Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands Part 7

'To-day my eyes are not comfortable, from I know not what cause, but as all the work for them is over, it does not matter so much. I am glad to have had a quiet time for reflection. Indeed, I do not enough realise my great unworthiness and sinfulness, and the awful nature of the work I am undertaking. I pray G.o.d very earnestly for the great grace of humility, which I so sadly need: and for a spirit of earnest prayer, that I may be preserved from putting trust in myself, and may know and forget myself in my office and work. I never could be fit for such work, I know that, and yet I am very thankful that the time for it has come. I do not feel excited, yet I am somewhat nervous because it requires an effort to meditate steadily. I have thought so much of my early life, of dearest Mamma. What a snare it seems, so full of transitory earthly plans and pursuits; such a want of earnestness of purpose and steady performance of duty! G.o.d grant my life as a clergyman may be more innocent to myself, and more useful to others! Tell dear Joan the gown came this morning. My kind love to her, Fan, and Jem.

'Ever, my dearest Father,

'Your affectionate and dutiful Son,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

On the ensuing day, Sunday, September 14, 1853, John Coleridge Patteson received the Diaconate at the hands of the venerable Bishop Phillpotts, in Exeter Cathedral. His being selected to read the Gospel was the proof of his superiority in the examination--no wonder, considering the two additional years that he had spent in preparation, and the deep study and searchings of heart of the last few months.

He was established in a small house at Alfington--the usual habitation of the Curate. And of his first sermon there, his uncle, Sir John Coleridge, gives the following touching description from his diary:--

'October 23, 1853.--Yesterday morning Arthur and I went to Alfington Church, to be present at Coley's first sermon. I don't know when I have been so much delighted and affected. His manner of saying the prayers was exceedingly good: his voice very sweet and musical; without seeming loud, it was fully audible, and gave a.s.surance of more power if needed: his manner quite unaffected, but sweet and devout. His sermon was a very sound and good one, beautifully delivered; perhaps in the early parts, from the very sweetness of his voice, and the very rapid delivery of his words, a little more variety of intonation would have helped in conveying his meaning more distinctly to those who formed the bulk of his congregation. But when he came to personal parts this was not needed. He made a kind allusion to me, very affecting to me; and when I was in this mood, and he came to the personal parts, touching himself and his new congregation, what he knew he ought to be to them and to do for them, what they should do for themselves, and earnestly besought their prayers, I was completely overcome, and weeping profusely.

f.a.n.n.y Patteson and Arthur Coleridge were sitting with the Judge, and were equally overcome. When the service was over, and the congregation dispersed, Coley joined these three in the porch, holding out his hands, taking theirs and shedding tears, and they with him--tears of warm emotion too deep for words. He was evidently surprised at the effect produced. In fact, on looking at the sermon, it does not seem to have been in itself remarkable, but as his cousin Arthur says: 'I suppose the deep spirituality of the man, and the love we bore him for years, touched the emotional part of us.' The text was significant: 'We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake' (2 Cor. iv. 5).

The services that the newly-ordained Deacon undertook were the ordinary Sunday ones, and Wednesday and Friday Matins and Litany, Saints'-day prayers and lecture, and an Advent and Lent Evensong and lecture on Wednesdays and Fridays. These last had that great popularity which attends late services. Dr. Cornish used to come on one Sunday in the month to celebrate the Holy Communion (which is given weekly in the mother Church); and when Mr. Grardiner was able to be at Sidmouth, recovering from his illness, he used to come over on the second Sunday in the month for the same purpose; and the next Lent, the Matins were daily, and followed by a lecture.

At this time Patteson's const.i.tutional shrinking from general society was in full force, and he also had that dislike to 'speaking to' people in the way of censure, which so often goes with tender and refined natures, however strong; so that if his housekeeper needed a reproof, he would make his sister administer it, and creep out of reach himself; but this was one of the deficiencies with which he was struggling all his life, and fortunately it is a fact that the most effective lectures usually come from those to whom they cost the most.

