Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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

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The Erromaugo Mission, like that of Anaiteum, came from the Scottish
Kirk. Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, as has been seen, had been visited on
every voyage of the 'Southern Cross' during their three years'
residence there, and there was a warm regard between them and the
Bishop. It was then a great shock to hear a Nengone man call out
from a sandal-wood vessel, lying in Dillon's Bay, that they had both
been killed!

It was but too true. The Erromango people had been little inclined
to listen to Mr. Gordon's warnings, and he, a young and eager man,
had told them that to persevere in their murders and idolatries would
bring a judgment upon them. When therefore the scourge of sickness
came, as at Anaiteum, they connected him with it; and it was plain
from his diary that he had for some months known his life to be in
danger, but he had gone about them fearlessly, like a brave man,
doing his best for the sick.

On May 20 he was in a little wood, putting up a house instead of one
that had been blown down by a hurricane, and he had sent his few
faithful pupils to get grass for the thatch. Nine natives from a
village about three hours' walk distant came to the house where his
wife was, and asked for him. She said he was in the little wood.
They went thither, and while eight hid themselves in the bush, one
went forward and asked for some calico. Mr. Gordon took a bit of
charcoal and wrote on a bit of wood directions to his wife to give
the bearer some cotton, but the man insisted that he must come
himself to give out some medicine for a sick man. Mr. Gordon
complied, walking in front as far as the place where lay the ambush,
when the man struck him with a tomahawk on the spine, and he fell,
with a loud scream, while the others leaping out fell upon him with
blows that must have destroyed life at once, yelling and screaming
over him. Another went up to the house. Mrs. Gordon had come out,
asking what the shouts meant. 'Look there!' he said, and as she
turned her head, he struck her between the shoulders, and killed her
as soon as she had fallen.

Another native had in the meantime rushed down the hill to the
sandal-wood station half a mile off on the beach, and the trader,
arming his natives, came up too late to do more than prevent the
murderers from carrying off the bodies or destroying the house. The
husband and wife were buried in the same grave; the natives fenced it
round; and now, on June 7, eighteen days after, Bishop Patteson read
the Burial Service over it, with many solemn and anxious thoughts
respecting the population, now reduced to 2,500, and in a very wild
condition.

At Mai the Bishop spent two hours the next day, and brought away one
old scholar and one new one.

At Tariko, where he had been three years before with the Primate, the
Episcopal hat brought the greeting 'Bishop,' as the people no doubt
thought the wearer identical. Of Ambrym there is a characteristic
sentence: 'As we left the little rock pool where I had jumped ashore,
leaving, for prudence sake, the rest behind me in the boat, one man
raised his bow and drew it, then unbent it, then bent it again, but
apparently others were dissuading him from letting fly the arrow.
The boat was not ten yards off, I don't know why he did so; but we
must try to effect more frequent landings.'

On June 12 Mota was reached, and the next morning the Mission party
landed, warmly welcomed by the inhabitants. The house was found
safely standing and nearly weather-proof.

'June 13th.--This morning I put up the framework for another small
house, where I shall put Wadrokala, his child-wife, and many of our
boxes. We had to carry up the timber first from the beach, and it
was rather hot work, as also the carpentering, as I chose a place for
the house where no falling bread-fruit or branches of trees would
hurt it, and the sun was so hot that it almost burnt my hand when I
took up a handful of nails that had been lying for ten minutes in the
sun. So our picnic life begins again, and that favourably. I feel
the enjoyment of the glorious view and climate, and my dear lads,
Tagalana and Parenga, from Bauro, are with me, the rest in Port
Patteson, &c., coming over in the vessel to-morrow, which I shall
then discharge. I see that the people are very friendly; they all
speak of your bread-fruit tree, your property. The house had not
been entered, a keg of nails inside it not touched.

'Tagalana's father is dead. His first words to me were, "Oh that the
Word of God had come in old times to Mota, I should not then cry so
much about him. Yes, it is true, I know, I must be thankful it is
come now, and I must remember that, and try to help others who may
die too before they believe it."

'"Yes, I am quite your child now! Yes, one Father for us all in
Heaven. You my father here! Yes, I stop always with you, unless you
send me away. They ask me with whom I shall live now; I say with the
Bishop."

