Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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'Your affectionate Cousin,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Before the old year was out came the tidings of the death of good
Miss Neill, the governess whom Patteson had so faithfully loved from
early childhood, and whose years of suffering he had done his best to
cheer. 'At rest at last.' In the same letter, in answer to some
complaint from his sister of want of detail in the reports, he says:
'Am I trying to make my life commonplace? Well, really so it is more
or less to me. Things go on in a kind of routine. Two voyages a
year, five months in New Zealand, though certainly two-thirds of my
flock fresh every year. I suppose it still sounds strange to you
sometimes, and to others always, but they should try to think for
themselves about our circumstances.

'And you know, Fan, I can't write for the world at large anecdotes of
missionary life, and swell the number of the "Gems" and other trashy
books. If people who care to know, would think of what their own
intuition tells them of human nature, and history tells them of
heathenism, they can make out some notion of real missionary work.

'The school is the real work. Teaching adults to read a strange
tongue is hard work; I have little doubt but that the Bishop is right
in saying they must be taught English; but it is so very difficult a
language, not spelt a bit as pronounced; and their language is all
vocalic and so easy to put into writing.

'But if you like I will scatter anecdotes about--of how the Bishop
and his chaplain took headers hand in hand off the schooner and
roundhouse; and how the Bishop got knocked over at Leper's Island by
a big wave; and how I borrowed a canoe at Tariko and paddled out yams
as fast as the Bishop brought them to our boat, &c.--but this is
rubbish.'

This letter is an instance of the reserve and reticence which Mr.
Patteson felt so strongly with regard to his adventures and pupils.
He could not endure stories of them to become, as it were, stock for
exciting interest at home. There was something in his nature that
shrank from publishing accounts of individual pupils as a breach of
confidence, as much, or perhaps even more, than if they had been
English people, likely to know what had been done. Moreover,
instances had come to his knowledge in which harm had been done to
both teachers and taught by their becoming aware that they were shown
off to the public in print. Such things had happened even where they
would have seemed not only unlikely, but impossible; and this
rendered him particularly cautious in writing of his work, so that
his reports were often dry, while he insisted strongly on his letters
to his family being kept private.

The actual undertakings of the Mission did not exceed its resources,
so that there was no need for those urgent appeals which call for
sensation and incident to back them; and thus there sometimes seemed
to the exterior world to be a lack of information about the Mission.

The letters of January 1860 show how the lads were fortified against
weather: 'They wear a long flannel waistcoat, then a kind of jersey-
shaped thing, with short trousers, reaching a little below the knee,
for they dabble about like ducks here, the sea being not a hundred
yards from the building. All the washing, of course, and most of the
clothes-making they can do themselves; I can cut out after a fashion,
and they take quickly to needle and thread; but now the Auckland
ladies have provided divers very nice garments, their Sunday dresses
are very nice indeed.'

The question of the Bishopric began to come forward. On the 18th of
January a letter to Sir John Patteson, after speaking of a playful
allusion which introduced the subject, details how Mrs. Selwyn had
disclosed that a letter had actually been despatched to the Duke of
Newcastle, then Colonial Secretary, asking permission to appoint and
consecrate John Coleridge Patteson as Missionary Bishop of the
Western Pacific Isles.

J.C.P.--'Well, then, I must say what I feel about it. I have known
for some time that this was not unlikely to come some day; but I
never spoke seriously to you or to the Martins when you insinuated
these things, because I thought if I took it up gravely it would come
to be considered a settled thing.'

Mrs. S.--'Well, so it has been, and is----'

J.C.P.--'But has the Bishop seriously thought of this, that he has
had no trial of any other man; that I could give any other man who
may come, perhaps, the full benefit of my knowledge of languages, and
of my acquaintance with the islands and the people, while we may
reasonably expect some one to come out before long far better fitted
to organise and lead men than I am? Has he fairly looked at all the
per contra?

Mrs. S.--'I feel sure he has.'

J.C. P.--'I don't deny that my father tells me I must not shrink from
it; that some things seem to point to it as natural; that I must not
venture to think that I can be as complete a judge as the Bishop of
what is good for Melanesia--but what necessity for acting now?'