This was the hardest part of his ministry. Where kindness and attention were needed, nothing could be more spontaneous, sweet, or winning than his ways. One of his paris.h.i.+oners, a farmer's daughter, writes:--

'Our personal knowledge of him began some months before his Ordination, owing, I suppose, to Mr. Gardiner's severe illness; and as he was very much respected, Mr. Patteson's attentions won from the first our admiration and grat.i.tude, which went on and on until it deepened into that love which I do not think could have been surpa.s.sed by the Galatians for their beloved St. Paul, which he records in his Epistle to them (chap. iv. 15). All were waiting for him at his Ordination, and a happy delusion seemed to have come over the minds of most, if not all, that he was as completely ours as if he had been ordained expressly for us.'

It was not his own feeling, for he knew that when his apprentices.h.i.+p should be past, the place was too small, and the work too easy, for a man in full force and vigour, though for the sake of his father he was glad to accept it for the present, to train himself in the work, and to have full time for study; but he at that time looked to remaining in England during his father's lifetime, and perhaps transferring himself to Manchester, Liverpool, London, or some large city, where there was need of mission work among the neglected.

His father was on the City of London Charter Commission, and was in London from November to February, the daughters joining him there, but there was no lack of friends around Alfington. Indeed it was in the midst of an absolute clan of Coleridges, and in Buckerell parish, at Deerpark, that great old soldier, Lord Seaton, was spending the few years that pa.s.sed between his Commissioner-s.h.i.+p in the Ionian Isles and his Commanders.h.i.+p in Ireland.

He was connected with the Coleridges through the Yonge family, and the young people were all on familiar cousinly terms. Coley was much liked by him; and often joined in the rides through the lanes and to the hills with him and his daughters, when there were many conversations of much interest, as there could not fail to be with a man who had never held a government without doing his utmost to promote G.o.d's work in the Church and for education; who had, moreover, strong opinions derived from experience of the Red Indians in Upper Canada--namely, that to reclaim the young, and educate them was the only hope of making Christianity take root in any fresh nation.

It was at Deerpark, at a dinner in the late autumn of this year 1853, that I saw Coley Patteson for the second and last time. I had seen him before in a visit of three days that I made at Feniton with my parents in the September of 1844, when he was an Eton boy, full of high spirits and merriment. I remember then, on the Sunday, that he and I accompanied our two fathers on a walk to the afternoon service at Ottery, and that on the way he began to show something of his inner self, and talked of his mother and her pleasure in Feniton; but it began to rain, and I stayed for the night at Heaths Court, so that our acquaintance ceased for that time. It was not a formal party at Deerpark, and the evening was chiefly spent in playing at games, thread paper verses and the like, in which Coley took his part with spirit. If I had guessed what he was to be, I should have observed him more; but though, in after years, our intercourse in letters makes us feel intimate with one another, these two brief meetings comprise the whole of my personal acquaintance with one in whom I then only saw a young clergyman with his heart in his work.

Perhaps this is the best place to mention his personal appearance, as the portrait at the beginning of this volume was taken not more than a year later.

He was tall and of a large powerful frame, broad in the chest and shoulders, and with small neat hands and feet, with more of sheer muscular strength and power of endurance than of healthiness, so that though seldom breaking down and capable of undergoing a great deal of fatigue and exertion, he was often slightly ailing, and was very sensitive to cold. His complexion was very dark, and there was a strongly marked line between the cheeks and mouth, the corners of which drooped when at rest, so that it was a countenance peculiarly difficult to photograph successfully. The most striking feature was his eyes, which were of a very dark clear blue, full of an unusually deep earnest, and so to speak, inward, yet far away expression. His smile was remarkably bright, sweet and affectionate, like a gleam of suns.h.i.+ne, and was one element of his great attractiveness. So was his voice, which had the rich full sweetness inherited from his mother's family, and which always excited a winning influence over the hearers. Thus, though not a handsome man, he was more than commonly engaging, exciting the warmest affection in all who were concerned with him, and giving in return an immense amount of interest and sympathy, which only became intensified to old friends while it expanded towards new ones. Here is a letter to his father, undated, but written not long after his settling down at Alfington. After expressing his regret that his voice had been inaudible to his sister Joanna at a Friday evening service, he proceeds:--

'I did not speak very loud, because I don't think I could do so and at the same time keep my mind at work and thoughts collected. Anything which is so unnatural and unusual as to make me conscious of myself in a peculiar manner would prevent, I fear, my getting on with my oration at all.

