’To-morrow, if I live, I enter upon my thirty-second year—­a solemn warning I have received to-day, as another year is passing from me.  May some portion of his spirit rest on me to bless my poor attempt to do what he did so devotedly for more than forty years:  his duty as a soldier and servant of his Lord and Master, into whose joy he has no doubt now entered.

“Easter Day.—­What an Easter for him! and doubtless we all who will by and by, as the world rolls round, receive the Holy Eucharist shall be in some way united to him as well as to all departed saints—­ members of His Mystical Body.

’April 12.—­Bishop came out yesterday afternoon from Auckland.  After baptisms at 5, and evening service at 7, sat till past 11 settling plans:  thus, God willing, start this day fortnight to return the boys—­this will occupy about two months; as we come back from the far north, he will drop one at Lifu, one of the Loyalty Islands, with large population; he will go on to New Zealand, stay perhaps six weeks in New Zealand, or it may be two months; so that with the time occupied by his voyage from Lifu to New Zealand, 1,000 miles and back, he will be away from Lifu about two and a half or three months.  Then, picking me up (say about September 12), we go on at once to the whole number of our islands, spending three months or so among them, getting back to New Zealand about the end of November.  So that I shall be in Melanesia, D.V., from the beginning of May to the end of November.  I shall be able to write once more before we start—­ letters which you will get by the June mail from Sydney—­and of course I shall send letters by the Bishop when he leaves me at Lifu.  But I shall not be able to hear again from England till the Bishop comes to pick me up in September.  Never mind.  I shall have plenty to do; and I can think of those dear ones at home, and of you all, in God’s keeping, with perfect comfort.  The Lifu people are in a more critical state than any others just now, otherwise I should probably stop at San Cristoval.  A few years ago they were very wild—­ cannibals of course; but they are now building chapels, and thirsting for the living waters.  What a privilege and responsibility to go to them as Christ’s minister, to a people longing for the glad tidings of the Gospel of Peace.  Samoan teachers have been for a good many years among them.

’I cannot write now to dearest Aunty or Pena.

’May God bless you and abundantly comfort you....  I think I see his dear face.  I see him always.

’Your loving cousin,

‘J.  C. Patteson.’

Cho’s wife had arrived in a cart at the College when her baby was a day old, so rapid is recovery with mothers in those climates.  ’I saw the baby,’ observes the journal, quite strong, not dark,—­but I don’t care for them till they can talk; on the contrary, I think them a great bore, especially in wooden houses, where a child with good lungs may easily succeed in keeping all the inhabitants awake.’