Here came an interruption, but the conversation was renewed later in
the day with the Bishop himself, when Patteson pleaded for delay on
the score that the isles were as yet in a state in which a missionary
chaplain could do all that was requisite, and that the real
management ought not to be withdrawn from the Bishop; to which the
reply was that at the present time the Bishop could do much to secure
such an appointment as he wished; but, in case of his death, even
wishes expressed in writing might be disregarded. After this, the
outpouring to the father continues:--

'I don't mean to shrink from this. You tell me that I ought not to
do so, and I quite believe it. I know that no one can judge better
than you can as to the general question, and the Bishop is as
competent to decide on the special requirements of the case.

'But, my dear father, you can hardly tell how difficult I find it to
be, amidst all the multiplicity of works, a man of devotional
prayerful habits; how I find from time to time that I wake up to the
fact that while I am doing more than I did in old times, yet that I
pray less. How often I think that "God gives" habitually to the
Bishop "all that sail with him;" that the work is prospering in his
hands; but will it prosper in mine? I know He can use any instrument
to His glory: I know that, and that He will not let my sins and
shortcomings hinder His projects of love and blessing to these
Melanesian islanders; but as far as purity of motive, and a spirit of
prayer and self-denial do go for anything in making up the
qualification on the human side for such an office--in so far, do
they exist in me? You will say I am over sensitive and expect too
much. That, I think, very likely may be true. It is useless to wait
till one becomes really fit, for that of course I never shall be.
But while I believe most entirely that grace does now supply all our
deficiencies when we seek it fully, I do feel frightened when I see
that I do not become more prayerful, more real in communion with God.
This is what I must pray for earnestly: to become more prayerful,
more constantly impressed with the necessity of seeking for
everything from Him.

'You all think that absence from relations, living upon yams, want of
the same kind of meat and drink that I had at home, that these things
are proofs of sincerity, &c. I believe that they all mean just
nothing when the practical result does not come to this--that a man
is walking more closely with his God. I dare not say that I can feel
humbly and reverently that my inner life is progressing. I don't
think that I am as earnest in prayer as I was. Whether it be the
effect of the amount of work distracting me; or, sometimes, of
physical weariness, or of the self-indulgence (laugh as you may)
which results from my never being contradicted or interfered with, or
much worried, still I do feel this; and may He strengthen me to pray
more for a spirit of prayer.

'I don't know that the actual time for my being consecrated, if I
live, is nearer by reason of this letter: I think it most probable
that it may take place when the General Synod meets, and,
consequently, five bishops will be present, in 1862, at Nelson. But
I suppose it is more fixed than it has been hitherto, and if the
Bishop writes to you, as he may do, even more plainly than he speaks
to me, you will know what especially to ask for me from God, and all
you dear ones will recollect daily how I do inwardly tremble at the
thoughts of what is to come. Do you remember how strangely I was
upset before leaving home for my ordination as a deacon; and now it
is coming to this--a church to be planted, organised, edified among
the wild heathen inhabitants of Melanesia; and what hope can there be
for me if there is to be no growth of a fervent, thankful, humble
spirit of prayer and love and adoration? Not that, as I feel to my
great comfort, God's work is dependent upon the individual growth in
grace even of those who are entrusted with any given work; but it is
in some way connected with it.

'And yet, the upshot of it all is that I shall do (D.V.) what the
Bishop tells me is right. I hope he won't press on the matter, but I
am content now to leave it with him, knowing what you have said, and
being so thankful to leave it with you and him.'

There is a letter to his sister Fanny of the same date, beginning
merrily about the family expostulation on receiving a box of reports
where curiosities had been expected:--

'Fancy not thinking your worthy brother's important publications the
most satisfactory treasures that any box could contain! The author's
feelings are seriously injured! What are Melanesian shells to
Melanesian statistics, and Lifu spears to a dissertation on the
treatment of Lifu diseases? Great is the ingratitude of the houses
of Feniton and Dawlish!

'Well, it must have been rather a "sell," as at Eton it is called, to
have seen the long-desired and highly-paid-for box disgorge nought
but Melanesian reports! all thanks to Mrs. Martin, who packed it
after I was off to the Islands.

