Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands Part 73

'How I think of you as I cruise about the old familiar places, and think that you would like to have another trip, and see the old scenes with here and there, thank G.o.d, some little changes for the better. Best love, my dear dear Bishop, to Mrs. Selwyn, William and John.

'Your very affectionate

'J. C. PATTESON.'

About forty, old scholars and new, had been collected and brought back to Mota; where, after landing the Bishop, Captain Jacobs sailed back to Norfolk Island, carrying with him the last letters that were to be received and read as from a living man. All that follow only came in after the telegram which announced that the hand that had written them was resting beneath the Pacific waters. But this was not until it had been granted to him to gather in his harvest in Mota, as will be seen:--

'Mota: July 31, 1871.

'My dearest Sisters,--You will be glad to know that on my return hither after three weeks' absence, I found no diminution of strong earnest feeling among the people. George Sarawia had, indeed, been unable to do very much in the way of teaching 60 or 90 men and women, but he had done his best, and the 100 younger people were going on with their schooling regularly. I at once told the people that those who wished to be baptized must let me know; and out of some 30 or 40 who are all, I think, in earnest, 15, and some few women are to be baptized next Sunday. These will be the first grown-up people, save John Wilgan, baptized in Mota, except a few when in an almost dying state. They think and speak much of the fact that so many of their children have been baptized, they wish to belong to the same set. But I believe them all to be fairly well instructed in the great elementary truths. They can't read; all the teaching is oral, no objection in my eyes. It may be dangerous to admit it, but I am convinced that all that we can do is to elevate some few of the most intelligent islanders well, so that they can teach others, and be content with careful oral teaching for the rest. How few persons even among ourselves know how to use a book! And these poor fellows, for I can only except a percentage of our scholars, have not so completely mastered the mechanical difficulty of reading as to leave their minds free for examination of the meaning and sense of what they read. I don't undervalue a good education, as you know. But I feel that but few of these islanders can ever be book-learned; and I would sooner see them content to be taught plain truths by qualified persons than puzzling themselves to no purpose by the doubtful use of their little learning. You know that I don't want to act the Romish Priest amongst them. I don't want to domineer at all. And I do teach reading and writing to all who come into our regular school, and I make them read pa.s.sages to verify my teaching. At the same time, I feel that the Protestant complaint of "shutting up the Bible from the laity," is the complaint of educated persons, able to read, think, and reflect.

'The main difficulty is, of course, to secure a supply of really competent teachers. George, Edward, Henry, Robert, and some three or four others are trustworthy. I comfort myself by thinking that a great many of the mediaeval Clergy certainly did not know as much nor teach as well.

'Yesterday I baptized 41 more children and infants on again an unpropitious day. I was obliged to leave 42 to be baptized at some future time. The rain poured down. The people will bring them over to-morrow. The whole number of infants and children will amount to 230 or more, of adults to perhaps 25 or 30. You will pray earnestly for them that they may lead the rest of their lives "according to this beginning."

'There is much talk, something more than talk, I think, about putting up a large church-house here, on this side of the island (north-west side) and of a school-house, for church also, on the south-east side.

'We have all heavy coughs and colds; and I have had two or three very disturbed nights, owing to the illness of one of the many babies. The little thing howls all night.

'All our means of housing people are exhausted. People flock here for the sake of being taught. Four new houses have been built, three are being built. We shall have a large Christian village here soon, I hope and trust. At present every place is crammed, and 25 or 30 sleep on the verandah. The little cooking house holds somehow or other about 24 boys; they pack close, not being burdened with clothes and four-posters. I sleep on a table, people under and around it. I am very well, barring this heavy cold and almost total loss of voice for a few hours in the morning and evening.

'August 1st.--Very tired 7 A.M., Prayers 7.20-8.20, school 8.20-10; baptized 55 infants and young children. Now it is past 1; a boisterous day, though as yet no rain. I had a cup of cocoa at 6.30, and at 10.30 a plate of rice and a couple of eggs, nice clean fare. The weather is against me, so cold, wet, and so boisterous. I got a good night though, for I sent Mrs. Rhoda and her squalling baby to another house, and so slept quietly.

