Charlotte M. Yonge - "The Pillars of the House, V1"

Anthony Trollope - "The Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne"

Rex Beach - "Heart of the Sunset"

Rudyard Kipling - "The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Ghost Stories"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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




'I need not enter into all this. It is my business, you know, to
work at such things, and a word or two often tells me now a good deal
of the secrets of a language--the prominent forms, affixes, &c., &c.;
the way in which it is linked on to other dialects by peculiar
terminations, the law by which the transposition of vowels and
consonants is governed in general. All these things soon come out,
so I am very sanguine about soon, if I live, seeing my way in
preparing the way for future missionaries in the far West.

'But I must not forget that I have some islands to visit in the next
month or two where the people are very wild, so that I of all people
have least reason to speculate about what I may hope to do a year
hence.

'The real anxiety is in the making up my own mind whether or not I
ought to lower the boat in such a sea way; whether or not I ought to
swim ashore among these fellows crowded there on the narrow beach,
&c.

'When my mind is made up, it is not so difficult then. But, humanly
speaking, there are but few islands now where I realise the fact of
there being any risk; at very many I land with confidence. Yet I
could enumerate, I dare say, five-and-twenty which we have not
visited at all, or not regularly; and where I must be careful, as
also in visiting different parts of islands already known to us in
part. Poor poor people, who can see them and not desire to make
known to them the words of life? I may never forget the Bishop's
words in the Consecration Service:--"Your office is in the highest
sense to preach the Gospel to the poor;" and then his eye glanced
over the row of Melanesians sitting near me.

'How strange that I can write all this, when one heavy sense of
trouble is hanging vaguely over me. And yet you will be thankful
that I can think, as I trust, heartily of my work, and that my
interest is in no way lessened. It ought to be increased. Yet I
scarce realise the fact of being a Bishop, though again it does not
seem unnatural. I can't explain what I mean. I suppose the fact
that I knew for so long before that it must come some day if I lived,
makes the difference now.

'I don't think, however, that your words will come true of my
appearing in shovel hat, &c., at Heath's Court some fine day. It is
very improbable that I shall ever see the northern hemisphere, unless
I see it in the longitude of New Guinea.

'I must try to send a few island shells to M----, B----, and Co.;
those little ones must not grow up, and I am sure that you all do not
suffer them to grow up, without knowing something about "old cousin
Coley" tumbling about in a little ship (albeit at present in a war
steamer) at the other end of the world. Seriously, dear Uncle, as
they grow older, it may be some help for them to hear of these poor
Melanesians, and of our personal intercourse with them, so to speak.

'I have but little hope of hearing, if I return safe to New Zealand
at the end of November, that this disastrous war is over. I fear
that the original error has been overlaid by more recent events,
forgotten amongst them. The Maori must suffer, the country must
suffer. Confession of a fault in an individual is wrong in a State;
indeed, the rights of the case are, and perhaps must be, unknown to
people at a distance. We have no difficulty here in exposing the
fallacies and duplicities of the authors of the war, but we can't
expect (and I see that it must be so) people in England to understand
the many details. To begin with, a man must know, and that well,
Maori customs, their national feeling, &c. It is all known to One
above, and that is our only hope now. May He grant us peace and
wisdom for the time to come!

'I have been reading Helps again this voyage, a worthy book, and
specially interesting to me. How much there is I shall be glad to
read about. What an age it is! America, how is that to end? India,
China, Japan, Africa! I have Jowett's books and "Essays and
Reviews." How much I should like to talk with you and John, in an
evening at Heath's Court, about all that such books reveal of
Intellectualism at home. One does feel that there is conventionalism
and unreality in the hereditary passive acceptance of much that
people think they believe. But how on Jowett's system can we have
positive teaching at all? Can the thing denoted by "entering into
the mind of Christ or St. Paul" be substituted for teaching the
Catechism?

'Not so, writes my dear Father in the depth of his humility and
simplicity, writing to me what a father could scarcely say to a son!
But our peculiar circumstances have brought this blessing to me, that
I think he has often so "reamed out" his heart to me in the warmth of
his love to a son he was never again to see in the body, that I know
him better even than I should have done had I remained at home.

'So wonderful was my dearest Father's calmness when he wrote on the
24th of April, that if he was alive to write again in May, I think it
not impossible that he may allude to these matters. If so, what
golden words to be treasured up by me! I have all his letters. You
will see, or have seen him laid by my dear Mother's side. They dwell
together now with Him in Paradise.

'Good-bye, my dearest Uncle. Should God spare your life, my letters
will be more frequent to you now.

'My kindest love to Aunt.

'Your affectionate and grateful Nephew,

'J. C. PATTESON, Missionary Bishop.'


There is little more record of this voyage. There was less heart and
spirit than usual for the regular journalizing letter; but the five
weeks' voyage had been most beneficial in restoring health and
energy, and it had one very important effect upon the Mission, for it
was here that Lieutenant Capel Tilly, R.N., became so interested in
the Mission and its head, as to undertake the charge of the future
'Southern Cross.' The 'Cordelia' was about to return to England,
where, after she was paid off, Mr. Tilly would watch over the
building of the new vessel on a slightly larger scale than the first,
would bring her out to Kohimarama, and act as her captain.

So great a boon as his assistance did much to cheer and encourage the
Bishop, who was quite well again when he landed at Mota on September
17, and found Mr. Pritt convalescent after a touch of ague, and Mr.
Kerr so ill as to be glad to avail himself of Captain Hume's kind
offer to take him back to Auckland in the 'Cordelia.'