'I am glad you think I could not have acted otherwise with E---. I quite expect ere long to find something going on which may call for my interference, and I specially guarded myself on this point. It is distinctly understood that I shall speak to him quite plainly whenever and wherever I think it necessary to do so. I do not suppose it very likely that he can go on long without my being forced to take some step; but I really feel so very unequal to expressing a decided opinion upon the great question of Bible readers, that I am certainly glad I have not taken up a hostile position hastily. As a matter of fact, he reads in very few cottages in my district; tracts he distributes almost everywhere.

'Now I see of course the distinction between a man making it his business to read the Bible and neighbours dropping in occasionally to read a chapter to one who is unable to read, but where you are distinctly told that the wish is most decidedly to support the clergyman, and answers not unsatisfactory are given upon main points, what difference remains between the two cases I have put that can furnish matter for fair argument, with a man from education, &c., disposed to take a different view of the whole question? Add to this, that I cannot appeal to the universal practice of the clergy. "Why,"

might it be said, "do you, as a clergyman find a difficulty where Mr.

H. finds none? You are, after all, acting on your own private opinion, though you lay claim to authority for it." I cannot successfully appeal to the distinctive teaching of our Church, clear and manifest as it is, for the very words I think conclusive contain no such evidence for him, and so on ad infinitum. Besides, to speak quite what I feel at present, though only so perhaps because my view is necessarily unformed, the natural order of things in such a district as this seems to be: gain the affections of the people by gentleness and showing real interest in their welfare, spiritual and temporal; show them in the Bible such teaching as the Church considers necessary (but not as yet upon the authority of the Church, or at least not so expressed to them); lead them gradually to the acknowledgment of such truths as these: that Christ did found a society called the Church, and appoint to certain persons whom he sent the Ministry of reconciliation; that if we have no guide but mere opinion, there will be thousands of conflicting opinions in the world even among good men, whereas Truth can be but one, and that practically this is found to be so; that it is no argument to say, that the Spirit so operated as to enlighten the reason of each individual to this extent, viz., that it may compose a Creed for him or herself; that the Spirit acts now in the ordinary, though not less real and heavenly manner; and that the infinite divisions among sectaries proves the fact to be as I state it.

'Thus I imagine the want of that external and visible Church will be felt as necessary to fix the Creeds pasa katadike.

'But to reverse this process, to cram positive teaching down their throats upon the authority of the Church before they know what the Church is, or feel the need of any power outside (so to speak) their own minds to guide them, does seem to me in a place like this (humanly speaking) suicidal. I cannot, of course, tell how much preparatory teaching they have received, but I must judge from what I see and hear, and deal accordingly in each cottage. Some few there are to whom I can speak, as to Church people in the real sense of the word, but these are as two or three in a hundred.

'One line to say whether you think me right or wrong, would be a great comfort to me. I feel no tendency to lat.i.tudinarianism, but only to see much good in systems unrecognised by your very highflyers. I believe that the Church teaching is represented in an unfavourable, often offensive, light to many of our poor, because they hear words and see things which find no response in their hearts; because they are told, ordered almost, to believe things the propriety of believing which they do not recognise; because the existence of wants is implied when they have never been felt, and a system for supplying them introduced which finds no room in the understanding or affections of the patient.

'But you know, dear Father, what I mean, without more dusky attempts at explaining myself.

'Do not many High Churchmen want a little more "experimental religion"

in Bishop Jebb's sense of the terms: not a religion of the feelings, but a religion brought home to the heart, and truly felt so as to prohibit any systematic criticism of the feelings?

'I am late this week with my sermons, I have not begun either of them, and may have one to-morrow evening if my voice will do its part. I write very long washy concerns, and find it difficult to do otherwise, for it is a good pull upon me week after week, and latterly I have not been able to read very much. I shall look out two or three that I think fair specimens, and ask you by-and-by to run your eye over them, that you may point out the defects.

