Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands Part 71

'He condenses into a 2s. 6d. book the work of years.

'You are all alive now, trying to work up your parochial schools to "efficiency" mark--rather you were doing so, for I think there was only time allowed up to December 31, 1870. I hope that the efforts were successful. At such times one wishes to see great n.o.ble gifts, men of great riches giving their 10,000 to a common fund. Then I remember that the claims and calls are so numerous in England, that very wealthy men can hardly give in that way.

'Certainly I am spared the temptation myself of seeing the luxury and extravagance which must tempt one to feel hard and bitter, I should fear. We go on quietly and happily. You know our school is large. Thank G.o.d, we are all well, save dear old Fisher, who met with a sad boating accident last week. A coil of the boat raft caught his ankle as the strain was suddenly tightened by a rather heavy sea, and literally tore the front part of his foot completely off, besides dislocating and fracturing the ankle-bone. He bears the pain well, and he is doing very well; but there may be latent teta.n.u.s, and I shall not feel easy for ten days more yet.

'His smile was pleasant, and his grasp of the hand was an indication of his faith and trust, as he answered my remark, "You know Fisher, He does nothing without a reason: you remember our talk about the sparrows and the hairs of our heads."

'"I know," was all he said; but the look was a whole volume....

'Your Charlotte is Fisher's wife, you know, and a worthy good creature she is. Poor old Fisher, the first time I saw tears on his cheeks was when his wife met him being carried up, and I took her to him.

'The mail goes. Your affectionate Cousin,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

It may as well be here mentioned that Fisher Pantatun escaped teta.n.u.s, lived to have his limb amputated by a medical man, who has since come to reside at Norfolk Island, and that he has been further provided with a wooden leg, to the extreme wonder and admiration of his countrymen at Mota, where he has since joined the Christian community.

The home letter, finished the last, had been begun before the first, on Feb. 11, 'My birthday,' as the Bishop writes, adding:--'How as time goes on we think more and more of him and miss him. Especially now in these times, with so many difficult questions distressing and perplexing men, his wise calm judgment would have been such a strength and support. You know I have all his letters since I left England, and he never missed a mail. And now it is nearly ten years since he pa.s.sed away from this world. What would he say to us all? What would he think of all that has taken place in the interval? Thank G.o.d, he would certainly rejoice in seeing all his children loving each other more and more as they grow older and learn from experience the blessedness and infrequency of such a thoroughly united, happy set of brothers and sisters. Why, you have never missed a single mail in all these sixteen years; and I know, in spite of occasional differences of opinion, that there is really more than ever of mutual love, and much more of mutual esteem than ever.

There is no blessing like this. And it is a special and unusual blessing. And surely, next to G.o.d, we owe it to our dear parents, and perhaps especially to him who was the one to live on as we grew up into men and women. What should I have done out here without a perfect trust in you three, and without your letters and loving remembrances in boxes, &c.? I fancy that I should have broken down altogether, or else have hardened (more than I have become) to the soft and restful influences of the home life. I see some people really alone in these countries, really expatriated. Now I never feel that; partly because I have your letters, partly because I have the knowledge that, if ever I did have to go to England, I should find all the old family love, only intensified and deepened. I can tell you that the consciousness of all this is a great help, and carries one along famously. And then the hope of meeting by-and-by and for ever!'

'True to the kindred points of heaven and home.' Surely such loyalty of heart, making a living influence of parents so long in their graves, has been seldom, at least, put on record, though maybe it often and often has existed.

Again, on March 8:--'Such a fit came over me yesterday of old memories.

I was reading a bit of Wordsworth (the poet).

I remembered dear dear Uncle Frank telling me how Wordsworth came over to Ottery, and called on him, and how he felt so honoured; and so I felt on thinking of him, and the old (pet) names, and most of all, of course, of Father and Mother, I seemed to see them all with unusual clearness.

Then I read one of the two little notes I had from Mr. Keble, which live in my "Christian Year," and so I went on dreaming and thinking.

