’He has never missed a mail since we have been parted, never once; and he wrote as he always did both in March and April.  I had read a letter from the good Primate first; because I had to make up my mind whether I could, as I was desired, take a cruise in this vessel; and in his letter I heard of my dear Father’s state.  With what reverence I opened his letters!  With what short earnest prayers to God that I might have strength supplied and resignation I had kept them till the last.  All day at Mota I had been too busy to read any but the Primate’s letters.  I had many matters to arrange...and it was not until night that I could quietly read my letters in the captain’s cabin.  My dear Father’s words seem to come to me like a voice from another world.  I think from what he says, and what they all say, that already he has departed to be with Christ.

’I think of him and my dear mother, and those dear uncles James and Frank, so specially dear to me, and others gone before.  I think of all that he has been to me, and yet how can I be unhappy?  The great shock to me was long overpast:  it is easy for me to dwell on his gain rather than my loss; yet how I shall miss his wise loving letters and all the unrestrained delights of our correspondence.

’It is not with me as with those dear sisters, or with old Jem.  Theirs is the privilege of witnessing the beauty and holiness of his life to the end; and theirs the sorrow of learning to live without him.  Yet I feel that the greatest perhaps of all the pleasures of this life is gone.  How I did delight in writing to him and seeking his approval of what I was about!  How I read and re-read his letters, entering so entirely into my feelings, understanding me so well in my life, so strangely different from what it used to be.

’Well, it should make me feel more than ever that I have but one thing to live for—­the good, if so it may please God, of these Melanesian islands.

’I cannot say, for you will like to know my feelings, that I felt so overwhelmed with this news as not to be able to go about my usual business.  Yet the rest on board the vessel has been very grateful to me.  The quiet cheerfulness and briskness will all come again, as I think; and yet I think too that I shall be an older and more thoughtful man by reason of this.

’There has been reported a row at Ysabel Island, one of the Solomon group, eighteen months ago.  This vessel, a screw steamer, ten guns and a large pivot gun, came to enquire, with orders from the Commodore of the station to call at Mota and see me, and request me to go with the vessel if I could find time to do so; adding that the vessel was to take me to any island which I might wish to be returned to.  Now I have long wished to indoctrinate captains of men-of-war with our notions of the right way to settle disputes between natives and traders.  Secondly, I had a passage free with my Solomon Islanders, and consequently