’What you say about a Missionary Bishop being for five months of the year within the diocese of another Bishop, I will talk over with the Bishop of New Zealand.  I think our Synodical system will make that all right; and as for my work, it will be precisely the same in all respects, my external life altered only to the extent of my wearing a broader brimmed and lower crowned hat.  Dear Joan is investing moneys in cutaway coats, buckles without end, and no doubt knee-breeches and what she calls “gambroons” (whereof I have no cognizance), none of which will be worn more than (say) four or five times in the year.  Gambroons and aprons and lawn sleeves won’t go a-voyaging, depend upon it.  Just when I preach in some Auckland church I shall appear in full costume; but the buckles will grow very rusty indeed!

’How kind and good of her to take all the trouble, I don’t laugh at that, and at her dear love for me and anxiety that I should have everything; but I could not help having a joke about gambroons, whatever they are....

’Good-bye once more, my dearest Father.  You will, I trust, receive this budget about the time of your birthday.  How I think of you day and night, and how I thank you for all your love, and perhaps most of all, not only letting me come to Melanesia, but for your great love in never calling me away from my work even to see your face once more on earth.

’Your loving and dutiful son,

‘J.  C. Patteson.’

Remark upon a high-minded letter is generally an impertinence both to the writer and the reader, but I cannot help pausing upon the foregoing, to note the force of the expression that thanks the father for the love that did not recall the son.  What a different notion these two men had of love from that which merely seeks self-gratification!  Observe, too, how the old self-contemplative, self-tormenting spirit, that was unhappiness in those days of growth and heart-searching at the first entrance into the ministry, had passed into humble obedience and trust.  Looking back to the correspondence of ten years ago, volumes of progress are implied in the quiet ‘Enough of this.’

There were, however, some delays in bringing the three together, and on the New Year’s Day of 1861, the designate writes to Bishop Abraham:  ’I dare say the want of any positive certainty as to the time of the Consecration is a good discipline for me.  I think I feel calm now; but I know I must not trust feelings, and when I think of those islands and the practical difficulty of getting at them, and the need of so many of those qualities which are so wonderfully united in our dear Primate, I need strength from above indeed to keep my heart from sinking.  But I think that I do long and desire to work on by God’s grace, and not to look to results at all.’