'Yes, if by His mercy I may indeed be brought to the home where they dwell! But as the power of keen enjoyment of this world was never mine, as it is given to bright healthy creatures with eyes and teeth and limbs sound and firm, so I try to remember dear Father's words, that "he did not mean that he was fit to go because there was little that he cared to stop here for." And I don't feel morbid like, only with a diminished capacity for enjoying things here. Of the mere animal pleasures, eating and drinking are a serious trouble. My eyes don't allow me to look about much, and I walk with "unshowing eye turned towards the earth." I don't converse with ease; there is the feeling of difficulty in framing words.

I prefer to be alone and silent. If I must talk, I like the English tongue least of all. Melanesia doesn't have such combinations of consonants and harsh sounds as our vernacular rejoices in. If I speak loud, as in preaching, I am pretty clear still; but I can't read at all properly now without real awkwardness.

'I am delighted with Shairp's "Essays" that Pena sent me. He has the very nature to make him capable of appreciating the best and most thoughtful writers, especially those who have a thoughtful spirit of piety in them. He gives me many a very happy quiet hour. I wish such a book had come in my way while I was young. I more than ever regret that Mr. Keble's "Praelectiones" was never translated into English. I am sure that I have neglected poetry all my life for want of some guide to the appreciation and criticism of it, and that I am the worse for it. If you don't use Uncle Sam's "Biographia Literaria," and "Literary Remains," I should much like to have them.

'Do you, Fan, care to have any of my German books? I have, indeed, scarce any but theological ones. But no one else reads German here, and I read none but the divinity; and, indeed, I almost wish I had them in translations, for the sake of the English type and paper. My eyes don't like the German type at all.

'Moreover, now (it was not so years ago), all that is worth reading in their language is in a good serviceable English dress, and pa.s.sed, moreover, through the minds of clear English thinkers--and the Germans are such wordy, clumsy, involved writers. A man need not be a German scholar to be well acquainted with all useful German theology. Dollinger is almost the only clear, plain writer I know among them. Dorner, the great Lutheran divine, gives you about two pages and a half of close print for a single sentence--awful work, worse than my Englis.h.!.+... But I know that if I read less, and thought more, it would be better. Only it is such hard work thinking, and I am so lazy! I was amused at hearing, through another lad, of Edward Wogale's remark, "This helping in translation" (a revisal of the "Acts" in Mota) "is such hard work!"

"Yes, my boy, brain work takes it out of you." I wish I had Jem's power of writing reports, condensing evidence into clear reliable statements.

Lawyers get that power; while we Clergymen are careless and inaccurate, because, as old Lord Campbell said, "there is no reply to our sermons."

'What would I give to have been well drilled in grammar, and made an accurate scholar in old days! Ottery School and Eton didn't do much for me in that way, though of course the fault was chiefly in myself.

'But most of all, I think that I regret the real loss to us Eton boys of the weekly help that Winchester, Rugby, and Harrow boys had from Moberly, Arnold, and Vaughan in their sermons! I really think that might have helped to keep us out of harm!

'It is now 4.30 P.M., calm and hot. Such a tiger-lily on my table, and the pretty delicate achimenes, and the stephanotis climbing up the verandah, and a bignonia by its side, with honeysuckle all over the steps, and jessamine all over the two water-tanks at the angle of the verandah. The Melanesians have, I think, twenty-nine flower gardens, and they bring the flowers, &c.--lots of flowers, and the oleanders are a sight! Some azaleas are doing well, verbenas, hibiscus of all kinds.

Roses and, alas! clove carnations, and stocks, and many of the dear old cottage things won't grow well. Scarlet pa.s.sion flowers and splendid j.a.panese lilies of perfect white or pink or spotted. The golden one I have not yet dared to buy. They are most beautiful. I like both the red and the yellow tritoma; we have both. But I don't think we have the perfume of the English flowers, and I miss the clover and b.u.t.tercup. And what would I give for an old-fas.h.i.+oned cabbage rose, as big as a saucer, and for fresh violets, which grow here but have little scent, and lilies of the valley! Still more, fancy seeing a Devons.h.i.+re bank in spring, with primroses and daisies, or meadows with cowslip and clover and b.u.t.tercups, and hearing thrushes and blackbirds and larks and cuckoos, and seeing trout rise to the flies on the water! There is much exaggeration in second-rate books about tropical vegetation. You are really much better off than we are. No trees equal English oaks, beeches, and elms, and chestnuts; and with very little expense and some care, you have any flowers you like, growing out of doors or in a greenhouse. You can make a warmer climate, and we can't a colder one.

