answered naively, "Oh, it means old fellow." He brought his fresh,
happy, kindly feelings towards English lads and young men into
constant play among Melanesians, and so they loved and trusted him.'

I think that exclusiveness of interest which Lady Martin describes,
and which his own family felt, and which is apt to grow upon
missionaries, as indeed on every one who is very earnestly engaged in
any work, diminished as he became more familiar with his work, and
had a mind more at liberty for thought.

Mr. Dudley thus describes the same period:--'It was during the
summers of 1857-8 and 1858-9 that the Loyalty Islanders mustered in
such numbers at St. John's College, as it was supposed that they, at
least Lifu would be left in the hands of the Church of England. Mr.
Patteson worked very hard these years at translations, and there was
an immense enthusiasm about printing, the Lifuites and Nengonese
striving each to get the most in their own language.

'Never shall I forget the evening service during those years held in
the College chapel, consisting of one or two prayers in Bauro, Gera,
and other languages, and the rest in Nengonese, occasionally changing
to Lifu, when Mr. Patteson used to expound the passage of Scripture
that had been translated in school during the day. Usually the
Loyalty Islanders would take notes of the sermon while it went on,
but now and then it was simply impossible, for although his knowledge
of Nengonese at that time, as compared with what it was afterwards,
was very limited, and his vocabulary a small one from which to choose
his expressions, he would sometimes speak with such intense
earnestness and show himself so thoroughly en rapport with the most
intelligent of his hearers, that they were compelled to drop their