'How I was praising and rejoicing in my heart as the dear boy was
speaking: "Yes, I am feeling calm again now. When people die at
Mota, you know they make a great shouting, but soon forget the dead
person. But I am able to be quiet and calm now, as you talk to me
about God and Jesus Christ. Yes, He rose again. Death is not the
end. I know you said it is for those who repent and believe in
Christ the Door to enter into life eternal. How different it all
seems then!"

'When you read this you will say, "Thank God that I sent him out to
Melanesia with my blessing on his head. I too may see Tagalana one
day with Him who is the Father of us all."

'One soul won to Christ, as I hope and believe, by His love and
power, and if in any degree by my ministry, to God be the praise!'

The comfort sent home to the sisters with the letter respecting this
voyage is:--

'Mota: June 14, 1861.

'Now, dear Joan, don't any of you think too much about the murder of
Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, as if my life was exposed to the same kind of
risk.

'Certainly it is not endangered here. It may be true that at places
where I am not known some sudden outbreak may occur; but humanly
speaking, there are not many places that as yet I am able to visit
where I realise the fact of any danger being run.

'Yet it may happen that some poor fellow, who has a good cause to
think ill of white men, or some mischievous badly disposed man, may
let fly a random arrow or spear some day.

'If so, you will not so very much wonder, nor be so very greatly
grieved. Every clergyman runs at least as great a risk among the
small-pox and fevers of town parishes. Think of Uncle James in the
cholera at Thorverton.'

So with the 'Dunedin' dismissed, Bishop Patteson, Mr. Pritt, Mr.
Kerr, and their pupils recommenced their residence at Mota. The
Banks Islanders returned to their homes; and when the Bishop came to
Aroa, Tagalana's native place, three weeks lately the little fellow
received him affectionately, cooked yams, fetched mats, and was not
ashamed before his own people to kneel down, and join audibly in hymn
and prayer. The people begged for Wadrokala or some other teacher to
be placed among them. The Journal continues:--

'On Friday, at 8.30, I started, not quite knowing whither I should
go, but soon saw that I could fetch round the south end of Vanua
Lava, which was well. The sea, when it comes through the passage
between Mota and Valua, is heavy, but the boat had great way on her,
sailing very fast, so that I could steer her well, and we did not
take very long crossing to the small reef islands. I passed between
Pakea and Vanua Lava (Dudley Passage), and then we had unexpectedly a
very heavy sea, a strong tide up. I did not like it, but, thank God,
all went well. One very heavy sea in particular I noticed, which
broke some twenty yards ahead, and about the same distance astern of
us, while the exact part of it which came down upon us was only a
black wall of water, over which we rode lightly and dry. I think
that it might have swamped us had it broken upon the boat. My boat
is an open four-oared one, 26 feet long, and about five wide, strong
but light. She sails admirably with a common lug sail. I had one
made last summer, very large, with two reefs, so that I can reduce it
to as small a sail as I please. By 4 or 5 P.M. I neared Aruas, in
the bay on the west side of Vanua Lava; the same crowd as usual on
the beach, but I did not haul the boat up. I had a grapnel, and
dropped it some fifty yards from the beach.

'Somehow I did not much like the manner of some of the people; they
did not at night come into the Ogamal, or men's common eating and
sleeping house, as before, and I overheard some few remarks which I
did not quite like--something about the unusual sickness being
connected with this new teaching--I could not be quite sure, as I do
not know the dialect of Aruas. There were, however, several who were
very friendly, and the great majority were at least quiet, and left
us to ourselves. The next morning I started at about eight, buying
two small pigs for two hatchets, and yams and taro and dried bread-
fruit for fish-hooks. I gave one young man a piece of iron for his
attention to us. As we pulled away, one elderly man drew his bow,
and the women and children ran off into the bush, here, as everywhere
almost in these islands, growing quite thickly some twenty yards
above high-water mark. The man did not let fly his arrow: I cannot
tell why this small demonstration took place.'

When an arrow was pointed at him, it was Bishop Patteson's custom to
look the archer full in the face with his bright smile, and in many
more cases than are here hinted at, that look of cheery confidence
and good-will made the weapon drop.

After a few more visits to the coasts of this archipelago the boat
returned to Mota, where Mr. Pritt and Mr. Kerr had kept school every
day, besides getting the station into excellent order and beauty.
Their presence at the head-quarters left the Bishop free to circulate
in the villages, sleeping in the Ogamals, where he could collect the
men. They always seemed pleased and interested, and their pugnacious
habits were decidedly diminishing, though their superstitious
practices and observances were by no means dropped.