'I cannot send you anything yet, but I will bear in mind the fact
that reports by themselves are not considered satisfactory. Does
anybody read them, after all? for they really cost me some days'
trouble, which I can't find time for again. This year's report (for
I suppose there must be one) is not begun, and I don't know what to
put in it. I have but little news beyond what I have written once
for all to Father.

'The decisive letter from the Bishop of New Zealand to the Duke of
Newcastle is in the Governor's hands, and all discussion of the
question is at an end. May God bring out of it all that may conduce
to His glory; but how I dread what is to come, you, who remember my
leaving home first for my deacon's ordination, can well imagine.

'It is true I have seen this coming for a year or two, and have seen
no way of preventing its coming upon me--no one else has come out;
the Bishop feels he cannot work his present diocese and Melanesia: he
is satisfied that he ought to take New Zealand rather than the
islands; that the time is come for settling the matter while he is
able to settle it; and I had nothing to say, for all personal
objections he overruled. So then, if I live, it is settled; and
that, at all events, is a comfort.... Many of my Melanesians have
heavy coughs--some twelve, but I don't think any of them seriously
ill, only needing to be watched. I am very well, only I want some
more exercise (which, by the bye, it is always in my power to take),
and am quite as much disposed as ever to wish for a good game at
tennis or fives to take it out of me.

'Your loving Brother,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

The birthday letter of February 11 is a happy one, though chiefly
taken up with the business matters respecting the money required for
the Mission, of which Sir John was one trustee. Life was pleasant
then, for Patteson says:--

'I do feel sometimes that the living alone has its temptations, and
those great ones; I mean that I can arrange everything--my work, my
hours, my whole life--after my own pleasure a great deal more than
probably is good for me; and it is very easy to become, in a manner,
very self-indulgent. I think that most likely, as our work (D.V.)
progresses, one or two men may be living with me, and that will
supply a check upon me of some kind. At present I am too much
without it. Here I am in my cosy little room, after my delicious
breakfast of perfect coffee, made in Jem's contrivance, hot milk and
plenty of it, dry toast and potato. Missionary hardships! On the
grass between me and the beach--a distance of some seventy yards--lie
the boys' canvas beds and blankets and rugs, having a good airing.
The schooner lies at anchor beyond; and, three or four miles beyond
the schooner, lies Eangitoto, the great natural breakwater to the
harbour. With my Dollond's opera-glass that you gave me, I can see
the master and mate at their work refitting. Everything is under my
eye. Our long boat and whale boat (so-called from their shapes) lie
on the beach, covered with old sails to protect them from the sun.
The lads are washing clothes, or scrubbing their rooms, and all the
rooms--kitchen, hall, store-room, and school-room. There is a good
south-western breeze stirring--our cold wind; but it is shut off
here, and scarcely reaches us, and the sun has great power.

'I have the jolliest little fellows this time--about seven of them--
fellows scarcely too big to take on my knee, and talk to about God,
and Heaven, and Jesus Christ; and I feel almost as if I had a kind of
instinct of love towards them, as they look up wonderingly with their
deep deep eyes, and smooth and glossy skins, and warm soft cheeks,
and ask their simple questions. I wish you could have seen the
twenty Banks Islanders as I told them that most excellent of all
tales--the story of Joseph. How their eyes glistened! and they
pushed out their heads to hear the sequel of his making himself known
to his brethren, and asking once more about "the old man of whom ye
spake, is he yet alive?"

'I can never read it with a steady voice, nor tell it either.'

