Mrs. Selwyn and Patteson went with him, his two sons had to be left in England for their education. The necessary parting from them was a bitter grief, but he had faced what it would be some years before, on the death of a baby daughter whom in his busy life he had only known for twelve days. He had then written:
“I cannot and must not look to children as a source of personal and domestic enjoyment, but may hope to rejoice, if it be God’s will, in reports of their well doing.”
Patteson’s companionship was now a great source of joy and consolation. He wrote:
“Coley Patteson is a treasure which I humbly set down as a divine recompense for our own boys.”
He said of him that he possessed the three indispensable requisites for his special task: “the sailor’s gift of enduring hardness, the priest’s gift of drawing men by cords of love and detaining them by gentle discipline, the linguist’s gift of quickly mastering many dissimilar tongues.”
They reached Auckland sooner than was expected by their friends there. A strange vessel was discerned threading all the intricacies of the harbour, without having fired the gun for a pilot, and at once people began to say: “there must be someone on board who knows what he is about, and all the tides and currents of the harbour; and who so likely as the Bishop.” His friends thought he looked dreadfully worn on his arrival. Every one was painfully struck with his appearance, but the cause was soon discovered. He had been up for two or three nights piloting the ship down the coast and through all the islets. He soon recovered his good looks and it was gladly recognised that he “was all the better for English air and for the bracing of mind and body” that his journey had given him.
Bishop Selwyn could now look forward to working under new and more satisfactory conditions. The next few years saw the final steps taken for the complete organization of the Church in New Zealand which has been described in the last chapter. Instead of having the whole charge of New Zealand he would now have four other Bishops working with him, as well as duly organized synods by means of which the laity too would share in the work of the Church. The lands which he had been careful to acquire as sites for churches and to provide endowments could now be vested in trustees, and proper attention could be paid to the rapidly increasing number of colonists, attracted specially during recent years by the discovery of gold in the Southern Island.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MELANESIAN MISSION
A fortnight after Bishop Selwyn reached Auckland on his return from England, the Southern Cross, the new mission ship, arrived. She was first sighted on a very wet day, and as soon as the Bishop was sure it was her, he called Patteson to come with him to meet her. Patteson describes the scene:
“I hurried on waterproofs knowing that we were in for some mudlarking. Off we went, lugged down a borrowed boat to the water. I took one oar, a Maori another, the Bishop steering. After twenty minutes pull we met her, jumped on board, and then such a broadside of questions and answers. Mudlarking very slight on this occasion, but on Tuesday we had a rich scene. Bishop and I went to the Duke of Portland and brought off our things ... the custom is for carts to go over the muddy sand ... in went our cart, with three valuable horses, while the Bishop and I stood on the edge of the water. Presently one of the horses lost his footing, and then all at once all three slipped up. Instanter Bishop and I had our coats off, and in we rushed to the horses, such a plunging and splashing but they were all got out safe. ‘This is your first lesson in mudlarking, Coley,’ was the Bishop’s remark.”