and boating, he found his tutor was not at all satisfied with his progress.  “I am ashamed to say,” he remarked in writing home, “that I can offer not the slightest excuse:  my conduct on this occasion has been very bad.  I expect a severe reproof from you, and pray do not send me any money.  But from this time I am determined I will not lose a moment.”

In 1841 came the first indication of what his future career might be.

Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand was preaching, and the boy says of the sermon:  “It was beautiful when he talked of his going out to found a church, and then to die neglected and forgotten”.

How deep had been the influence on his mind of his mother’s example may be gathered from the letter he wrote at the time of her death in 1842, when he was fifteen years old:  “It is a very dreadful loss for us all, but we have been taught by that dear mother who has now been taken from us that it is not fit to grieve for those who die in the Lord, ’for they rest from their labours’....  She said once, ’I wonder I wish to leave you, my dearest John, and the children and this sweet place, but yet I do wish it’; so lovely was her faith.”

In 1854 Bishop Selwyn returned to England.  During the time that had elapsed since his previous visit, Patteson had been ordained.  The bishop stayed with his father a few days, and during that time the feelings which the boy of fourteen had experienced were revived in the man of twenty-seven; and with his father’s consent John Coleridge Patteson entered upon his life work, sailing with Bishop Selwyn for the South Seas in March, 1855.

There he laboured with such energy and success that in 1861 he was consecrated bishop.  Many thousands of miles were traversed by him in the mission ship The Southern Cross, visiting the numerous islands of the Pacific known as Polynesia or Melanesia.

Of the dangers that abounded he knew ample to try his courage.  On arriving at Erromanga (the scene of Williams’ martyrdom) on one occasion he found that Mr. Gordon, the missionary, and his wife had recently both been treacherously slain by the natives.  At another island, as he returned to the boat, he saw one of the natives draw a bow with the apparent intention of shooting him, and then unbend it at the entreaty of his comrades.  “But,” remarks the bishop in recording this, “we must try to effect more frequent landings.”