med upon our soil were those of the consecration of
burial-grounds at Paihia and at Kororareka. The bishop went inland to
Waimate, but the missionary in charge (R. Davis) could hardly, for
weakness, show his visitor round the village. To judge by his journals,
his thoughts were more taken up with his dying Maoris than with the
living prelate. At the confirmation held when the bishop returned to
Paihia (Jan. 5), only 44 Maoris were able to be presented, besides 20
white people--mostly missionaries' children. At the Hauraki station the
bishop found a mere handful able to receive the laying-on of hands.
Owing to the shortness of his visit and to the difficulty of
communication, he was unable to visit more than these three stations;
and he had left for Norfolk Island before many of the missionaries knew
of his arrival.

It must not be supposed, however, that this visit was in vain. The
leaders of the mission had long felt their isolation from the rest of
the world, and the new difficulties which the growth of a European
population in the Bay was beginning to bring forth. They received much
encouragement from the good bishop's counsel, and were placed in a
better position for dealing with the white men. The sick were cheered by
his sympathetic ministrations, and all classes united in expressing the
farewell hope that he would not forget them but would soon visit them
again.

This hope was destined not to be realised; but the bishop left behind
him a permanent addition to the mission staff in the person of a young
Oxford undergraduate, who had been driven by delicate health to leave
England and to undertake the long sea voyage to Australia. The bishop
had admitted him to the diaconate in Sydney, and now at Paihia ordained
him to the priesthood. Octavius Hadfield was still in a state of extreme
delicacy, but he resolved to dedicate whatever might remain to him of
life and strength to the service of Christ among the Maoris.

Neither bishop nor priest, however, nor yet catechist nor settler, was
to be the most signal agent in the extension of the work during these
wonderful "years of the right hand of the Most Highest." Their labours
were indeed richly blest, as the preceding pages have sufficiently
shown. But the humbler instruments whose work has now to be recorded
stand out in bolder relief, owing to the amazing contrast between the
insignificance of the means and the magnitude of the results achieved.

The east side of N