’One of all others I delight to think of for the music’s sake, and far more for the glorious thought that it conveys.  “Then shall the righteous,” not indeed that I dare apply it to myself (as you know), but it helps one on, teaches what we may be, what our two dear parents are, and somehow the intervening, space becomes smaller as the eye is fixed steadily on the glory beyond.

’God bless you, my dear fellow.

’Ever your affectionate

‘J.  C. P.’

The Mission party intended to sail immediately after Christmas in the ‘Southern Cross,’ the schooner which was being built at Blackwall for voyages among the Melanesian isles.  In expectation of this, Patteson went up to London in the beginning of December, when the admirable crayon likeness was taken by Mr. Richmond, an engraving from which is here given.  He then took his last leave of his uncle, and of the cousins who had been so dear to him ever since the old days of daily meeting in childhood; and Miss Neill, then a permanent invalid, notes down:  ’On December 13, I had the happiness of receiving the Holy Communion from dear Coley Patteson, and the following morning I parted from him, as I fear, for ever.  God bless and prosper him, and guard him in all the dangers he will encounter!’ He wrote thus soon after his return:—­

’Feniton:  December 22, 1854.

’My dear Miss Neill,—­I began a note to you a day or two ago, but I could not go on with it, for I have had so very much to do in church and out of it, parochializing, writing sermons, &c.  It makes some little difference in point of time whether I am living here or at Alfington, and so the walking about from one house to another is not so convenient for writing letters as for thinking over sermons.

’I need not tell you what a real happiness and comfort it is to me to have been with you again and to have talked so long with you, and most of all to have received the Communion with you.  It is a blessed thought that no interval of space or time can interrupt that Communion of the Spirit, and that we are one in Him, though working in different corners of the Lord’s field.

’I want to look you out a little book or two; and Fanny has told you that if ever my picture is photographed, I have particularly desired them to send you a copy with my love.  Your cross I have now round my neck, and I shall always wear it; it will hang there with a locket containing locks of hair of my dear Father and Mother, the girls, and Jem.

’You will be glad to hear that they all seem cheerful and hearty.  Fan is not well, but I do not see that she is depressed or unhappy.  In fact, the terrible events of the war prove a lesson to all, and they feel, I suppose, that it might be far worse, and that so long as I am doing my duty, there is no cause for sorrow.