'When my mind is made up, it is not so difficult then. But, humanly speaking, there are but few islands now where I realise the fact of there being any risk; at very many I land with confidence. Yet I could enumerate, I dare say, five-and-twenty which we have not visited at all, or not regularly; and where I must be careful, as also in visiting different parts of islands already known to us in part. Poor poor people, who can see them and not desire to make known to them the words of life? I may never forget the Bishop's words in the Consecration Service:--"Your office is in the highest sense to preach the Gospel to the poor;" and then his eye glanced over the row of Melanesians sitting near me. 'How strange that I can write all this, when one heavy sense of trouble is hanging vaguely over me. And yet you will be thankful that I can think, as I trust, heartily of my work, and that my interest is in no way lessened. It ought to be increased. Yet I scarce realise the fact of being a Bishop, though again it does not seem unnatural. I can't explain what I mean. I suppose the fact that I knew for so long before that it must come some day if I lived, makes the difference now. 'I don't think, however, that your words will come true of my appearing in shovel hat, &c., at Heath's Court some fine day. It is very improbable that I shall ever see the northern hemisphere, unless I see it in the longitude of New Guinea. 'I must try to send a few island shells to M----, B----, and Co.; those little ones must not grow up, and I am sure that you all do not suffer them to grow up, without knowing something about "old cousin Coley" tumbling about in a little ship (albeit at present in a war steamer) at the other end of the world. Seriously, dear Uncle, as they grow older, it may be some help for them to hear of these poor Melanesians, and of our personal intercourse with them, so to speak. 'I have but little hope of hearing, if I return safe to New Zealand at the end of November, that this disastrous war is over. I fear that the original error has been overlaid by more recent events, forgotten amongst them. The Maori must suffer, the country must suffer. Confession of a fault in an individual is wrong in a State; indeed, the rights of the case are, and perhaps must be, unknown to people at a distance. We have no difficulty here in exposing the fallacies and duplicities of the authors of the war, but we can't expect (and I see that it must be so) people in England to understand the many details. To begin with, a man must know, and that well, Maori customs, their national feeling, &c. It is all known to One above, and that is our only hope now. May He grant us peace and wisdom for the time to come!