Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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'April 12.--Settled that I stop at Lifu in the interval between the
two voyages. I think Lifu wants me more than any other island just
now. Some 15,000 or 20,000 stretching out their hands to God. The
London Mission (Independent) sent Samoan teachers long ago, but no
missionary, even after frequent applications. At last they applied
personally to the Bishop, he being well known to them of old. I
can't go for good, because I have of course to visit all these
islands; but I shall try to spend all the time that I am not at sea
or with boys in New Zealand, perhaps three months yearly, with them,
till they can be provided with a regular clergyman.

'So I shall have no letters from you till the return of the vessel to
pick me up in September. But be sure you think of me as very happy
and well cared for, though, I am glad to say, not a white man on the
island; lots of work, but I shall take much exercise and see most of
the inhabitants. The island is large, not so large as Bauro, but
still large.

'You will say all that is kind to all relations, Buckerell, etc.
Thank the dear old vicar for the spurs, and tell him that I had a
battle royal the other day with a colonial steed, which backed into
the bush, and kicked, and played the fool amazingly, till I
considerably astonished him into a gallop, in the direction I wanted
to go, by a vigorous application of the said spurs.

'God bless and keep you all.

'Your loving

'J. C. PATTESON.'

A few days later he writes:--

'The "Southern Cross," returning to Lifu, will bring my letters; but
unless a stray whaler comes to Lifu while I am there, on its way to
Sydney, that will be the only exchange of letters. I am afraid this
will be an increase of the trial of separation to you all, but it is
not sent until you have learnt to do pretty well without me, and you
will be comforted by knowing that this island of Lifu, with many
inhabitants, is in a very critical state; that what it most wants is
a missionary, and that as far as I am concerned, all the people will
be very anxious to do all they can for me. I take a filter and some
tea. We shall have yams, taro, cocoa-nuts, occasionally a bit of
turtle, a fowl, or a bit of pork. So, you see, I shall live like an
alderman; I mean, if I am to go to every part of the island, heathen
and all. Perhaps 20,000 people, scattered over many miles. I say
heathen and all, because only a very small number of the people now
refuse to admit the new teaching. Samoans have been for some time on
the island, and though, I dare say, their teaching has been very
imperfect and only perhaps ten or fifteen people are baptized, they
have chapels, and are far advanced beyond any of the islands except
Nengone and Toke, always excepting Anaiteum. Hence it is thought the
leaven may work quietly in the Solomon Islands without me, but that
at Lifu they really require guidance. So now I have a parochial
charge for three months of an island about twenty-five miles long and
some sixteen or eighteen broad.

'I feel that my letters, after so long an absence, may contain much
to make me anxious, so that I shall not look with unmixed pleasure to
my return to my great packet; yet I feel much less anxiety than you
might imagine; I know well that you are in God's keeping, and that is
enough.'

After just touching at Nengone early in May the 'Southern Cross' went
on to Lifu, and on landing, the Bishop and Mr. Patteson found a
number of people ready to receive them, and to conduct them to the
village, where the chief and a great number of people were drawn up
in a half-circle to receive them. The young chief, Angadhohua, bowed
and touched his hat, and taking Coley's hand, held it, and whispered,
'We will always live together.'

'By and by we will talk about it,' was the answer; and they were
taken to a new house, belonging to one of the Samoans, built of lath
plastered and thatch, with one large room and a lesser one at each of
its angles. There the Bishop and Mr. Patteson sat on a chest, and
seventy or eighty men squatted on mats, John Cho and the native
teacher foremost. There was a five minutes' pause. Lifu was not yet
familiar to Coley, who spoke it less well than he had spoken German,
and John Cho said to him: 'Shall I tell them what you have said to me
formerly?'

He then explained that Mr. Patteson could only offer them a visit of
three or four months, and would then have the charge of lads from
'dark isles.'

Silence again; then Angadhohua asked: 'Cannot you stop always?'

'There are many difficulties which you cannot understand, which
prevent me. Would you like me to shut the door which God has opened
to so many dark lands?'

'No, no; but why not have the summer school here as well as the
winter?'

'Because it does the lads good to see New Zealand,, and because the
Bishop, who knows better than I do, thinks it right.'

'And cannot we have a missionary?'

