All was animation and cheerfulness, and even those who had come four and five days' distance seemed to forget their fatigue in the general excitement." While the mission was thus spreading through the island in cheering fashion, the older stations at the Bay were privileged to receive an episcopal visit. The able and devoted Dr. Broughton had lately (1836) been appointed Bishop of Australia, and had been requested by the C.M.S. to extend his pastoral care, as far as possible, to the islands of New Zealand. The mention of such a visit calls up imaginative pictures of its probable course. Would there not have been intense expectation and busy preparations beforehand? The Maoris would doubtless welcome their august visitor with characteristic heartiness, and would come forward in hundreds, if not in thousands, to receive the gift of Confirmation at his hands. His journeys from one station to another would be like a triumphal progress; there would have been feastings, gifts, and rejoicings everywhere. The actual facts were just the reverse. No one knew beforehand of his lordship's intention. He arrived unexpectedly on Dec. 21, 1838, and at a time when any sort of public welcome was well-nigh impossible. A violent epidemic of influenza had just spread through the settlements, and hardly a person was unaffected. Everyone was ill and weak. It was not without a certain appropriateness that the first distinctively episcopal acts performed upon our soil were those of the consecration of burial-grounds at Paihia and at Kororareka. The bishop went inland to Waimate, but the missionary in charge (R. Davis) could hardly, for weakness, show his visitor round the village. To judge by his journals, his thoughts were more taken up with his dying Maoris than with the living prelate. At the confirmation held when the bishop returned to Paihia (Jan. 5), only 44 Maoris were able to be presented, besides 20 white people--mostly missionaries' children. At the Hauraki station the bishop found a mere handful able to receive the laying-on of hands. Owing to the shortness of his visit and to the difficulty of communication, he was unable to visit more than these three stations; and he had left for Norfolk Island before many of the missionaries knew of his arrival. It must not be supposed, however, that this visit was in vain. The leaders of the mission had long felt their isolation from the rest of the world, and the new difficulties which the growth of a European population in the Bay was beginning to bring forth. They received much encouragement from the good bishop's counsel, and were placed in a better position for dealing with the white men. The sick were cheered by his sympathetic ministrations, and all classes united in expressing the farewell hope that he would not forget them but would soon visit them again.