The Diary, on July 24, thus speaks of the way of life; which,
however, was again telling on the health of the party:--

'I am so accustomed to sleeping about anywhere that I take little or
no account of thirty, forty, fifty naked fellows, lying, sitting,
sleeping round me. Someone brings me a native mat, someone else a
bit of yam; a third brings a cocoa-nut; so I get my supper, put down
the mat (like a very thin door-mat) on the earth, roll up my coat for
a pillow, and make a very good night of it. I have had deafness in
my right ear again for some days; no pain with it, but it is
inconvenient.

'Several of our lads have had attacks of fever and ague; Wadrokala
and his child of a wife, Bum, a Bauro boy, &c. The island is not at
all unhealthy, but natives cannot be taught caution. I, thank God,
am in robust health, very weather-beaten. I think my Bishop's dress
would look quite out of keeping with such a face and pair of hands!

'There is much as usual in such cases to encourage and to humble us.
Some few people seem to be in earnest. The great majority do their
best to make me think they are listening. Meanwhile, much goes on in
the island as of old.

'Sunday, July 28th, 11.45 A.M.--I have much anxiety just now. At
this moment Wadrokala is in an ague fit, five or six others of my
party kept going by quinine and port wine, and one or other sickening
almost daily. Henry Hrahuena, of Lifu, I think dying, from what I
know not--I think inflammation of the brain, induced possibly by
exposure to the sun, though I have not seen him so exposed, and it is
a thing I am very careful about with them. I do what I can in
following the directions of medical books, but it is so hard to get a
word from a native to explain symptoms, &c.; besides, my ear is now,
like last year, really painful; and for two nights I have had little
sleep, and feel stupid, and getting a worn-out feeling. With all
this, I am conscious that it is but a temporary depression, a day or
two may bring out the bright colours again. Henry may recover by
God's mercy, the boys become hearty again; my ear get right. At
present I feel that I must rub on as I can, from hour to hour.

'If I find from experience that natives of Melanesia, taken to a
different island, however fertile, dry, and apparently healthy, do
seem to be affected by it, I must modify my plans, try as soon as
possible to have more winter schools, and, what is of more
consequence, I must reconsider the whole question of native teachers.
If a great amount of sickness is to be the result of gathering
scholars around me at an island, I could do, perhaps, more single-
handed, in health, and with no one to look after, than with twenty
fellows of whom half are causing continual anxiety on the score of
health. Now were I alone, I should be as brisk as a bee, but I feel
weighed down somewhat with the anxiety about all these fellows about
me.

'I must balance considerations, and think it out. It requires great
attention. It is at times like these that I experience some trials.
Usually my life is, as you know, singularly free from them.

'July 31st.--Henry died on Sunday about 4 A.M. Wadrokala is better.
The boys are all better. I have had much real pain and weariness
from sleepless nights, owing to the small tumour in my ear. What a
sheet of paper for you to read! And yet it is not so sad either.
The boys were patient and good; Wadrokala takes his ague attacks like
a man; and about Henry I had great comfort.

'He was about eighteen or nineteen, as I suppose, the son of the
great enchanter in Lifu in old times--the hereditary high priest of
Lifu indeed. He was a simple-minded, gentle, good fellow, not one
probably who would have been able to take a distinct line as a
teacher, yet he might have done good service with a good teacher. We
found that afternoon a slate on which he had written down some
thoughts when first taken ill, showing that he felt that he was sick
unto death. Very full of comfort were his written as well as his
spoken words.'

On August 1, while the Bauro scholars were writing answers to
questions on the Lord's Prayer, a party of men and women arrived,
headed by a man with a native scarf over his shoulders. They had
come to be taught, bringing provisions with them, and eating them,
men and women together, a memorable infringement of one of the most
unvarying customs of the Banks inhabitants; and from the conversation
with them and with others, Bishop Patteson found that the work of
breaking down had been attained, that of building up had to be begun.
They must learn that leaving off heathen practices was not the same
thing as adopting the religion of Christ, and the kind of work which
external influences had cut short in Lifu had to be begun with them.