However, they were forced to content themselves with all that could
be granted to them, and it was further explained that Mr. Patteson
would not supersede the native teachers, nor assume the direction of
the Sunday services, only keep a school which any one might join who
liked. This was felt to be only right in good faith to the London
Mission, in order not to make dire confusion if they should be able
to fill up the gap before the Church could.

After sleeping in the house, Patteson produced the books that had
been printed for them at St. John's.

'Would that you could have seen their delight! About two pages,
indifferently printed, was all they had hitherto. Now they saw
thirty-two clearly printed 8vo. pages of Bible History, sixteen of
prayers, rubrics, &c., eight of questions and answers. "You see,"
said I cunningly; "that we don't forget you during these months that
I can't live among you."'

They began reading at once, and crying, 'Excellent, exactly right,
the very thing.'

It was thought good that some one from Lifu should join the Mission
party and testify to their work, and on the invitation, the chief,
Angadhohua, a bright youth of seventeen, volunteered to go. It was
an unexampled thing that a chief should be permitted by his people to
leave them, there was a public meeting about it, and a good deal of
excitement, but it ended in Cho, as spokesman, coming forward with
tears in his eyes, saying, 'Yes, it is right he should go, but bring
him back soon. What shall we do?'

Patteson laid his hand on the young chief's shoulder, answering, 'God
can guard him by sea as on land, and with His blessing we will bring
him back safe to you. Let some of the chiefs go with him to protect
him. I will watch over him, but you may choose whom you will to
accompany him.'

So five chiefs were selected as a body-guard for the young
Angadhohua, who was prince of all the isle, but on an insecure
tenure, for the French, in New Caledonia, were showing a manifest
inclination to annex the Loyalty group.

The heavily loaded boat had a perilous strife with the surf before
the ship was reached, and it was a very rough passage to Anaiteum,
where some goods had to be left for Mr. Inglis, and he asked that
four Fate visitors might be taken home. This was done, and Mr.
Grordon was visited at Erromango on the way, and found well and
prosperous.

At Mai, the reception of Petere and Laure was ecstatic. There was a
crowd on shore to meet them, and on the two miles' walk to the
village parties met, hugged, and wept over them. At the village Mr.
Patteson addressed the people for ten minutes, and Petere made an
animated exposition of what he had learnt, and his speeches evidently
had great effect. His younger brother and two little boys all came
in his stead, and would form part of the winter school at Lifu.

The Espiritu Santo boy, the dunce of the party, was set down at home,
and the Banks Islanders were again found pleasant, honest, and
courteous, thinking, as it appeared afterwards, that the white men
were the departed spirits of deceased friends. A walk inland at
Vanua Lava disclosed pretty villages nestling under banyan trees, one
of them provided with a guest-chamber for visitors from other
islands. Two boys, Sarawia and another, came away to be scholars at
Lifu, as well as his masters in the language, of which he as yet
scarcely knew anything, but which he afterwards found the most
serviceable of all these various dialects.

The 26th of May brought the vessel to Bauro, where poor old Iri was
told of the death of his son, and had a long talk with Mr. Patteson,
beginning with, 'Do you think I shall see him again?' It was a talk
worth having, though it was purchased by spending a night in the
house with the rats.

It seemed as though the time were come for calling on the Baurese to
cease to be passive, and sixty or seventy men and women having come
together, Mr. Patteson told them that he did not mean to go on merely
taking their boys to return them with heaps of fish-hooks and knives,
but that, unless they cared for good teaching, to make them good and
happy here and hereafter, he should not come like a trader or a
whaler. That their sons should go backwards and forwards and learn,
but to teach at home; and that they ought to build a holy house,
where they might meet to pray to God and learn His will.

Much of this was evidently distasteful, though they agreed to build a
room.

'I think,' he writes, 'that the trial stage of the work has arrived.
This has less to attract outwardly than the first beginning of all,
and as here they must take a definite part, they (the great majority
who are not yet disposed to decide for good) are made manifest, and
the difficulty of displacing evil customs is more apparent.'

In fact, these amiable, docile Baurese seemed to have little
manliness or resolution of character, and Sumaro, a scholar of 1857,
was especially disappointing, for he pretended to wish to come and
learn at Lifu, but only in order to get a passage to Gera, where he
deserted, and was well lectured for his deceit.