'I am sorry that teaching is so irksome to me. I am, in a sense, at it all day. But there is so much to be done, and the people, worthy souls, have no idea that one can ever be tired. After I was laid down on my table, with my air-pillow under my head and my plaid over me, I woke up from a doze to find the worthy Tanoagnene sitting with his face towards me, waiting for a talk about the rather comprehensive subject of Baptism.

'And at all odd times I ought to be teaching George and others how to teach, the hardest work of all. I think what a life a real pedagogue must have of it. There is so much variety with me, so much change and holiday, and so much that has its special interest.

'The "Southern Cross" has been gone a week. I hope they have not this kind of weather. If they have, they are getting a good knocking about, and they number about 55 on board.

'August 6th.--To-day there is no rain, for the first time for weeks. It blew a heavy gale all night, and had done so with heavy rain for some days before.

'At 8 A.M. to-day I baptized 14 grown men, one an old bald man, and another with a son of sixteen or so, five women and six lads, taught entirely in George's school. Afterwards, at a different service, 7 infants and little children were baptized. 238 + 5 who have died have now been baptized since the beginning of July. To-day's service was very comforting. I pray and trust that these grown-up men and women may be kept steadfast to their profession. It is a great blessing that I could think it right to take this step. You will, I know, pray for them; their position is necessarily a difficult one.

'It is 2 P.M., and I feel tired: the crowds are gone, though little fellows are as usual sitting all round one. I tell them I can't talk; I must sit quietly, with Charlotte Yonge's "Pupils of St. John the Divine." Dear me, what advantage young folks have nowadays, though indeed the dangers of these times far outweigh those of our young days.

'I suppose Lightfoot's "Commentaries" hardly come in your way. They are critical and learned on the Greek of St. Paul's Epistles. But there are dissertations which may be read by the English reader. He seems to me to be a very valuable man, well fitted by his learning, and moderation, and impartiality, and uncontroversial temper to do much good. His sympathies with the modern school of thought are, I fancy, beyond me.

'There is no doubt that Matthew Arnold says much that is true of the narrowness, bigotry, and jealous un-Christian temper of Puritanism; and I suppose no one doubts that they do misrepresent the true doctrine of Christianity, both by their exclusive devotion to one side only of the teaching of the Bible, and by their misconception of their own favourite portions of Scripture. The doctrine of the Atonement was never in ancient times, I believe, drawn out in the form in which Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and others have lately stated it.

'The fact of the Atonement through the Death of Christ was always clearly stated; the manner, the "why," the "how" man's Redemption and Reconciliation to G.o.d is thus brought about, was not taught, if at all, after the Protestant fas.h.i.+on.

'Oxenham's "History of the Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement" is a fairly-written statement of what was formerly held and taught. Such words as "subst.i.tution," "satisfaction," with all the ideas introduced into the subject from the use of ill.u.s.trations, e.g. of criminals acquitted, debts discharged, have perplexed it perhaps, rather than explained, what must be beyond explanation.

'The ultra-Calvinistic view becomes in the mind and language of the hot-headed ignorant fanatic a denial of G.o.d's Unity. "The merciful Son appeasing the wrath of the angry Father" is language which implies two Wills, two Counsels in the Divine Mind (compare with this John iii. 16).

I suppose that an irreverent man, being partly disgusted with the popular theology, having no scruples about putting aside Inspiration, &c., and conceiving that he himself is an adequate representative of the nineteenth century's intelligence, and that the nineteenth century's intelligence is most profound and infallible, sets to work to demolish what is distasteful to himself, and what the unerring criticism of the day rejects, correcting St. Paul's mistakes, patronising him whenever he is fortunate enough to receive the approbation of the great thinkers of our day, and so constructs a vague "human" religion out of the Christianity which he criticises, eliminating all that lies beyond the speculative range of the mind, and that demands a.s.sent by its own authority as G.o.d's Revelation. I don't know how to state briefly what I mean.