'Soon, I think, the great difficulty must be met in Mota of teaching
the Christian's social and domestic life to people disposed to give
up much of their old practices. This is the point at which I suppose
most Missions have broken down. It is a great blessing indeed to
reach it, but the building up of converts is the harder work. Here,
for example, a population of 1,500 people; at present they know all
that is necessary for the cultivation of yams, &c., they build houses
sufficient for the purpose of their present life, they are giving up
fighting, losing-faith in their old charms and contrivances for
compassing the death of their enemies; they will very likely soon be
at peace throughout the whole island. Well, then, they will be very
idle, talk infinite scandal, indulge in any amount of gluttony;
professing to believe our religion, their whole life will contradict
that profession, unless their whole social and domestic life be
changed, and a new character infused into them. It would be a great
mistake to suppose that the English aspect of the Christian's social
life is necessarily adapted to such races as these. The Oriental
tendencies of their minds, the wholly different circumstances of
their lives, climate, absence of all poverty or dependence upon
others, &c., will prevent them from ever becoming a little English
community; but not, I trust, their becoming a Christian community.
But how shall I try to teach them to become industrious, persevering,
honest, tidy, clean, careful with children, and all the rest of it?
What a different thing from just going about and teaching them the
first principles of Christianity! The second stage of a Mission is
the really difficult one.'

A few days after the foregoing observations were written, H.M.S.
'Cordelia,' a war steamer, entered Port Patteson, and Captain Hume
himself came across by boat to Mota, to communicate to Bishop
Patteson his instructions to offer him a cruise in the vessel, render
him any assistance in his power in the Solomon Islands, and return
him to any island he might desire. Letters from the Primate assumed
that the proposal should be accepted; it was an opportunity of taking
home the Bauro and Grera boys; moreover there was a quarrel between
English and natives to be enquired into at Ysabel Island, where the
Bishop could be useful as interpreter; and, as he could leave his two
friends to carry on the school at Mota, he went on board, and very
good it was for him, in the depressed state of health brought on by
rude bed and board, to be the guest on board a Queen's ship and under
good medical care.

For the 'Cordelia' had brought out the letters which gave the first
intimation of his father's state; and without the privacy, and
freedom from toil and responsibility, he could hardly have borne up
under the blow. The first day was bad enough: 'a long busy day on
shore with just one letter read, and the dull heavy sensation of an
agony that was to come, as soon as I could be alone to think.'
Arrangements had to be made; and there was not one solitary moment
till 9 P.M. in the cabin when this loving and beloved son could shut
himself in, kneel down, and recover composure to open the two letters
in his father's hand.

He wrote it all--his whole heart--as of old to the father who had
ever shared his inmost thoughts:--

'It may be that as I write, your blessed spirit, at rest in Paradise,
may know me more truly than ever you did on earth; and yet the sorrow
of knowing how bitter it is within may never be permitted to ruffle
your everlasting peace.

'I may never see you on earth. All thought of such a joy is gone. I
did really cling to it (I see it now) when most I thought I was quite
content to wait for the hope of the great meeting. I will try to
remember and to do what you say about all business matters.

'I will pray God to make me more desirous and more able to follow the
holy example you leave behind. Oh that the peace of God may be given
to me also when I come to die; though how may I dare to hope for such
an end, so full of faith and love and the patient waiting for Christ!

'I must go on with my work. This very morning I was anxious, passing
shoal water with the captain and master beside me, and appealing to
me as pilot. I must try to be of some use in the ship. I must try
to turn to good account among the islands this great opportunity.
Probably elasticity of mind will come again now for very pain of
body. Oh! how much more sorrow and heavy weight on my heart! I am
quite worn out and weary. It seems as if the light were taken from
me, as if it was no longer possible to work away so cheerily when I
no longer have you to write to about it all, no longer your approval
to seek, your notice to obtain.

'I must go on writing to you, my own dearest Father, even as I go on
praying for you. It is a great comfort to me, though I feel that in
all human probability you are to be thought of now as one of the
blessed drawn wholly within the veil. Oh! that we may all dwell
together hereafter for His blessed sake who died for us. Now more
than ever your loving and dutiful Son,' &c.

Such another letter was written to his sister Fanny; but it is dated
four days later, when he was better in health, and was somewhat
recovered from the first shock; besides which, he felt his office of
comforter when writing to her. So the letter is more cheerful, and
is a good deal taken up with the endeavour to assure the sisters of
his acquiescence in whatever scheme of life they might adopt, and
willingness that, if it were thought advisable, Feniton Court should
be sold. 'This is all cold and heartless,' he says, 'but I must try
and make my view pretty clear.' Towards the end occurs the
following:--