But we have plenty to look at for all that. There, what a nice hour I have spent in chatting with you!'

This same dreamy kind of 'chat,' full of the past, and of quiet meditation over the present, reminding one of Bunyan's Pilgrims in the Land of Beulah, continues at intervals through the sheets written while waiting for the 'Southern Cross.' Here is a note (March 14) of the teaching:--

'I am working at the Miracles with the second set, and I am able to venture upon serious questions, viz. the connection between sin and physical infirmity or sickness, the Demoniacs, the power of working miracles as essential to the Second Adam, in whom the prerogative of the Man (the ideal man according to the idea of his original condition) was restored. Then we go pretty closely into detail on each miracle, and try to work away till we reach a general principle or law.

'With another cla.s.s I am making a kind of Commentary on St. Luke. With a third, trying to draw out in full the meaning of the Lord's Prayer.

With a fourth, Old Testament history. It is often very interesting; but, apart from all sham, I am a very poor teacher. I can discourse, or talk with equals, but I can't teach. So I don't do justice to these or any other pupils I may chance to have. But they learn something among us all.'

He speaks of himself as being remarkably well and free from the discomforts of illness during the months of March and April: and these letters show perfect peace and serenity of spirit; but his silence and inadequacy for 'small talk' were felt like depression or melancholy by some of his white companions, and he always seemed to feel it difficult to rouse himself. To sit and study his Hebrew Isaiah with Delitzsch's comment was his chief pleasure; and on his birthday, April 1, Easter Eve, and the ensuing holy days, he read over all his Father's letters to him, and dwelt, in the remarks to his sisters, upon their wisdom and tenderness.

Mr. Codrington says: 'Before starting on the voyage he had confirmed some candidates in the Church in town: on which occasion he seemed to rouse himself with difficulty for the walk, and would go by himself; but he was roused again by the service, and gave a spirited and eloquent address, and came back, after a hearty meal and lively conversation, much refreshed in mind and body. This was on Palm Sunday. On Easter Day he held his last confirmation of three girls and two Solomon Island boys.

Then came the 'Southern Cross,' bringing with her from New Zealand a box with numerous books and other treasures, the pillow that the old Bishop of Exeter was leaning on when he died; a photograph, from the Bishop of Salisbury, of his Cathedral, and among the gifts for the younger Melanesians, a large Noah's ark, which elicited great shouts of delight.

'Well! [after mentioning the articles in order] all these things, and still more the thought of the pains taken and the many loving feelings engaged in getting them together, will help me much during the coming months. All the little unexpected things are so many little signs of the care and love you always have for me, and that is more than their own value, after all. I always feel it solemn to go off on these voyages.

We have had such mercies. Fisher is doing quite well, getting about on crutches; and that is the only hospital case we have had during the whole summer.'

Then follows:--

'April 27th.--We start in a few hours (D.V.). The weather is better.

You have my thoughts and hopes and prayers. I am really pretty well: and though often distressed by the thought of past sins and present ones, yet I have a firm trust in G.o.d's mercy through Christ, and a reasonable hope that the Holy Spirit is guiding and influencing me. What more can I say to make you think contentedly and cheerfully about me? G.o.d bless you all!'

So the last voyage was begun. The plan was much the same as usual. On the way to Mota, the Bishop landed on Whitsuntide Island, and there was told that what the people called a 'thief s.h.i.+p' had carried off some of their people. Star Island was found nearly depopulated. On May 16, the Bishop, with Mr. Bice and their scholars, landed at Mota, and the 'Southern Cross' went on with Mr. Brooke to Florida, where he found that the 's.n.a.t.c.h-s.n.a.t.c.h' vessels, as they were there called, had carried off fifty men. They had gone on board to trade, but were instantly clapped under hatches, while tobacco and a hatchet were thrown to their friends in the canoe. Some canoes had been upset by a noose from the vessel, then a gun was fired, and while the natives tried to swim away, a boat was lowered, which picked up the swimmers, and carried them off. One man named Lave, who jumped overboard and escaped, had had two fingers held up to him, which he supposed to mean two months, but which did mean two years.

