Distinct missionary labour was scarcely possible to a man overtasked like Bishop Middleton. The district that kept St. Paul in continual "journeyings often" would have been but a quarter of that which depended on him for "the care of all the churches," and the long journeys by sea and land were by far the least harassing part of his life; for he had to fight the battles, sometimes of his Church, sometimes of the whole Christian cause, with unfair and prejudiced officials, and a malignant newspaper press, by which the bitterest attacks were circulated against him and his doings. And, "besides those things that were without," there were the troubles of dealing with men used to do "that which was right in their own eyes," and determined to oppose or neglect one whose powers could only thoroughly be defined by actual practice. To go into these conflicts would be wearisome and vain. They have lost their interest now; but it must be remembered that it is by manfully and firmly enduring vexations such as these, that systems are established which form the framework and foundation of more visible labours, which gain more praise for those who are allowed to carry them out. The constant wearing effort, the daily vexation, the inability to gain support, the binding of his hands from free action by the machinery of State regulations only applicable to home ecclesiastics, the continual making beginnings that never were allowed to progress--or, as he himself called it, the continual rolling of the stone of Sisyphus--could not but exhaust his powers, above all in such a climate; and that same sickly summer of 1822 which proved fatal to Felix Carey was his last. In July, one of his clergy, on whom he had been obliged to pass censure, instituted proceedings against him in the Supreme Court--a most improper and disloyal act, which much grieved and agitated him. He had to spend eight hours in writing in preparation for this painful matter, and afterwards went out in the carriage with his wife, but too early in the evening, for the slanting rays of the sun, not yet down, fell full on him, and their force is always especially dreaded at that damp and sickly season. He immediately said that the sun had struck him, and returned home; a most distressing fever, chiefly on the nerves, and accompanied by grievous restlessness and afterwards delirium, set in, and he died on the 8th of July, 1822, in his fifty-fourth year, absolutely worn out by toil and worry. But his career had established both the needfulness and the position of a Bishop, and his successor was appointed without the same opposition, still to a path perhaps only less thorny because briefer.