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Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands

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To Mr. Edward Coleridge he writes on the 18th of March:—

'I have many and delightful talks with Mr. Martin on our languages. We see already how strong an infusion of Polynesian elements exists in the Melanesian islands. With the language of four groups we are fairly acquainted now, besides some of the distinguishing dialects, which differ very much from one another; nevertheless, I think that by-and-by we shall connect them all if we live; but as some dialects may have dropped out altogether, we may want a few links in the chain to demonstrate the connection fully to people at a distance. It is a great refreshment to me to work out these matters, and the Judge kindly looked up the best books that exist in all the Polynesian languages, so that we can found our induction upon a comparison of all the dialects now from the Solomon Islands to the Marquesas, with the exception of the Santa Cruz archipelago. We have been there two or three times, but the people are so very numerous and noisy, that we never have had a chance as yet of getting into a quiet talk (by signs, &c.) with any of the people.

'Still, as we know some Polynesian inhabitants of a neighbouring isle who have large sea canoes, and go to Santa Cruz, we may soon get one of them to go with us, and so have an interpreter, get a lad or two, and learn the language.

'We are sadly in want of men; yet we cannot write to ask persons to come out for this work who may be indisposed, when they arrive in New Zealand, to carry out the particular system on which the Bishop proceeds. Any man who would come out and consent to spend a summer at the Melanesian school in New Zealand in order to learn his work, and would give up any preconceived notions of his own about the way to conduct missionary work that might militate against the Bishop's plan—such a man would be, of course, the very person we want; but we must try to make people understand that half-educated men will not do for this work. Men sent out as clergymen to the mission-field who would not have been thought fit to receive Holy Orders at home, are not at all the men we want. It is not at all probable that such men would really understand the natives, love them, and live with them; but they would be great dons, keeping the natives at a distance, assuming that they could have little in common, &c.—ideas wholly destructive of success in missionary, or in any work. That pride of race which prompts a white man to regard coloured people as inferior to himself, is strongly ingrained in most men's minds, and must be wholly eradicated before they will ever win the hearts, and thus the souls of the heathen.

'What a preachment, as usual, about Melanesia!…

'Your loving old Pupil and Nephew,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Next follows a retrospective letter:—

'April 1, 1859: St. John's College.

'My dearest Father,—Thirty-two years old to-day! Well, it is a solemn thing to think that one has so many days and months and years to account for. Looking back, I see how fearfully I wasted opportunities which I enjoyed, of which, I fancy, I should now avail myself gladly; but I don't know that I fancy what is true, for my work now, though there is plenty of it, is desultory, and I dare say hard application, continuously kept up, would be as irksome to me as ever.

'It seems very strange to me that I never found any pleasure in classical studies formerly. Now, the study of the languages for its own sake even is so attractive to rue that I should enjoy working out the exact and delicate powers of Greek particles, &c.; but I never cared for it till it was too late, and the whole thing was drudgery to me. I had no appreciation, again, of Historians, or historians; only thought Thucydides difficult and Herodotus prosy(!!), and Tacitus dull, and Livy apparently easy and really very hard. So, again, with the poets; and most of all I found no interest (fancy!) in Plato and Aristotle. They were presented to me as merely school books; not as the great effort of the cultivated heathen mind to solve the riddle of man's being; and I, in those days, never thought of comparing the heathen and Christian ethics, and the great writers had no charm for me.

'Then my French. If I had really taken any pains with old Tarver in old days—and it was your special wish that I should do so—how useful it would be to me now; whereas, though I get on after a sort, I don't speak at all as I ought to do, and might have learnt to do. It is sad to look back upon all the neglected opportunities; and it is not only that I have not got nearly (so to speak) a quantity of useful materials for one's work in the present time, but that I find it very hard to shake off desultory habits. I suppose all persons have to make reflections of this kind, more or less sad; but, somehow, I feel it very keenly now: for certainly I did waste time sadly; and it so happens that I have just had "Tom Brown's Schooldays" lent me, and that I spent some time in reading it on this particular day, and, of course, my Eton life rose up before me. What a useful book that is! A real gain for a young person to have such a book. That is very much the kind of thing that would really help a boy—manly, true, and plain.