The Gera people were much more warlike and turbulent, and seemed to
have more substance in them, though less apt at learning. Patteson
spent the night on shore at Perua, a subsidiary islet in the bay,
sleeping in a kind of shed, upon two boards, more comfortably than
was usual on these occasions. Showing confidence was one great
point, and the want of safe anchorage in the bay was much regretted,
because the people could not understand why the vessel would not come
in, and thought it betokened mistrust. Many lads wished to join the
scholars, but of those who were chosen, two were forced violently
overboard by their friends, and only two eventually remained, making
a total of twelve pupils for the winter school at Lifu, with five
languages between them --seven with the addition of the Nengone and
Lifu scholars.

'You see,' writes Patteson on June 10, on the voyage, 'that our
difficulty is in training and organising nations, raising them from
heathenism to the life, morally and socially, of a Christian. This
is what I find so hard. The communication of religious truth by word
of mouth is but a small part of the work. The real difficulty is to
do for them what parents do for their children, assist them to--nay,
almost force upon them--the practical application of Christian
doctrine. This descends to the smallest matters, washing, scrubbing,
sweeping, all actions of personal cleanliness, introducing method and
order, habits of industry, regularity, giving just notions of
exchange, barter, trade, management of criminals, division of labour.
To do all this and yet not interfere with the offices of the chief,
and to be the model and pattern of it, who is sufficient for it?'

On June 16, Mr. Patteson was landed at Lifu, for his residence there,
with the five chiefs, his twelve boys, and was hospitably welcomed to
the large new house by the Samoan. He and four boys slept in one of
the corner rooms, the other eight lads in another, the Rarotongan
teacher, Tutoo, and his wife in a third. The central room was
parlour, school, and hall, and as it had four unglazed windows, and
two doors opposite to each other, and the trade-wind always blowing,
the state of affairs after daylight was much like that which
prevailed in England when King Alfred invented lanterns, while in the
latter end of June the days were, of course, as short as they could
be on the tropic of Capricorn, so that Patteson got up in the dark at
5-30 in the morning.

At 7 the people around dropped in for prayers, which he thought it
better not to conduct till his position was more defined. Then came
breakfast upon yams cooked by being placed in a pit lined with heated
stones, with earth heaped over the top. Mr. and Mrs. Tutoo, with
their white guest, sat at the scrap of a table, 'which, with a small
stool, was the only thing on four legs in the place, except an
occasional visitor in the shape of a pig.' Then followed school.
Two hundred Lifu people came, and it was necessary to hold it in the
chapel. One o'clock, dinner on yams, and very rarely on pig or a
fowl, baked or rather done by the same process; and in the afternoon
some reading and slate work with the twelve Melanesians, and likewise
some special instruction to a few of the more promising Lifuites. At
6.30, another meal of yams, but this time Patteson had recourse to
his private store of biscuit; and the evening was spent in talk, till
bedtime at 9 or 9.30. It was a thorough sharing the native life; but
after a few more experiments, it was found that English strength
could not be kept up on an exclusive diet of yams, and the Loyalty
Isles are not fertile. They are nothing but rugged coral, in an
early stage of development; great ridges, upheaved, bare and broken,
and here and there with pits that have become filled with soil enough
to grow yams and cocoa-nuts.

The yams--except those for five of the lads, whose maintenance some
of the inhabitants had undertaken--were matter of purchase, and
formed the means of instruction in the rules of lawful exchange. A
fixed weight of yams were to constitute prepayment for a pair of
trousers, a piece of calico, a blanket, tomahawk, or the like, and
all this was agreed to, Cho being a great assistance in explaining
and dealing with his people. But it proved very difficult to keep
them up to bringing a sufficient supply, and as they had a full share
of the universal spirit of haggling, the commissariat was a very
harassing and troublesome business, and as to the boys, it was
evident that the experiment was not successful. Going to New Zealand
was seeing the world. Horses, cows, sheep, a town, soldiers, &c.,
were to be seen there, whereas Lifu offered little that they could
not see at home, and schooling without novelty was tedious. Indeed,
the sight of civilised life, the being taken to church, the kindness
of the friends around the College, were no slight engines in their
education; but the Lifu people were not advanced enough to serve as
an example--except that they had renounced the more horrible of their
heathen habits. They were in that unsettled state which is
peculiarly trying in the conversion of nations, when the old
authoritative customs have been overthrown, and the Christian rules
not established.