'I think I can understand that this temper of mind is very prevalent in England now, and that I can partly trace the growth of it. Moreover, I feel that to ignore, despise, or denounce it, will do no good.

'As a matter of fact, thousands of educated men are thinking on these great matters as our fathers did not think of them. Simplicity of belief is a great gift; but then the teaching submitted to such simple believers ought to be true, otherwise the simple belief leads them into error. How much that common Protestant writers and preachers teach is not true! Perhaps some of their teaching is untrue absolutely, but it is certainly untrue relatively, because they do not hold the "proportion of the faith," and by excluding some truths and presenting others in an extravagant form they distort the whole body of truth.

'But when a man not only points out some of the popular errors, but claims to correct St. Paul when he Judaizes, and to do a little judicious h.e.l.lenizing for an inspired Apostle, one may well distrust the nineteenth century tone and spirit.

'I do really and seriously think that a great and reverently-minded man, conscious of the limits of human reason--a man like Butler--would find his true and proper task now in presenting Christian teaching in an unconventional form, stripped of much error that the terms which we all employ when speaking doctrine seem unavoidably to carry with them.

'Such a man might ask, "What do you mean by your theory of Subst.i.tution, Satisfaction, &c.?" "Where do you find it?" "Prove it logically from the Bible." "Show that the early Church held it."

'Butler, as you know, reproved the curiosity of men who sought to find out the manner of the Atonement. "I do not find," he says, "that it is declared in the Scriptures." He believed the fact, of course, as his very soul's treasure. "Our ignorance," he says, "is the proper answer to such enquiries."

'At the same time, no one now can do, it seems, what another Butler might do, viz., deal with the Bible as the best of the nineteenth-century men wish to hear a divine deal with it. He would never make mere a.s.sertions. He would never state as a proved truth, to be presented to a congregation's acceptance, a statement or a doctrine which really equalled only an opinion of Wesley or any other human teacher. He would never make arbitrary quotations from Scripture, and try to prove points by illogical reasoning, and unduly pressing texts which a more careful collation of MSS. has shown to be at least doubtful. And by fairness and learning he would win or conciliate right-minded men of the critical school. What offends these men is the cool reckless way in which so many preachers make the most audacious statements, wholly unsupported by any sound learning and logical reasoning. A man makes a statement, quotes a text or two, which he doesn't even know to be capable of at least one interpretation different from that which he gives to it; and so the critical hearer is disgusted, and no wonder.

'One gain of this critical spirit is, that it makes all of us Clergy more circ.u.mspect in what we say, and many a man looks at his Greek Testament nowadays, and at a good Commentary too, before he ventures to quote a text which formerly would have done duty in its English dress and pa.s.sed muster among an uncritical congregation. Nowadays every clergyman knows that there are probably men in his congregation who know their Bible better than he does, and as practical lawyers, men of business, &c., are more than his match at an argument. It offends such men to have a shallow-minded preacher taking for granted the very points that he ought to prove, giving a sentence from some divine of his school as if it settled the question without further reference even to the Bible.

'This critical spirit becomes very easily captious; and a man needn't be unbelieving because he doesn't like to be credulous. Campbell's book on the Atonement is very hard, chiefly because the man writes such unintelligible English. I think Shairp in his "Essays," gives a good critique as far as it goes on the philosophical and religious manner of our day.

'Alexander Knox says somewhere in his correspondence with Bishop Jebb that he couldn't understand the Protestant theory of Justification. And it does seem to be often stated as if the terms employed in describing a mere transaction could adequately convey the true power and meaning of a Divine mystery.

'But I only puzzle you, I dare say, and certainly I am liable to the charge of not writing intelligible English. I can tell you I am glad enough that I am not called on to preach on these subjects after the fas.h.i.+on that a preacher in England must go to work.