'I hear from Sydney by last mail that the Bishop is really desirous to revive the long dormant Board of Missions. He means to propose to send a priest and a deacon to every island ready for them, and to provide for them—if they are forthcoming, and funds. Of this latter I have not much doubt....

'April 24—I have to get ready for three English full services to-morrow, besides Melanesian ditto.—So goodbye, my dearest Father,

'Your loving and dutiful Son,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Sir John Patteson might well say, in a letter of this summer, to Bishop Selwyn:—

'As to my dear boy Coley, I am more and more thankful every day that I agreed to his wishes; and in whatever situation he may be placed, feel confident that his heart will be in his work, and that he will do God service. He will be contented to work under any one who may be appointed Bishop of Melanesia (or any other title), or to be the Bishop himself. If I judge truly, he has no ambitious views, and only desires that he may be made as useful as his powers enable him to be, whether in a high or subordinate situation.'

Nothing could be more true than this. There was a general sense of the probability that Mr. Patteson must be the first Missionary Bishop; but he continued to work on at the immediate business, always keeping the schemes and designs which necessarily rose in his mind ready to be subjected to the control of whomsoever might be set over him. The cold had set in severely enough to make it needful to carry off his 'party of coughing, shivering Melanesians' before Easter, and the 'Southern Cross' sailed on the 18th. Patteson took with him a good store of coffee, sugar, and biscuits, being uncertain whether he should or should not again remain at Lifu.

In the outward voyage he only landed his pupils there, and then went on to the Banks Islands, where Sarawia was returned at Vanua Lava, and after Mr. Patteson had spent a pleasant day among the natives, Mota was visited next after.

'May 24.—On Monday, at 3 P.M., we sailed from Port Patteson across to Mota. Here I landed among 750 people and the boat returned to the vessel. She was to keep up to windward during the night and call for me the next morning. I walked with my large following, from the teach, up a short steep path, to the village, near to which, indeed only 200 yards off, is another considerable village. The soil is excellent; the houses good—built round the open space which answers to the green in our villages, and mighty banyan trees spreading their lofty and wide-branching arms above and around them. The side walls of these houses are not more than two feet high, made only of bamboos lashed by cocoa-nut fibre, or wattled together, and the long sloping roofs nearly touch ground but within they are tolerably clean and quite dry. The moon was in the first quarter, and the scene was striking as I sat out in the open space with some 200 people crowding round me—men, women and children; fires in front where yams were roasting; the dark brown forms glancing to and fro in the flickering light; the moon's rays quivering down through the vast trees, and the native hollow drum beating at intervals to summon the people to the monthly feast on the morrow. I slept comfortably on a mat in a cottage with many other persons in it. Much talk I had with a large concourse outside, and again in this cottage, on Christianity; and all were quiet when I knelt down as usual and said my evening prayers. Up at 5.30 A.M., and walked up a part of the Sugar Loaf peak, from which the island derives its English name, and found a small clear stream, flowing, through a rocky bed, back to the village, where were some 300 people assembled; sat some time with them, then went to the beach, where the boat soon came for me.

'After this there was a good deal of bad weather; but all the lads were restored to their islands, including Aroana, the young Malanta chief, who had begun by a fit of frenzy, but had since behaved well; and who left his English friends with a promise to do all in his power to tame his people and cure them of cannibalism.'

Then came some foul winds and hot exhausting weather.

'I have done little more than read Stanley's "Sinai and Palestine," and Helps's "Spanish America," two excellent books and most delightful to me. The characters in the Spanish conquest of Mexico and America generally; the whole question of the treatment of natives; and that nobleman, Las Casas—are more intelligible to me than to most persons probably. The circumstances of my present life enable me to realise it to a greater extent.

 

'Then I have been dipping into a little ethnology; yesterday a little Plato; but it is almost too hot for anything that requires a working head-piece. You know I take holiday time this voyage when we are in open water and no land near, and it is great relaxation to me.'