It was plain that enticing having failed, violence was being resorted to; and Mr. Brooke was left to an anxious sojourn, while Mr. Atkin returned to Mota on his way to his own special charge at Bauro. He says, on June 9:--

'The Bishop had just come back from a week's journeying with William in his boat. They had been to Santa Maria, Vanua Lava, and Saddle Island; the weather was bad, but the Bishop, although he is tired, does not think he is any the worse for his knocking about. He is not at all well; he is in low spirits, and has lost almost all his energy. He said, while talking about the deportation of islanders to Fiji, that he didn't know what was to be done; all this time had been spent in preparing teachers qualified to teach their own people, but now when the teachers were provided, all the people were taken away. The extent to which the carrying off of the natives has gone is startling. It certainly is time for us to think what is to be done next. I do not think that it is an exaggerated estimate, others would say it is under the mark, that one half the population of the Banks Islands over ten years of age have been taken away. I am trying not to expect anything about the Solomon Islands before we are there, but we have heard that several vessels have cargoes from there. If the people have escaped a little longer for their wildness, it will not be for long.

'The Bishop still remained at Mota, while I went back to the Solomon Islanders. The cliffs of Mota, and perhaps the intelligence of the people, had comparatively protected it, though Port Patteson had become a station of the "labour s.h.i.+ps." The village of Kohimarama was not a disappointment.'

Bishop Patteson proceeds:--

'Things are very different. I think that we may, without danger, baptize a great many infants and quite young children--so many parents are actually seeking Christian teaching themselves, or willing to give their children to be taught. I think that some adults, married men, may possibly be baptized. I should think that not less than forty or fifty are daily being taught twice a day, as a distinct set of Catechumens.

Besides this, some of the women seem to be in earnest.

'About two hours and a half are spent daily by me with about twenty-three grown-up men. They come, too, at all hours, in small parties, two or three, to tell their thoughts and feelings, how they are beginning to pray, what they say, what they wish and hope, &c.

'There is more indication than I ever saw here before of a "movement,"

a distinct advance, towards Christianity. The distinction between pa.s.sively listening to our teaching, and accepting it as G.o.d's Word and acting upon it, seems to be clearly felt. I speak strongly and habitually about the necessity of baptism. "He that believeth, and is baptized" &c. Independently of the doctrinal truth about baptism, the call to the heathen man to take some step, to enter into some engagement, to ally himself with a body of Christian believers by some distinct act of his own, needing careful preparation, &c., has a meaning and a value incalculably great.

'"Yes, JESUS is to us all a source of pardon, light, and life, all these treasures are in Him. But he distributes these gifts by His Spirit in His appointed ways. You can't understand or receive the Gospel with a heart clinging to your old ways. And you can't remake your hearts. He must do it, and this is His way of doing it. You must be born again. You must be made new men."

'But why write all this, which is so commonplace?

'I feel more than ever the need of very simple, very short services for ignorant Catechumens.

'They used to throng our morning and evening prayer, perhaps 130 being present, for about that number attend our daily school; but they could not understand one sentence in ten of the Common Prayer-book. And it is bad for people to accustom themselves to a "formal" service. So I have stopped that. We baptized people have our regular service and at the end of my school, held in the dark, 7-8.30 P.M., in the verandah, we kneel down, and I pray extempore, touching the points which have formed the lesson.

'I don't like teaching these adults who can't read a form of private prayer. I try to make them understand that to wish earnestly is to pray; that they must put what they wish for clearly before their own minds, and then pray to G.o.d for it, through Christ. But I must try to supply progressive lessons for the Catechumens and others, with short prayers to be read by the teacher at the end (and beginning, too, perhaps) of the lesson. Much must depend on the individual teacher's unction and force.