It was a good sign that the respect for the chief was not diminished.
One evening an English sailor (for there turned out to be three
whites on the island) who was employed in the sandal-wood trade was
in the house conversing with Tutoo, when Angadhohua interrupted him,
and he--in ignorance of the youth's rank--pushed him aside out of the
way. The excitement was great. A few years previously the offender
would have been killed on the spot, and as it was, it was only after
apology and explanation of his ignorance that he was allowed to go
free; but an escort was sent with him to a place twenty miles off
lest any one should endeavour to avenge the insult, not knowing it
had been forgiven.

Many of the customs of these Loyalty Isles are very unhealthy, and
the almost exclusive vegetable diet produced a low habit of body,
that showed itself in all manner of scrofulous diseases, especially
tumours, under which the sufferer wasted and died. Much of
Patteson's time was taken up by applications from these poor
creatures, who fancied him sure to heal them, and had hardly the
power, certainly not the will, to follow his advice.

Nor had he any authority. He only felt himself there on sufferance
till the promised deputation should come from Rarotonga from the
London Mission, to decide whether the island should be reserved by
them, or yielded to the Church. Meantime he says on Sunday:--

'Tutoo has had a pretty hard day's work of it, poor fellow, and he is
anything but strong. At 9.30 we all went to the chapel, which began
by a hymn sung as roughly as possible, but having rather a fine
effect from the fact of some 400 or 500 voices all singing in unison.
Then a long extemporary prayer, then another hymn, then a sermon
nearly an hour long. It ought not to have taken more than a quarter
of an hour, but it was delivered very slowly, with endless
repetitions, otherwise there was some order and arrangement about it.
Another hymn brought the service to an end about 11. But his work
was not done; school instantly succeeded in the same building, and
though seven native teachers were working their classes, the burthen
of it fell on him. School was concluded with a short extemporary
prayer. At three, service again--hymn, prayer, another long sermon,
hymn, and at last we were out of chapel, there being no more school.'

'To be sure,' is the entry on another Sunday, 'little thought I of
old that Sunday after Sunday I should frequent an Independent chapel.
As for extemporary prayer not being a form, that is absurd. These
poor fellows just repeat their small stock of words over and over
again, and but that they are evidently in earnest, it would seem
shockingly irreverent sometimes. Most extravagant expressions!
Tutoo is a very simple, humble-minded man, and I like him much. He
would feel the help and blessing of a Prayer-book, poor fellow, to be
a guide to him; but even the Lord's Prayer is never heard among
them.'

So careful was Mr. Patteson not to offend the men who had first
worked on these islands, that on one Sunday when Tutoo was ill, he
merely gave a skeleton of a sermon to John Cho to preach. On the
27th of July, however, the deputation arrived in the 'John Williams'-
-two ministers, and Mr. Creagh on his way back to Nengone, and the
upshot of the conference on board, after a dinner in the house of
Apollo, the native teacher, was that as they had no missionary for
Lifu, they made no objection to Mr. Patteson working there at
present, and that if in another year they received no reinforcement
from home, they would take into consideration the making over their
teachers to him. 'My position is thus far less anomalous, my
responsibility much increased. God will, I pray and trust,
strengthen me to help the people and build them up in the faith of
Christ.'

'August 2.--Yesterday I preached my two first Lifu sermons; rather
nervous, but I knew I had command of the language enough to explain
my meaning, and I thought over the plan of my sermons and selected
texts. Fancy your worthy son stuck up in a pulpit, without any mark
of the clergyman save white tie and black coat, commencing service
with a hymn, then reading the second chapter of St. Matthew, quite
new to them, then a prayer, extemporary, but practically working in,
I hope, the principle and much of the actual language of the Prayer-
book--i.e. Confession, prayer for pardon, expression of belief and
praise--then another hymn, the sermon about forty minutes. Text: "I
am the Way," &c. Afternoon: "Thy Word is a lantern unto my feet."