A pretty severe gale of wind followed, a sharp test of Patteson's seamanship.

'Then came one day of calm, when we all got our clothes dry, and the deck and rigging looked like an old clothes' shop. Then we got a fairish breeze; but we can get nothing in moderation. Very soon it blew up into a strong breeze, and here we are lying to with a very heavy sea. Landsmen would call it mountainous, I suppose. I am tired, for I have had an anxious time; and we have had but one quiet night for an age, and then I slept from 9.30 P.M. to 7.30 A.M. continuously. 'It may be that this is very good training for me. Indeed it must give me more coolness and confidence. I felt pleased as well as thankful when we made the exact point of Nengone that I had calculated upon, and at the exact time.'

On the 20th of June, Auckland harbour was safely attained; but the coming back without scholars did not make much of holiday time for their master, who was ready to give help to other clergymen whenever it might be needed, though, in fact, this desultory occupation always tried him most.

On the 25th of July he says:—

'I have had a sixty miles' walk since I wrote last; some part of it over wild country. I lost my way once or twice and got into some swamps, but I had my little pocket-compass.

'My first day was eighteen miles in pouring rain; no road, in your sense of the word; but a good warm room and tea at the end. Next day on the move all day, by land and water, seeing settlers scattered about. Third day, Sunday, services at two different places. Fourth day, walk of some twenty-seven miles through unknown regions baptizing children at different places; and reaching, after divers adventures, a very hospitable resting-place at 8 p.m. in the dark. Next day an easy walk into Auckland and Taurarua. Yesterday, Sunday, very wet day. Man-of-war gig came down for me at 9.15 A.M., took the service on board; 11 A.M. St. Paul's service; afternoon, hospital, a mile or so off; 6 P.M., St. Paul's evening service; 8.30, arrived at Taurarua dripping.'

The same letter replies to one from home:—

'I thank you, my dear father, for writing so fully about yourself, and especially, for seeing and stating so plainly your full conviction that I ought not to think of returning to England. It would, as you say, humanly speaking, interfere most seriously with the prospects of the Mission. Some dear friends write to me differently, but they don't quite understand, as you have taken pains to do, what our position is out here; and they don't see that my absence would involve great probable injury to the whole work.

'It is curious how few there are who know anything of New Zealand and Melanesia!

'Of course it is useless to speculate on the future, but I see nothing at all to make it likely that I shall ever revisit England. I can't very well conceive any such state of things as would make it a duty to gratify my constant inclination. And, my dear father, I don't scruple to say (for you will understand me) that I am happier here than I should be in England, where, even though I were absent only a few months, I should bear about with me the constant weight of knowing that Melanesia was not provided for. And, strange as it may seem, this has quite ceased to be a trial to me. The effort of subduing the longing desire to see you is no longer a great one: I feel that I am cheerful and bright, and light-hearted, and that I have really everything to make a man thankful and contented.

'And if you could see the thankful look of the Bishop, when he is again assured that there is no item of regret or desire to call me home on your part, you would feel, I know, that colonial work does require, especially, an unconditional unreserved surrender of a man to whatever he may find to do.'

But while admiring the noble spirit in which the son held fast his post, and the father forebore to unsettle him there, let not their example he used in the unkind and ignorant popular cry against the occasional return of colonial Bishops. For, be it remembered, that dire necessity was not drawing Coleridge Patteson to demand pecuniary assistance round all the platforms of English towns. The Eton, and the Australian and New Zealand Associations, supplemented by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and his own family, relieved him from the need of having to maintain his Mission by such means. All these letters are occupied with the arrangements for raising means for removing the Melanesian College to a less bleak situation, and it is impossible to read them without feeling what a difference it made to have a father who did not view giving to God's work as robbing his family.

On the 13th of August, Patteson was on board, preparing for the voyage; very cold, and eager for the tropics. The parting voice in his farewell letter is: 'I think I see more fully that work, by the power of God's Spirit, is the condition of us all in this world; tiny and insignificant as the greatest work of the greatest men is, in itself, yet the one talent is to be used.'

