You felt what he was, that you were in the presence of a man too pure
for party, of one in whose presence ordinary party distinctions
almost ceased to have a meaning. Such a man could scarcely be on the
wrong side. Both the purity of his nature and the rectitude of his
judgment would have kept him straight.'

Coley remained at Merton until the Long Vacation of 1853; when his
Oxford life terminated, though not his connection with the
University, for he retained his Fellowship until his death, and the
friendships he had formed both at Balliol and Merton remained
unbroken.




CHAPTER V.

THE CURACY AT ALFINGTON. 1853-1855.



Preparation for ordination had become Patteson's immediate object.
As has been already said, his work was marked out. There was a
hamlet of the parish of Ottery St. Mary, at a considerable distance
from the church and town, and named Alfington.

Some time previously, the family of Sir John Kennaway had provided
the place with a school, which afterwards passed into the hands of
Mr. Justice Coleridge, who, in 1849, there built the small church of
St. James, with parsonage, school, and house, on a rising ground