Sir John had thus replied to the tirade against English conventional
luxury:--

'The conventional notions in this old country are not always suited
to your country, and I quite agree that even here they are carried
too far. Yet there are other people than the needy whose souls are
entrusted to the clergy here, and in order to fulfil that trust they
must mix on some degree of equality with the gentry, and with the
middle classes who are well-to-do. Then again, consider both as to
clergy and laity here. If they were all to lower themselves a peg or
two, and give up many not only luxuries, but comforts, numbers of
tradesmen, and others working under them, aye, even merchants,
manufacturers, and commercial men of all sorts, would be to some
extent thrown out of employ. The artificial and even luxurious state
of society here does really prevent many persons from falling into
the class of the needy. All this should be regulated in its due
proportion. Every man ought so to limit his expenses as to have a
good margin for charitable purposes of all sorts, but I cannot think
that he is doing good by living himself like a pauper in order to
assist paupers. If all men did so, labour of all kinds would be
overstocked with hands, and more paupers created. True it is, that
we all are too apt as means increase, some to set our hearts upon
them, which is wickedness; some to indulge in over much luxury, which
is wicked also; there should be moderation in all things. I believe
that more money is given in private charities of various kinds in
helping those who are struggling with small means, and yet not
apparently in the class of the needy, than the world is aware of; and
those who do the most are precisely those who are never heard of.
But do not mistake me. I am no advocate for luxury and idle
expenditure. Yet I think you carry your argument a little farther
than is just. The impositions that are practised, or attempted to be
practised, upon charitable people are beyond all conception.' The
following is the answer:--

'April 23, 1860.

'My dearest Father,--Thank you for writing your views about luxuries,
extravagant expenditure, and the like. I see at once the truth of
what you say.

'What I really mean is something of this kind. A high degree of
civilisation seems to generate (perhaps necessarily) a state of
society wherein the natural desires of people to gratify their
inclinations in all directions, conjoined with the power of paying
highly for the gratification of such inclinations, tends to call
forth the ingenuity of the working class in meeting such inclinations
in all agreeable ways. So springs up a complicated mechanism, by
which a habit of life altogether unnecessary for health and security
of life and property is introduced and becomes naturalised among a
people.

If this is the necessary consequence of the distinction between rich
and poor, and the course of civilisation must result in luxury and
poverty among the two classes respectively (and this seems to be so),
it is, of course, still more evident that the state of society being
once established gradually, through a long course of years, no change
can subsequently be introduced excepting in one way. It is still in
the power of individuals to act upon the community by their example--
e.g., the early Christians, though only for a short time, showed the
result of the practical acceptance of the Lord's teaching in its
effect upon society. Rich and poor, comparatively speaking, met each
other half way. The rich man sold his possessions, and equal
distribution was made to the poor.

'All that I contend for is that, seeing the fearful deterioration,
and no less fearful extravagance, of a civilised country, the evil is
one which calls loudly for careful investigation. Thousands of
artisans and labourers who contribute nothing to the substantial
wealth of the country, and nothing towards the production of its
means of subsistence, would be thrown out of employment, and
therefore that plan would be wrong. Jewellers, &c., &c., all kinds
of fellows who simply manufacture vanities, are just as honest and
good men as others, and it is not their fault, but the fault (if it
be one at all) of civilisation that they exist. But I don't see why,
the evil being recognised, some comprehensive scheme of colonisation
might not be adopted by the rulers of a Christian land, to empty our
poor-houses, and draft off the surplus population, giving to the
utterly destitute the prospect of health, and renewed hopes of
success in another thinly-inhabited country, and securing for those
who remain behind a more liberal remuneration for their work by the
comparative absence of competition.

'I hardly know what to write to you, my dear Father, about this new
symptom of illness. I suppose, from what you say, that at your time
of life the disease being so mild in its form now, will hardly prove
dangerous to you, especially as you submit at once to a strictness of
diet which must be pretty hard to follow out--just the habit of a
whole life to be given up; and I know that to forego anything that I
like, in matters of eating and drinking, wants an effort that I feel
ashamed of being obliged to make. I don't, therefore, make myself
unnecessarily anxious, though I can't help feeling that such a
discipline must be hard. You say that in other respects you are much
the same; but that means that you are in almost constant pain, and
that you cannot obtain entire relief from it, except in bed.

'Still, my dear Father, as you do bear it all, how can we wish that
God should spare you one trial or infirmity, which, we know, are, in
His providence, making you daily riper and riper for Heaven? I ought
not to write to you like this, but somehow the idea of our ever
meeting anywhere else has so entirely passed from my mind, that I try
to view things with reference to His ultimate purpose and work.

