Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/87

Rh which led to it, one day, and he urged me to come back with him on his return, and see if we could discover fresh country. He was then the picture of health, and told me that for two years he had never touched drink. Alas, he fell in with evil friends, and within a few months died miserably. I never saw him again: you may imagine how hard it is to answer letters and inquiries from relatives at home in such cases.

I have lately had a pleasant change of work and society. A week's special services were arranged for in St. Michael's Church, Christchurch, and I was asked to take one of the week-day services. Nothing strange in that, you will say, but remember that I have been three years in my district, and since my ordination have never once been in a church. Only those who have had similar experience can understand what it meant to find myself in a well-ordered church, with reverent ritual, choir, organ, and a large congregation. Let me add something purely personal. I had thought out and written the sermon, and after breakfast was saddling my horse for a forty-five mile ride to Christchurch for the evening service, when my brother came up, and said: "Take my advice, don't read it, think it over as you ride; make a few notes, and deliver it from them, you'll find the ride an excellent preamble." I did so, not without some fear and trembling, but found that his advice was good.

I was also asked to examine the boys of Christ's College in Classics and Divinity. The College was intended by the founders of the Canterbury Settlement to be a public school of the English type, together with an Upper Department for training men