Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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

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'Many and many a time was I the recipient of his thoughts, walking
with him up and down the lawn in front of the cottage buildings of an
evening, when he would try to talk himself clear. You may imagine
what a willing listener I was, whatever he chose to talk upon, and he
often spoke very freely to me, I being for a long time his only
resident white companion. It was not long before I felt I knew his
father well, and reverenced him deeply. He never was tired of
talking of his home, and of former days at Eton and Oxford, and then
while travelling on the Continent. Often and often during those
early voyages have I stood or sat by his side on the deck of the
"Southern Cross," as in the evening, after prayers, he stood there
for hours, dressed in his clerical attire, all but the grey tweed
cap, one hand holding the shrouds, and looking out to windward like a
man who sees afar off all the scenes he was describing.'

Thinking over those times since, one understands better far than one
did at the time the reality of the sacrifice he had made in devoting
himself for life to a work so far away from those he loved best on
earth.

The Bishop of Wellington, for to that see Archdeacon Abraham had been
consecrated while in England, arrived early in March, and made a
short stay at the College, during which he confirmed eleven and
baptized one of Patteson's flock. Mrs. Abraham and her little boy
remained at the College, while her husband went on to prepare for her
at Wellington, and thus there was much to make the summer a very
pleasant one, only chequered by frequent anxieties about the health
of the pupils, as repeated experiments made it apparent that the
climate of St. John's was too cold for them. Another anxiety was
respecting Lifu for the London Missionary Society, had, after all,
undertaken to supply two missionaries from England, and it was a most
doubtful and delicate question whether the wishes of the natives or
the established principle of noninterference with pre-occupied
ground, ought to have most weight. The Primate was so occupied by
New Zealand affairs that he wrote to Mr. Patteson to decide it
himself and he could but wait to be guided by circumstances on the
spot.

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
tn 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.