It was meant to be a farewell letter, but another followed in the leisure, while waiting for the Bishop to embark, with some strong (not to say fiery) opinions on the stern side of duty:—

'I feel anxious to try to make some of the motives intelligible, upon which we colonial folk act sometimes. First. I think that we get a stronger sense of the necessity for dispensing with that kind of courtesy and good nature which sometimes interferes with duty than people do in England.

'So a man placed as I am (for example) really cannot oftentimes avoid letting it be seen that work must come first; and, by degrees, one sympathises less than one possibly should do with drones and idlers in the hive, and feels it wrong to assent to a scheme which lets a real work suffer for the sake of acquiescing in a conventional recognition of comfort, claims of society, &c.

'Would the general of an army say to his officers, "Pray, gentlemen, don't dirty your boots or fatigue your horses to succour the inhabitants of a distant village"? Or a captain to his mates and middies: "Don't turn out, don't go aloft. It is a thing hard, and you might get wet"?

'And the difference between us and people at home sometimes is, that we don't see why a clergyman is not as much bound as an officer in the army or navy to do what he is pledged of his own act to do; and that at home the 'parsonage and pony-carriage' delusion practically makes men forget this. I forget it as much as any man, and should very likely never have seen the mistake but for my coming to New Zealand; and it is one of the great blessings we enjoy.

'There is a mighty work to be done. God employs human agents, and the Bible tells us what are the rules and conditions of their efficiency.

'"Oh! but, poor man, he has a sickly wife!" Yes, but, "it remaineth that those who have wives be as they that have none."

'True, but the case of a large family? "Whosoever loveth child more than me," &c.

'Second. The fact that we live almost without servants makes us more independent, and also makes us acquainted with the secrets of each other's housekeeping, &c. All that artificial intercourse which depends a good deal upon a well-fitted servants' hall does not find place here. More simple and more plain and homely in speech and act is our life in the colonies—e.g., you meet me carrying six or seven loaves from town to the college. "Oh, I knew that the Bishop had to meet some persons there to-day, and I felt nearly sure there would be no breakfast then." Of course an English person thinks, "Why didn't he send the bread?" To which I answer, "Who was there to send?"

'I don't mean that I particularly like turning myself into a miller one day and a butcher the next; but that doing it as a matter of course, where there is no one else to do it, one does sometimes think it unreasonable to say, as has been said to the Bishop:—"Two thousand pounds a year you want for your Mission work!" "Yes," said the Bishop, "and not too much for sailing over ten thousand miles, and for educating, clothing, and feeding some forty young men!"

'I mean that conventional notions in England are preventing people from really doing half what they might do for the good of the needy.

'I don't know how this might be said to be a theory tending to revolutionise society; but I think I do know that there is a kind of religious common sense which comes in to guide people in such matters. Only, I do not think it right to admit that plea for not doing more in the way of almsgiving which is founded upon the assumption that first of all a certain position in society must be kept up, which involves certain expenditure.

'A barrister is living comfortably on £800 a year, or a clergyman in his living of £400. The professional income of the one increases, and a fatter living is given to the other, or some money is left them. What do they do? Instantly start a carriage, another servant, put the jack-of-all-trades into a livery, turn the buttons into a flunkey, and the village girl into a ladies' maid! Is this really right? They were well enough before. Why not use the surplus for some better purpose?

'I imagine that we, the clergy, are chiefly to blame, for not only not protesting against, but most contentedly acquiescing in such a state of things. You ask now for something really demanding a sacrifice. "I can't afford it." "What, not to rescue that village from starvation? not to enable that good man to preach the Gospel to people only accessible by means of such an outlay on his vessel, &c.? Give up your carriage, your opera box; don't have so many grand balls, &c. "Oh no! it is all a corban to the genius of society.

'Now, is this Scriptural or not, my dear father? I don't mean that any individual is justified in dictating to his neighbour, still less in condemning him. But are not these the general principles of religion and morality in the Bible? There are duties to society: but a good man will take serious counsel as to what they are, and how far they may be militating against higher and holier claims.