'It is a cool thing to say, but I do believe that what half our English congregations want is just the plain simple teaching that our Melanesians get, only the English congregations wouldn't stand it.'

A letter to Arthur Coleridge is of the same date:--

'Mota Island: August 6, 1871--

'My dear Arthur,--I have had a busy day, having baptized thirty-two persons, of whom twenty-five are adults; and then the crowd, the incessant talking, teaching, and the anxious feeling which attend any step of so much importance as the Baptism from heathenism. Fourteen of the men are married, two are elderly, several are middle-aged, five women are among the number. I believe that G.o.d's spirit is indeed working in the hearts of these people. Some twelve or thirteen years have pa.s.sed, and only now have I felt that I could take the step of baptizing the infants and young children here, the parents promising that they shall be sent to school as they grow up. About 200 young children have during the past month been baptized: things seem hopeful.

It is very happy work; and I get on pretty well, often very tired, but that doesn't matter.

'I could wish all my good friends were here, that those who have been enabled to contribute to this end might see for themselves something of the long hoped for beginning of a new state of things in this little island.

'August 11.--In a little more than a month 248 persons have been baptized here, twenty-five of them adults, the rest infants and young children. I am very sorry to think that I must leave them soon, for I expect the "Southern Cross" in a few days; and I must go to the Solomon Islands, from them to Santa Cruz Island, and so to Norfolk Island, calling here on the way. Then I am off to the Fiji Islands for, I suppose, a month or six weeks. There are some 6,000 or 7,000 white people there, and it is a.s.sumed by them and the Church people in this part of the world that I must be regarded as their Bishop. Very soon a separate Bishop ought to be at work there, and I shall probably have to make some arrangement with the settlers. Then, on the other hand, I want to look into the question of South Sea Islanders who are taken to the Fiji plantations.

'How far I can really examine into the matter, I hardly know. But many of the settlers invite me to consider the matter with them.

'I believe that for the most part the islanders receive good treatment when on the plantations, but I know that many of them are taken away from their islands by unfair means.

'The settlers are only indirectly responsible for this. The traders and sailing masters of the vessels who take away the islanders are the most culpable. But the demand creates the supply.

'Among all my multifarious occupations here, I have not much time for reading; I am never alone night or day. I sleep on a table, with some twelve or more fellows around me; and all day long people are about me, in and out of school hours. But I have read, for the third time I think, Lightfoot's "Galatians"--and I am looking forward to receiving his book on the Ephesians. He doesn't lay himself out to do exactly the work that Bishop Ellicott has done so excellently, and his dissertations are perhaps the most valuable part of his work. He will gain the ear of the men of this generation, rather than Ellicott; he sympathises more with modern modes of thought, and is less rigid than Ellicott. But he seems very firm on all the most essential and primary points, and I am indeed thankful for such a man. I don't find much time for difficult reading; I go on quietly, Hebrew, &c. I have many good books on both Old and New Testaments, English and German, and some French, e.g. Keuss and Guizot.

'I like to hear something of what this restless speculative scientific generation is thinking and doing. But I can't read with much pleasure the fragmentary review literature of the day. The "Cornhill" and that cla.s.s of books I can't stand, and sketchy writings. The best specimens of light reading I have seen of late are Charlotte Yonge's "Pupils of St. John the Divine," and Guizot's "St. Louis," excellent.

'I did read, for it was put on board, Disraeli's novel. I was on my back sea-sick for four days; what utter rubbis.h.!.+ clever nonsense! And I have read Mr. Arnold's "St. Paul and Protestantism." He says some clever things about the Puritan mind, no doubt. But what a painful book it is: can't he see that he is reducing all that the spirit of a man must needs rest on to the level of human criticism? simply eliminating from the writings of the Apostles, and I suppose from the words of the Saviour, all that is properly and strictly Divine.--[Then follows much that has been before given.]--How [winding up thus] thankful I am that I am far away from the noise and worry of this sceptical yet earnest age!