'Last night, my slight feverish attack over, my ears comfortable,
with the feeling of health and ease returning, I lay awake, thought
of dear Uncle Frank, and then for a long time of dear Mamma. How
plainly I saw her face, and dear dear Uncle James, and I wondered
whether dear dear Father was already among them in Paradise. It is
not often that I can fasten down my mind to think continuously upon
those blessed ones; I am too tired, or too busy; and this climate,
you know, is enervating. But last night I was very happy, and seemed
to be very near them. The Evening Lesson set me off, 1 John iii.
How wonderful it is! But all the evening I had been reading my book
of Prayers and Meditations. Do you know, Fan, at times the thought
comes upon me with a force almost overpowering, that I am a Bishop;
and that I must not shrink from believing that I am called to a
special work. I don't think that I dwell morbidly on this, but it is
an awful thought. And then I feel just the same as of old, and don't
reach out more, or aim more earnestly at amendment of life and strive
after fresh degrees of enlightenment and holiness. But probably I
have to learn the lesson, which it may be only sickness will teach
me, of patient waiting, that God will accomplish His own work in His
own time.'

Some of this is almost too sacred for publication, and yet it is well
that it should be seen how realising the Communion of Saints blessed
the solitary man who had given up home. The next letter is to Sir J.
T. Coleridge:--

'H.M.S. "Cordelia," September 11, 1861.

'My dearest Uncle,--It is now nearly five weeks since I learnt from
my letters of March and April, brought to me by this ship, the very
precarious state of my dear Father.

'He has never missed a mail since we have been parted, never once;
and he wrote as he always did both in March and April. I had read a
letter from the good Primate first; because I had to make up my mind
whether I could, as I was desired, take a cruise in this vessel; and
in his letter I heard of my dear Father's state. With what reverence
I opened his letters! With what short earnest prayers to God that I
might have strength supplied and resignation I had kept them till the
last. All day at Mota I had been too busy to read any but the
Primate's letters. I had many matters to arrange...and it was not
until night that I could quietly read my letters in the captain's
cabin. My dear Father's words seem to come to me like a voice from
another world. I think from what he says, and what they all say,
that already he has departed to be with Christ.

'I think of him and my dear mother, and those dear uncles James and
Frank, so specially dear to me, and others gone before. I think of
all that he has been to me, and yet how can I be unhappy? The great
shock to me was long overpast: it is easy for me to dwell on his gain
rather than my loss; yet how I shall miss his wise loving letters and
all the unrestrained delights of our correspondence.

'It is not with me as with those dear sisters, or with old Jem.
Theirs is the privilege of witnessing the beauty and holiness of his
life to the end; and theirs the sorrow of learning to live without
him. Yet I feel that the greatest perhaps of all the pleasures of
this life is gone. How I did delight in writing to him and seeking
his approval of what I was about! How I read and re-read his
letters, entering so entirely into my feelings, understanding me so
well in my life, so strangely different from what it used to be.

'Well, it should make me feel more than ever that I have but one
thing to live for--the good, if so it may please God, of these
Melanesian islands.

'I cannot say, for you will like to know my feelings, that I felt so
overwhelmed with this news as not to be able to go about my usual
business. Yet the rest on board the vessel has been very grateful to
me. The quiet cheerfulness and briskness will all come again, as I
think; and yet I think too that I shall be an older and more
thoughtful man by reason of this.

'There has been reported a row at Ysabel Island, one of the Solomon
group, eighteen months ago. This vessel, a screw steamer, ten guns
and a large pivot gun, came to enquire, with orders from the
Commodore of the station to call at Mota and see me, and request me
to go with the vessel if I could find time to do so; adding that the
vessel was to take me to any island which I might wish to be returned
to. Now I have long wished to indoctrinate captains of men-of-war
with our notions of the right way to settle disputes between natives
and traders. Secondly, I had a passage free with my Solomon
Islanders, and consequently all October and half November I may
devote to working up carefully (D.V.) the Banks and New Hebrides
group without being under the necessity of going down to the Solomon
Islands. Thirdly, I had an opportunity of going further to the
westward than I had ever been before, and of seeing new ground.
Fourthly, the Primate, I found, assumed that I should go. So here I
am, in great clover, of course: the change from Mota to man-of-war
life being amusing enough. Barring some illness, slight attacks of
fever, I have enjoyed myself very much. The seeing Ysabel Island is
a real gain. I had time to acquire some 200 words and phrases of the
language, which signify to me a great deal more. The language is a
very remarkable one, very Polynesian; yet in some respects
distinguished from the Polynesian, and most closely related to
Melanesian dialects.