'August 24.—Why I wrote all this, my dearest father, I hardly know, only I feel sure that unless men at home can, by taking real pains to think about it, realise the peculiar circumstances of colonial life, they will never understand any one of us.

'I have written Fan a note in which I said something about my few effects if I should die.

'One thing I should like to say to you, not as venturing to do more than let you be in full possession of my own mind on the matter. Should I die before you die, would it be wrong for me to say, "Make the Melanesian Mission my heir"?

'It may be according to the view which generally obtains that the other three should then divide my share. But now I would take what may seem the hard view of which I have been writing, and say, "They have enough to maintain them happily and comfortably." The Mission work without such a bequest will be much endangered. I feel sure that they would wish it to be so, for, of course, you know that this large sum of which you write will be, if I survive you, regarded simply as a bequest to the Mission in which I have a life interest, and the interest of which, in the main, would be spent on the Mission.

'But I only say plainly, without any reserve, what I have thought about it; not for one moment putting up my opinion against yours, of course, in case you take a contrary view.

'We sail, I hope, to-morrow, but the Bishop is more busy than ever.

'Again, my dearest Father,

'Your loving and dutiful Son,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

The history of this voyage was, as usual, given in a long letter for the Feniton fireside; but there was a parallel journal also, kept for the Bishop of Wellington, which is more condensed, and, therefore, better for quotation.

The manner in which the interest in, and connection with all English friends and relations was kept up is difficult to convey, though it was a very loveable part of the character. Little comments of condolence or congratulation, and messages of loving remembrance to persons mentioned by playful names, would only be troublesome to the reader; but it must be taken for granted that every reply to a home packet was full of these evidences that the black children on a thousand isles had by no means driven the cousins and friends of youth from a heart that was enlarged to have tenderness for all.

 

'Lat. 9° 29' S.; Long. 163° S.E. "Southern Cross:" October 9, 1859.

'My dear Bishop,—We are on our way from Uleawa to the Santa Cruz group, having visited the Loyalty Islands, Southern New Hebrides, Banks Island (2), and Solomon Islands.

'The Bishop so planned the voyage as to run down the wind quickly to the Solomon Islands, and do the real work coming home; not, as usual, beating up in the open water between the Santa Cruz archipelago, Banks Islands and New Hebrides to the east, and New Caledonia to the west. We are thus able to visit Vanua Lava on the way out and home also; and as we meant to make the Banks Islands the great point this voyage, that was, of course, great gain.

'We touched at Norfolk Island.... Going on to Nengone we found everybody away at the distant yam grounds, and could not wait to see them.

'At Lifu, the first thing that shocked us was John's appearance: one of those fatal glandular swellings has already produced a great change in him. He looked sallow and weak, and I fear ut sit vitalis. He spoke to me very calmly about his illness, which he thinks is unto death, and I did not contradict him.

'We had much private talk together. He is a fine fellow and, I believe, a sincere Christian man. Then came the applications to us not to desert them, and letters enumerating all the villages of Lifu almost without exception, and entreating us to suffer them to be connected with us, and we had to answer that already two missionaries from the L. M. S. are on their way from Sydney to Lifu, and that it would do harm to have two rival systems on the island. They acquiesced but not heartily, and it was a sad affair altogether, all parties unhappy and dissatisfied, and yet unable to solve the difficulty. Then came a talk with Angadhohua, John's half-brother, the real chief. The poor lad feels now what a terrible thing it will be for him and his people if they should lose John. Nothing can be nicer than his way of talking: "I know you don't think me firm enough, and that I am easily led by others. What am I to do if John dies? We all respect him. He has been taught so much, and people all listen to him." I gave him the best advice that I could and longed to be able to do something for him and his people. It was, however, a comfort to leave with them St. Mark, Scripture books, &c.

'We called at Tanna, to see poor Mr. Paton, who lost his wife last April. He is living on there quite alone, and has already lived down the first angry opposition of some of the people, and the unkind treatment that he received from men and women alike who mocked him because of his wife's death, &c. He has had much fever and looked very ill, but his heart was in his work; and the Bishop said he seemed to be one of the weak things which God hath chosen. I know he made me feel pretty well ashamed of myself.