'My ignorance of the Bible astonishes me, though not so much as it ought to do. I purpose, D.V., to commence a thorough study of the original texts. I must try to become something of a scholar, at all events, to make any progress in the work. I sometimes hope that, in spite of my many backslidings and broken resolutions, some move is taking place within, where most it is wanted; but I live here so quietly, that I have little (comparatively) food for some special faults. Good-bye, my dear Father,

'Your affectionate and dutiful Son,

'J. C. P.'

'Some move taking place within!' It is impossible not to pause and observe how as Confirmation and Communion had almost palpably strengthened the boy's struggles with his inherent faults, so the grace conferred with the Deacon's orders is now felt to be lifting him higher, and enabling him to see further than he has yet seen.

Sermons were, however, never Patteson's forte. Though his pen flowed so freely in letters, and he could pour out his heart extemporaneously with great depth, fervour and simplicity, his sermons were laboured and metaphysical, as if he had taken too much pains with them as it were, and he could not speak to the abstract, as he could to the individual, or when he saw the effect of his words. It was perhaps owing to the defective system which threw two sermons a week upon a young deacon at a time when his mind was working through such an experimental course of study and thought. Yet his people, who had learnt to believe in little but preaching, would not have come to prayers alone; and the extemporary addresses, in which he would probably have been much more successful, would have seemed to him at his age and at that period--twenty years back--too presumptuous to be attempted, at any rate till he had better learnt his ground. How his system would have succeeded, we cannot tell.

The nature of the peasantry of the county he had to deal with is, to be quick-witted, argumentative, and ready of retort; open to religious impressions, but with much of self-opinion and conceit, and not much reverence, and often less conscientious in matters of honesty and morality than denser rustics of less apparent piety. The Church had for a long-period been at a peculiarly low ebb in the county, and there is not a neighbourhood which has not traditions of incredibly ignorant, careless and underbred--if not dissipated--clergy; and though there were grand exceptions, they were only respected as men; faith in the whole system, as a system, was destroyed. Bishop Phillpotts, coming down on such elements as these, was, in spite of his soundness of faith and grand trenchant force of character, better as a warrior than as a shepherd, and the controversial and political sides of his character, though invaluable to the Church, did not recommend him to the affections of the people of his diocese, who could not understand the points of the debate, and wanted the direct evidence of spirituality which they could appreciate.

The cholera of 1832 had been especially terrible in the unwholesome precincts of the Devons.h.i.+re seaports, and the effect was a great craving for religion. The Church was in no condition to avail herself of it; in fact, she would have viewed it with distrust as excitement. Primitive Methodism and Plymouth Brethrenism supplied the void, gave opportunities of prayer, and gratified the quickened longing for devotion; and therewith arose that a.s.sociation of the Church with deadness and of Dissent with life, which infected even the most carefully tended villages, and with which Patteson was doing his best to contend at Alfington. The stage of gaining the people's affection and confidence, and of quickening their religious life, he had attained; and the further work of teaching them that the Church alone gives security of saving union with Christ, was yet to come when his inward call led him elsewhere.

On the 12th of December he says:--

'Yesterday was a very happy day; Gardiner came to help me and he administered the Holy Communion to twenty-seven or twenty-eight of my own people. This is nearly double the average before I came, and two regular attendants are prevented by sickness from being at Church. I trust I have not urged the necessity of communicating unwisely upon them. I preach on it once a month, as you know, and in almost every sermon allude to it, and where occasion offers, speak about it to individuals at home; but I try to put before them the great awfulness of it as well as the danger of neglecting it, and I warn them against coming without feeling really satisfied from what I read to them, and they read in the Bible concerning it. Six came yesterday for the first time.... Old William (seventy-five years of age), who has never been a communicant, volunteered on Thursday to come, if I thought it right. He is, and always has been (I am told), a thoroughly respectable, sober, industrious man, regular at Church once a day; and I went to his cottage with a ticket in my pocket to urge him to consider the danger of going on as if content with what he did and without striving to press onwards, &c. But, after a long conversation on other matters, he said; "I should like, Sir, to come to the Sacrament, if you have no objection;" and very happy and thankful I felt, for I had prayed very earnestly that this old man might be led thither by G.o.d's grace, and now it was done without any urging on my part, beyond what he heard in Church and what I had said to his daughter about him.'

