me, in which he maintained his interest.

During the summer months also, spent near Auckland, Patteson suffered
from the want of privacy. At Kohimarana, a small bay facing the entrance
to the harbour, to which the school was moved in 1859, he had a tiny
room of his own, ten feet square; but the door stood open all day long
in fine weather, and he was seldom alone. And when there was sickness
among the boys, his own bedroom was sure to be given up to an invalid.
But these demands upon his time and comfort he never grudged, while he
talks with vexation, and even with asperity, of the people from the town
who came out to pay calls and to satisfy their curiosity with a sight of
his school. His real friends were few and were partners in his work. The
two chief among them were unquestionably Bishop Selwyn, too rarely seen
owing to the many claims upon him, and Sir Richard Martin, who had been
Chief Justice of the Colony. The latter shared Patteson's taste for
philology, and had a wide knowledge of Melanesian dialects.

By the middle of 1860, when Patteson had been five years at work, he
became aware that the question of his consecration could not be long
delayed. New Zealand was taxing the Primate's strength and he wished to
constitute Melanesia a separate diocese. He believed that in Patteson,
with his single-minded zeal and special gifts, he had found the ideal
man for the post, and in February 1861 the consecration took place. The
three bishops who laid hands upon him were, like the Bishop-elect,
Etonians;[39] and thus Eton has played a very special part in founding
the Melanesian Church. What Patteson thought and felt on this solemn
occasion may be seen from the letters which he wrote to his father. The
old judge, still living with his daughters at Feniton, had been stricken
with a fatal disease, and in the last months of his life he rejoiced to
know that his son was counted worthy of his high calling. He died in
June 1861 and the news reached his son when cruising at sea a few months
later. They had kept up a close correspondence all these years, which he
now continued with his sisters; nothing shows better his simple
affectionate nature. They are filled mostly with details of his mission
life. It was this of which his sisters wanted to hear, and it was this
which filled almost entirely his thoughts: though he loved his family
and his home, he had put aside all idea of a voyage to England as
incompatible with the call to