'You can easily understand how it was simple work to point out that a
man lost his way by his sin, and was sent out from dwelling with God;
the recovery of the way by which we may again return to Paradise is
practically the one great event which the whole Bible is concerned in
teaching. The subject admitted of any amount of illustration and any
amount of reference to the great facts of Scripture history, and
everything converges to the Person of Christ. I wish them to see
clearly the great points--first, God's infinite love, and the great
facts by which He has manifested His Love from the very first, till
the coming of Christ exhibited most clearly the infinite wisdom and
love by which man's return to Paradise has been effected.

'Significant is that one word to the thief on the Cross "Paradise."
The way open again; the guardian angel no longer standing with
flaming sword in the entrance; admission to the Tree of Life.'

'The services were much shorter than usual, chiefly because I don't
stammer and bungle, and take half an hour to read twenty verses of
the Bible, and also because I discarded all the endless repetitions
and unmeaning phrases, which took up half the time of their unmeaning
harangues. About an hour sufficed for the morning-service; the
evening one might have been a little longer. I feel quite at my ease
while preaching, and John told me it was all very clear; but the
prayers--oh! I did long for one of our Common Prayer-books.'

One effect of the Independent system began to reveal itself strongly.
How could definite doctrines be instilled into the converts by
teachers with hardly any books, and no formula to commit to memory?
What was the faith these good Samoans knew and taught?

'No doctrinal belief exists among them,' writes Patteson, in the
third month of his stay. 'A man for years has been associated with
those who are called "the people that seek Baptism." He comes to
me:--

'J. G. P. 'Who instituted baptism?

'A. Jesus.

'J. G. P. And He sent His Apostles to baptize in the Name of Whom?

'Dead silence.

'"Why do you wish to be baptized?"

'"To live."

'"All that Jesus has done for us, and given to us, and taught us, is
for that object. What is the particular benefit we receive in
baptism?" 'No conception.' Such is their state.

'I would not hesitate if I thought there were any implicit
recognition of the doctrine of the Trinity; but I can't baptize
people morally good who don't know the Name into which they are to be
baptized, who can't tell me that Jesus is God and man. There is a
lad who soon must die of consumption, whom I now daily examine. He
has not a notion of any truth revealed from above, and to be embraced
and believed as truth upon the authority of God's Word. A kind of
vague morality is the substitute for the Creed of the Apostles. What
am I to do? I did speak out for three days consecutively pretty
well, but I am alone, and only here for four months, and yet, I fear,
I am expecting too much from them, and that I ought to be content
with something much less as the (so to speak) qualifications; but
surely they ought to repent and believe. To say the word, "I
believe," without a notion of what they believe, surely that won't
do. They must be taught, and then baptized, according to our Lord's
command, suited for adults.'

Constant private teaching to individuals was going on, and the 250
copies of the Lifu primer were dispersed where some thousands were
wanted, and Mr. Patteson wrote a little book of sixteen pages,
containing the statement of the outlines of the faith, and of
Scripture history; but this could not be dispersed till it had been
printed in New Zealand.

And in the meantime a fresh element of perplexity was arising. The
French had been for some time past occupying New Caledonia, and a
bishop had been sent thither about the same time as Bishop Selwyn had
gone to New Zealand; but though an earnest and hardworking man, he
had never made much progress. He had the misfortune of being
connected in the people's minds with French war ships and aggression,
and, moreover, the South Sea race seem to have a peculiar distaste
for the Roman Catholic branch of the Church, for which it is not easy
to account.

The Loyalty Isles, as lying so near to New Caledonia, were tempting
to the French Empire, and the Bishop at the same time felt it his
duty to attempt their conversion.

Some priests had been placed at the north end of the island for about
six months past, but the first communication was a letter on July 6,
complaining, partly in French, partly in English, that since Mr.
Patteson's arrival, the people had been making threatening reports.
Now Mr. Patteson had from the first warned them against showing any
unkindness to the French priests, and he wrote a letter of
explanation, and arranged to go and hold a conference. On the way,
while supping with the English sailor, at the village where he was to
sleep, he heard a noise, and found the Frenchman, Pere Montrouzier,
had arrived. He was apparently about forty; intelligent, very
experienced in mission work, and conversant with the habits and
customs of French and English in the colonies; moreover, with plenty
of firmness in putting forward his cause. He seems to have been
supported by the State in a manner unusual with French missions.