A ‘supplementary mail’ made possible a birthday letter (the last) written at 6 A.M. on the 11th of February:  ’I wanted of course to write to you to-day.  Many happy returns of it I wish you indeed, for it may yet please God to prolong your life; but in any case you know well how I am thinking and praying for you that every blessing and comfort may be given you.  Oh I how I do think of you night and day.  When Mrs. Selwyn said “Good-bye,” and spoke of you, I could not stand it.  I feel that anything else (as I fancy) I can speak of with composure; but the verses in the Bible, such as the passage which I read yesterday in St. Mark x., almost unnerve me, and I can’t wish it to be otherwise.  But I feel that my place is here, and that I must look to the blessed hope of meeting again hereafter....

’Of course no treat is so great to me as the occasional talks with the Bishop.  Oh! the memory of those days and evenings on board the “Southern Cross.”  Well, it was so happy a life that it was not good for me, I suppose, that it should last.  But I feel it now that the sense of responsibility is deepening on me, and I must go out to work without him; and very, very anxious I am sometimes, and almost oppressed by it.

’But strength will come; and it is not one’s own work, which is the comfort, and if I fail (which is very likely) God will place some other man in my position, and the work will go on, whether in my hands or not, and that is the real point.

’Some talk I find there has been about my going home.  I did not hear of it until after Mrs. Selwyn had sailed.  It was thought of, but it was felt, as I certainly feel, that it ought not to be....  My work lies out here clearly; and it is true that any intermission of voyages or residences in the islands is to be avoided.’

Mrs. Selwyn had gone home for a year, and had so arranged as to see the Patteson family almost immediately on her return.  Meantime the day drew on.  The Consecration was not by Royal mandate, as in the case of Bishops of sees under British jurisdiction; but the Duke of Newcastle, then Colonial Secretary, wrote:—­’That the Bishops of New Zealand are at liberty, without invasion of the Royal prerogative or infringement of the law of England, to exercise what Bishop Selwyn describes as their inherent power of consecrating Mr. Patteson or any other person to take charge of the Melanesian Islands, provided that the consecration should take place beyond British territory.’

In consequence it was proposed that the three consecrating Bishops should take ship and perform the holy rite in one of the isles beneath the open sky; but as Bishop Mackenzie had been legally consecrated in Cape Town Cathedral, the Attorney-General of New Zealand gave it as his opinion that there was no reason that the consecration should not take place in Auckland.

’Kohimarama:  Feb. 15, 1861.

’My dearest Father,—­Mr. Kerr, who has just returned from Auckland, where he spent yesterday, brings me the news that the question of the Consecration has been settled, and that it will take place (D.V.) on Sunday week, St. Matthias Day, February 24.