people in the way of censure, which so often goes with tender and
refined natures, however strong; so that if his housekeeper needed a
reproof, he would make his sister administer it, and creep out of
reach himself; but this was one of the deficiencies with which he was
struggling all his life, and fortunately it is a fact that the most
effective lectures usually come from those to whom they cost the
most.

This was the hardest part of his ministry. Where kindness and
attention were needed, nothing could be more spontaneous, sweet, or
winning than his ways. One of his parishioners, a farmer's daughter,
writes:--

'Our personal knowledge of him began some months before his
Ordination, owing, I suppose, to Mr. Gardiner's severe illness; and
as he was very much respected, Mr. Patteson's attentions won from the
first our admiration and gratitude, which went on and on until it
deepened into that love which I do not think could have been
surpassed by the Galatians for their beloved St. Paul, which he
records in his Epistle to them (chap. iv. 15). All were waiting for
him at his Ordination, and a happy delusion seemed to have come over
the minds of most, if not all, that he was as completely ours as if
he had been ordained expressly for us.'

It was not his own feeling, for he knew that when his apprenticeship
should be past, the place was too small, and the work too easy, for a
man in full force and vigour, though for the sake of his father he
was glad to accept it for the present, to train himself in the work,
and to have full time for study; but he at that time looked to
remaining in England during his father's lifetime, and perhaps