Page:A Sketch of the Characters of Sir John Patteson and Sir John Coleridge.djvu/8

 In addition to these they also brought to bear on the steady-discharge of their daily duties, the still finer qualities of moral worth, strict impartiality, and unswerving rectitude, which gave even greater weight and authority to the faithful exercise of judicial power.

It was while they were judges that each of them became in turns your President—Patteson from the year 1839 until the year 1861, and Coleridge from the year 1861 until the year 1870. Some of us can recollect the affable dignity with which they presided over our social gatherings. As social companions they were always friendly and kindly disposed, always intelligent and well-informed, always genial, instructive and cheerful; but they bore their quarterings, as the heralds would say, with a difference, for the cheerfulness of Patteson was freer and more joyous, while the cheerfulness of Coleridge had usually something of a pensive tinge, which seemed to be a part of his graver nature.

But here I must pause. It is not for us to probe the working of their innermost thoughts, except so far as they were manifested outwardly. This only will I undertake to say, that neither of them would ever have been what they were—neither of them would have attained the distinguished position and the honourable reputation which they so justly earned—neither of them would have been held in such respect, so truly valued, so deservedly esteemed, if they had not been animated all through their lives by the highest motives of Christian principle, and the purest feeling of a Christian's duty.

The memories of two such men ought not to pass away; and if more were needed to keep them in our recollection, it will not be forgotten that one of them was the friend and biographer of the saintly author of the "Christian Year," and the other was the father of that devoted martyr to his Saviour's cause, the Bishop of Melanesia, who bore the name both of Coleridge and Patteson, which his death has crowned with a lasting glory. S. H. W.