NOT without feelings of sadness do we finish the letters, for the picture of the invalid Bishop and his isolated sister is indeed a pathetic one. But, to reassure those who do not know the sequel, we hasten to add that Miss Tozer was soon relieved by the timely arrival of Miss Fountaine, who at once undertook the charge of the girls' house. The Bishop returned from the Seychelles about the end of the year, and in January he and his sister started for England. They reached home in March, 1873, he so utterly broken in health that he had no choice left but to resign his post. Meantime the work of the Mission was left in the able hands of Dr. Steere, who in the following year, at the urgent request of the Committee, accepted the Bishopric.

Dr. Steere's vitality, unimpaired by ten years' residence in the tropics, not only kept the Mission alive at this time of sad stress, but raised it to a foremost position amongst missions of the English Church. Within the next ten years he "made" the language, built the cathedral, firmly established work in the Magila country, opened new stations in the Rovuma district, and increased the staff by the addition of over sixty English members, of whom twenty-one were priests. A full account of his episcopate may be found in the Rev. R. M. Heanley's Memoir of Bishop Steere.

Project Canterbury