'Next day we spent a few hours with Mr. and Mrs. Gordon at Erromango. He has a small house on the high table-land overlooking Dillon's Bay, and certainly is exposed to winds which may, for aught I know, rival those of Wellington notoriety. The situation is, however, far preferable in the summer to that on the beach, which is seldom free from malaria and ague.

'Then we sailed to the great bay of Pango, landed at Fate a fellow who had come to the Bishop in New Zealand for a passage, and in the afternoon sailed away through "the Pool" (the landlocked space between Mallicolo and Espiritu Santo to the west; Aspee, Ambrym, Whitsuntide, Aurora to the east), where for eighty miles the water is always smooth, the wind always steady, the scenery always lovely, and where, on this occasion, the volcano was bright.

'Being nearly becalmed to the south-east of Leper's Isle, the Bishop gave me the choice of a visit to Whitsuntide or Leper's Island. I voted for the latter, and delighted we were to renew an acquaintance made two years ago, and not since kept up, with these specially nice people. We were recognised at once, but we have a very small vocabulary.

'The sea was running heavily into the bay, but it is sand there and not much rock on the beach, and we had a jolly swim ashore. Then we bought a few yams, which the surf did not permit us to get to the boat, and had a very pleasant visit; for, as we sat among them, words came into one's head, or were caught from their mouth, and at the end of twenty minutes we were getting on a little. The old chief took me by the hand and led me aside to the spot where the ladies were assembled, and divining no doubt that I was a bachelor, politely offered me his daughter, and his protection, &c., if I would live among them.

'I missed seeing the Bishop knocked clean over by the breakers as he was swimming off to the boat; I was still talking to the people, with my back to the sea, and only saw him staggering to his feet again. Thinking to myself that if he was knocked over, I had better look out, I awaited a "smooth" and swam out comfortably.

'The next morning (Sunday) at ten, we dropped anchor in Port Patteson, the harbour which you know the Bishop would call after my father. The first person who came off to us was Sarawia, my old Lifu pupil, from this island! Then came a good many men. I told them there would be no going ashore and no trading till the next day. Palemana, your friend Matawathki, &c., were at church, all dressed and well-behaved. What nice orderly people they are, to be sure!

'The next day we bought lots of yams, and gave away seeds and fruit-trees, or rather planted them; and looked for a place for a station, and fixed at last on the rising-ground which forms the east side of the harbour, and the Bishop, arming himself with an axe, led a party to clear the bush, which was very thick. They made a fair path through in one afternoon to the top, and a healthy place might be found now with little trouble to return to at night from the schools, &c. in the village below, and so shirk the malaria.

'But the next day, as I had anticipated, rather changed his intentions as to the principal station being formed at Vanua Lava. We landed at Sugar Loaf Island, and with something of pride I showed off to him the beauties of the villages where I slept in May last—the dry soil, the spring of water, the wondrous fertility, the large and remarkably intelligent, well-looking population, the great banyan tree, twenty-seven paces round—and at once he said, "This is such a place as I have seen nowhere else for our purpose."

'The Bishop had seen this island before I was with him, during one of the "Border Maid's" voyages, and knew the people, of course, but had not happened to have walked in shore at all, and so the exceeding beauty and fitness of the island for a Mission station had not become so apparent to him. We know of no place where there seems to be such an unusual combination of everything that can be desired, humanly speaking, for such an institution. So that is settled (D.V.) that next winter I should be here, if alive and well; and that the Banks Islands should be regarded as the central point of the Mission.

'Such boys! Bright-eyed, merry fellows, many really handsome; of that reddish yellow tinge of colour which betokens affinity with Polynesian races, as their language also testifies. The majority of the people were pleasing in their appearance and manner. Well, all this was very hopeful, and we went off very happy, taking Eumau, the boy who first met us at Port Patteson when we found it out, and old Wompas (who was with me at Lifu), and another from Mota, to see the Northern Islands.