The next of his letters is occupied with the pecuniary affairs of his lodging house for farm boys, and the obtaining of ground where they might grow vegetables for their own use.

In February his family returned home, and his sister f.a.n.n.y thus speaks of him to a friend:--

'He does not look well; and at first we were quite uneasy, for his eyes were heavy and puffed, but he is much better, and confesses that dinners and evenings here do him good, though he quite denies the starving, and Mrs. Knowles also. She says he gets over anxious in mind, and was completely chilled the week he sat in the hall. No doubt his house is still both cold and damp, and the Church the same, and therefore the labour of reading and preaching is very great. We are by degrees interesting him in our winter life, having heard all his performances and plans; and he is very glad to have us back, though much too busy to have missed us when we were away. Now he has daily morning service, with a lecture; and if it lasts, the impression he has made is really extraordinary. We may well pray that he should not be vain of his works.

There are men whose whole lives seem changed, if I am to believe what I hear.'

Such was the young Deacon's early success. With an affectionate brother close at hand, and friends within easy reach, his Fellows.h.i.+p preserving his connection with Oxford, his father's and brother's profession with London, in fact, all England could offer; and he would easily have it in his power to take fresh holidays on the Continent and enjoy those delights of scenery, architecture, art and music, which he loved with an appreciation and enthusiasm that could easily have become an absorbing pa.s.sion. Who could have a smoother, easier, pleasanter career open to him than the Rev. John Coleridge Patteson at six and twenty?

Yet even then, the wish breathed to his mother, at fourteen, that he might devote himself to the cause of the heathen, lay deep in his heart; although for the present, he was, as it were, waiting to see what G.o.d would have him do, whether his duty to his father required him to remain at hand, or whether he might be called to minister in some great English manufacturing town.

Early in 1854, it became known that the Bishop of New Zealand and Mrs.

Selwyn were about to spend a year in England. Coley's aspirations to mission work were renewed. The thoughts excited by the sermons he had heard at Eton twelve years previously grew in force. He remembered his mother's promise of her blessing, and seriously considered of offering himself to a.s.sist in the work in the Southern Hemisphere. He discussed the matter seriously with his friend, Mr. Gardiner, who was strongly of opinion that the scheme ought not to be entertained during his father's lifetime. He acquiesced; but if his heart and mind were convinced, his soul and spirit were not, and the yearnings for the forefront of the battle were not quenched, though there was no slackening of zeal over the present little flock, to make them suspect that he had a thought beyond.

Old ties of friends.h.i.+p already mentioned made the Bishop and Mrs. Selwyn promise to spend a few days at Feniton; and on the 19th of August the New Zealand guests arrived at Feniton. After joining in the family welcome, Coley went apart, and gave way to a great burst of tears, due, perhaps, not so mueh to disappointed ardour, as to the fervent emotion excited by the actual presence of a hero of the Church Militant, who had so long been the object of deep silent enthusiasm. The next morning, Coley walked from Alfington to breakfast at home, and afterwards went into the garden with the Bishop, who led him to talk freely of his present work in all its details. By-and-by the question arose, Did it satisfy him?

Yes, the being near his father satisfied him that it was right for the present, but at some future time, he hoped to do more, go perhaps to some great manufacturing town, or, as he could not help going on to say, what he should like would be to go out as a missionary, only the thought of his father withheld him.

'But,' replied the Bishop, 'if you think about doing a thing of that sort, it should not be put off till you are getting on in life. It should be done with your full strength and vigour.'

Then followed an endeavour on both sides to ascertain whether the inclination was a real earnest desire, or only fancy for the romance of mission work. The test might be whether he were willing to go wherever he might be sent, or only where he was most interested. Coley replied, that he was willing to work anywhere, adding that his sister f.a.n.n.y could testify whether his desire were a real one of long standing or the mere outcome of a fit of enthusiasm.

Therewith they separated, and Coley, going straight to f.a.n.n.y, told her what had pa.s.sed: 'I could not help it,' he said:--'I told the Bishop of my wish.'