'I am glad I have read the accounts which Bishop Mackenzie's sister sent me. I know more about it now. Work and anxiety and necessity for action all came upon them so rapidly, that there was but little time for forming deliberate plans. I can well realise the finding oneself surrounded with a hundred poor creatures, diseased and hungered, the multitude of questions how to feed, lodge, and clothe them. How far it is right to sanction their mode of life, &c. One thing I am glad to notice, that the Bishop abstained from all attempts to convey religious instruction, because he was not sufficiently acquainted with the language to know what ideas he might or might not be suggesting. That was wise, and yet how unlike many hot-headed men, who rush with unintentional irreverence into very dangerous experiments.
'I confess, as you know, that there seems to me far too cumbrous and expensive and talkative a method employed in England, for raising supplies for that Mission and Columbia, Honolulu, &c. I never think of all that fuss of the four Universities, and all the meetings and speeches, without some shame. But united action will come in the train of real synodical action; and if I understand aright, the last Convocation of Canterbury accepted all that we are trying for, taking the right view in the question of Provinces, Metropolitans, position of Colonial Churches, joint action of the Church at large, &c. Extension of Episcopate in England. Oh, thanks be to God for it all. What a work for this branch of the Catholic Church! How can people sit quiet, not give their all!
'I like very much Vaughan's work on the Epistle to the Romans. That is the book to teach young students how to read their Greek Testament. Accurate scholarship, no private notions imported into the Greek text. I should like to hear Mr. Keble speak about the law underlying the superstitions of heathenism, the way to deal with the perversions of truth, &c. Somehow I get to marvel at and love that first book of Hooker more and more. It is wonderful. It goes to the bottom of the matter; and then at times it gives one to see something of the Divine wisdom of the Bible as one never saw it before.
'But I fear that I seek too much after a knowledge and understanding of principles of action which are attainable by a scholar and man of real reasoning power, but which I am not able to make of practical use, having neither the brains nor the goodness. This is what I really mean.
'May 20th.—Any really good book on the New Testament, especially dealing critically with the Greek text, I certainly wish to have. I feel that the great neglect of us clergy is the neglect of the continual study most critically and closely of the grammatical meaning of the Hebrew and Greek texts. Oh! that in old days I had made myself a good scholar! Oh! that I did really know Hebrew and Greek well! What a blessing and delight it would be now! I fear that I shall never be a good Hebrew scholar, I can't make time for it; but a decent Greek scholar I hope to be. I work away, but alas I for want of time, only by fits and starts, at grammars, and such a book as Vaughan's "Epistle to the Romans," an excellent specimen of the way to give legitimate help to the student. Trench's books I delight in. The Revision by Five Clergymen is an assistance. There was a review in the Quarterly the other day on the Greek Testament, very nearly an excellent one. The ordinary use of folio commentaries I don't wish to depreciate, but I think it far less valuable than the diligent study for oneself with the best grammatical aids of the original text. I always assume an acquaintance with the true mind and spirit of the Church of England as a substratum of interpretation. I like Westcott's book on the "Introduction to the Study of the Gospels."
'Oh! why, when I sat evening after evening with our dear Father, did I not ask him on all these points much more than I did? He did talk of such things! But I suppose it is partly the impulse given to such studies by the tendency of present religious thought. Yet ought it not to have been always put forward at Eton and Oxford that the close study of the text of the Bible is the first duty of a Christian scholar. I never really thought of it till I came out here, and then other occupations crowded upon me, and so it was too late to make myself a scholar. Alas!
'Now I really think nothing is so great a relaxation tome as a good book by Trench, or Vaughan, or Ellicott, or Dr. Pusey, and I do enjoy it. Not that I can keep up my attention for very long so as to make it profitable, but even then it is delightful, only I must go over it again, and so it is perhaps time wasted.
'But I greatly miss the intimate friend with whom to fix what I read by conversation and communication of mutual difficulties in understanding passages. I don't often forget points on which the Judge and I have had a talk, but what I read by myself I read too quickly, and forget. I want to fix it by subsequent discussion and enquiry with a competent friend. If I have intelligent young men to read with, that will almost do, it will easily help me to remember what I have read. It won't be suggestive, like the Judge's conversation; yet if one tries to teach conscientiously one does learn a great deal. I am puzzled as to books for my Norfolk Islanders. I should like much the "Conversations on the Catechism." Are they published separately? Shall I ask Miss Yonge to give me a copy? And the "Plain Commentary" would be useful too, if (which I doubt) it is plain enough.'
'"Southern Cross:" May 9, 1863.
'My dear Joan,—You ask me about qualifications which a man had better possess for this Mission, so perhaps I had better ask you to enquire of cousin Derwent Coleridge and of Ernest Hawkins for letters written to them some six months ago in which (if I remember rightly) I succeeded as well as I am likely to do now in describing the class of men I should like some day to have. I dare say they have not kept the letters, I forgot that, because although they took me some little time to write, they may have chucked them away naturally enough. Still if they have them and can find them, it may be worth while for you to keep a copy by you to show to any person who wishes for information.