’Your loving Father,

‘J.  Patteson.’

’Feniton Court:  May 25, 1861.

’O my own dearest Coley,—­Almighty God be thanked that He has preserved my life to hear from you and others of your actual consecration as a Missionary Bishop of the Holy Catholic Church:  and may He enable you by His grace and the powerful assistance of His Spirit to bring to His faith and fear very many who have not known Him, and to keep and preserve in it many others who already profess and call themselves Christians.

’I was too ill to be present at the whole service on Sunday, but I attended the Holy Sacrament, and hope to do so to-morrow.  We have with us our dear Sarah Selwyn, who came on Thursday:  she came in the most kind and affectionate spirit, the first visit that she could make, that she might if possible see me:  “I will go and see him before he dies.”  What delight this has been to me you may easily imagine, and what talk, and what anecdotes we have had about you and all your circle; for though your letters have all along let us in wonderfully into your daily life, yet there were many things to be filled up, which we have now seen more clearly and more perfectly recollect as long as our lives are spared.

’What at present intensely fills our hearts and minds is all that took place on St. Matthias Day, and the day or two before and after.  Passages and circumstances there were, which it is almost wonderful that you all could respectively bear, some affecting one the more and some the other; but the absorbing feeling that a great work was then done, and the ardent trust and prayer that it might turn out to the glory of God, and the good of mankind, supported every one, I have no doubt.  It was about one of those days that I was first informed of the nature of the complaint which had just been discovered, and which is bringing me gradually to the grave.

’Trinity Sunday.—­I am just returned from receiving the Holy Sacrament.  You will do so the same in a few hours, and they may well be joined together, and probably the last that you and I shall receive together in this world.  My time is probably very short.  Dear Sarah will hereafter tell you more particulars of these few days.  Dear Joan and Fanny are watching me continually; it is hard work for them continually and most uncertain, but in my mind it cannot be very long.  Jem is here helping them continually, but his wife’s mother is grievously ill at a relation’s in Gloucestershire, and I will not have him withdrawn from her.  I hope that next week she may be removed to Jem’s new cottage, next Hyde Park, and then they, Joan and Fanny will watch me, and Jem on a telegraph notice may come to me.  If I dare express a hope, it is that this state of things may not last long.  But I have no desire to express any hope at all; the matter is in the hands of a good God, who will order all things as is best....  I would write more, but I am under the serious impression that I shall be dead before this letter reaches you.