'Your loving and dutiful Son,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

The most present trouble of this summer was the sickness of Simeona.
The account of him on Ash Wednesday is: 'He is dying of consumption
slowly, and may go back with us two months hence, but I doubt it.
Poor fellow, he makes the worst of his case, and is often
discontented and thinks himself aggrieved because we cannot derange
the whole plan of the school economy for him. I have everything
which is good for him, every little dainty, and everyone is most
kind; but when it comes to a complaint because one pupil-teacher is
not set apart to sit with him all day, and another to catch him fish,
of course I tell him that it would be wrong to grant what is so
unreasonable. Some one or other of the most stupid of the boys
catches his fish just as well as a pupil-teacher, and he is quite
able to sit up and read for two or three hours a day, and would only
be injured by having another lad in the room on purpose to be the
receptacle of all his moans and complaints, yet I know, poor fellow!
it is much owing to the disease upon him.'

In spite of his fretfulness and exactions, the young man, meeting not
with spoiling, but with true kindness, responded to the touch. Lady
Martin tells us: 'I shall never forget dear Mr. Patteson's
thankfulness when, after a long season of reserve, he opened his
heart to him, and told him how, step by step, this sinfulness of sin
had been brought home to him. He knew he had done wrong in his
heathen boyhood, but had put away such deeds when he was baptized,
and had almost forgotten the past, or looked on it as part of
heathenism. But in his illness, tended daily and hourly by our dear
friend, his conscience had become very tender. He died in great
peace.'

His death is mentioned in the following letter to Sir John
Coleridge:--

'March 26, 1860. '(This day 5 years I left home. It was a Black
Monday indeed.)

'My dear Uncle,--At three this morning died one of my old scholars,
by name George Selwyn Simeona, from Nengone. He was here for his
third time; for two years a regular communicant, having received a
good deal of teaching before I knew him. He was baptized three years
ago. I did not wish to bring him this time, for it was evident that
he could not live long when we met last at Nengone, and I told him
that he had better not come with us; but he said, "Heaven was no
farther from New Zealand than from Nengone;" and when we had pulled
some little way from shore, he ran down the beach, and made us return
to take him in. Gradual decline and chronic bronchitis wore him to a
skeleton. On Thursday the Bishop and I administered the Holy
Eucharist to him; and he died at 3 A.M. to-day, with his hand in
mine, as I was in the act of commending his soul to God. His wife, a
sweet good girl, one of Mrs. Selwyn's pupils from Nengone in old
times, died last year. They leave one boy of three years, whom I
hope to get hold of entirely, and as it were adopt him.

'The clear bright moon was right over my head as after a while, and
after prayer with his friends, I left his room; the quiet splash of
the tiny waves on our sheltered shore, and the little schooner at her
anchorage: and I thanked God that one more spirit from among the
Melanesian islanders was gone to dwell, we trust, with JESUS CHRIST
in Paradise.

'He will not be much missed in the Melanesian school work, for, for
months, he could not make one of us....

'I find Trench's Notes on the Authorised Version of the New Testament
very useful, chiefly as helping one to acquire a habit of accurate
criticism for oneself, and when we come (D.V.) to translate any
portion of the Scriptures, of course such books are very valuable.'

'Last mail brought me but a very few letters. The account of my dear
Father's being obliged to submit to discipline did not alarm me,
though I know the nature of the disease, and that his father died of
it. It seems in his case likely to be kept under, but (as I have
said before) I cannot feel uneasy and anxious about him, be the
accounts what they may. It is partly selfish, for I am spared the
sight of his suffering, but then I do long for a look at his dear
face and for the sound of his voice. Five years of absence has of
course made so much change in my mind in this respect, that I do not
now find myself dreaming of home, constantly thinking of it; the
first freshness of my loss is not felt now. But I think I love them
all and you all better than ever; and I trust that I am looking
inward on the whole to the blessedness of our meeting hereafter.

'But this work has its peculiar dangers. A man may become so
familiarised with the habits of the heathen that insensibly his
conscience becomes less sensitive.

'There is a danger in living in the midst of utter lawlessness and
violence; and though the blessings and privileges far excel the
disadvantages, yet it is not in every way calculated to help one
forward, as I think I have in some ways found by experience.