Probably all were acclimatised by this time, for we hear of no more
illness before the 'Sea Breeze,' with Mr. Dudley, came, on the 10th
of October, to take the party off.

He says:--'The Bishop and Mr. Pritt both looked pale and worn. There
were, however, signs in the island of a great advance in the state of
things of the previous year. An admirable schoolroom had been built;
and in the open space cleared in front of it, every evening some
hundred people would gather, the older ones chatting, the younger
ones being initiated in the mysteries of leap-frog, wrestling, and
other English games, until prayer time, when all stood in a circle,
singing a Mota hymn, and the Bishop prayed with and for them.

'That voyage was not a long one. We did not go to the Solomon
Islands and the groups to the north, but we worked back through the
New Hebrides, carefully visiting them.'

Mr. Dudley had brought letters that filled the Bishop's heart to
overflowing, and still it was to his father that he wrote: 'It seems
as if you had lived to see us all, as it were, fixed in our several
positions, and could now "depart in peace, according to His word."'

The agony and bitterness seem to have been met and struggled through,
as it were, in those first days on board the 'Cordelia.' In this
second letter there is infinite peace and thankfulness; and so there
still was, when, at Norfolk Island, the tidings of the good old man's
death met him, as described in the ensuing letter:--


'"Sea Breeze," one hundred miles south-east of Norfolk Island: 8 A.M.

'My dearest Sisters,--Joy and grief were strangely mingled together
while I was on shore in Norfolk Island, from 6 P.M. Saturday to 8
P.M. Sunday (yesterday).

'I was sitting with Mr. Nobbs (Benjamin Dudley the only other person
present) when he said, "We have seen in our papers from Sydney the
news of the death of your revered Father." He concluded that I must
have known of it.

'How wonderful it seems to me that it did not come as a great shock.
I showed by my face (naturally) that I had not known before that God
had taken him unto Himself, but I could answer quite calmly, "I thank
God. Do not be distressed at telling me suddenly, as you see you
have done inadvertently. I knew he could not live long. We all knew
that he was only waiting for Christ."

'And, dear dear John and Fan, how merciful God has been! The last
part of his letter to me, of date June 25, only three days before his
call came, so that I know (and praise God for it) that he was spared
protracted suffering. Shall I desire or wish to be more sorry than I
am? Shall I try to make myself grieve, and feel unhappy? Oh, no; it
is of God's great mercy that I still feel happy and thankful, for I
cannot doubt the depth of my love to him who has indeed been, and
that more than ever of late, the one to whom I clung in the world.

'I could be quiet at night, sleeping in Mr. Nobbs's house, and yet I
could not at once compose myself to think it all over, as I desired
to do. And then I had much to do, and here was the joy mingling with
the sorrow.

'For the Norfolk Island people have come to see how wise was the
Primate's original plan, and now they much desire to connect
themselves more closely with the Mission.

'Mr. and Mrs. Nobbs desire their son Edwin, who was two years at the
Governor's at Sydney, and is now eighteen and a half years old, to be
given wholly to us.... So said Simon Young of his boy Fisher, and so
did three others. All spoke simply, and without excitement, but with
deep feeling. I thought it right to say that they should remain at
Norfolk Island at present, that we all might prove them whether they
were indeed bent upon this work, that we might be able to trust that
God had indeed called them. To the lads I said, "This is a
disappointment, I know, but it is good for you to have to bear
trials. You must take time to count the cost. It is no light thing
to be called to the work of a teacher among the heathen. In giving
up your present wish to go immediately, you are obeying your parents
and others older than yourselves, and your cheerful obedience to them
is the best evidence that you wish to act upon a sense of duty, and
not only from impulse; but don't think I wish to discourage you. I
thank Him who has put the good desire into your hearts. Prove
yourselves now by special prayer and meditation."

'Then came the happy, blessed service, the whole population present,
every confirmed person communicating, my voice trembling at the Fifth
Commandment and the end of the Prayer for the Church Militant, my
heart very full and thankful. I preached to them extempore, as one
can preach to no other congregation, from the lesson, "JESUS gone to
be the guest of a man that is a sinner," the consequences that would
result in us from His vouchsafing to tabernacle among us, and, as
displayed in the Parable of the Pounds, the use of God's gifts of
health, influence, means; then, specifying the use of God's highest
gifts of children to be trained to His glory, quoting 1 Samuel i.
27, 28, "lent to the Lord," I spoke with an earnestness that felt
strange to me at the time.

'Simon Young said afterwards: "My wife could not consent months ago
to Fisher's going away, but she has told me now that she consents.
She can't withhold him with the thought of holy Hannah in her mind."
And I felt as if I might apply (though not in the first sense) the
prophecy "Instead of thy fathers, thou shalt have children."

'To add to all, Mr. Nobbs said: "I have quite altered my mind about
the Melanesian school, I quite see that I was mistaken;" and the
people are considering how to connect themselves closely with us.

'You may imagine, dear Joan, that joy and grief made a strange, yet
not unhappy tumult in my mind. I came away at 3 P.M. (the wind being
very fair) hoping to revisit them, and, by the Bishop of Tasmania's
desire, hold a confirmation in six months' time. How I am longing to
hear the last record of the three days intervening between June 25
and 28, you may well imagine.... Already, thank God, four months have
passed, and you are recovering from the great shock. Yours is a far
harder trial than mine. May God comfort and bless us all, and bring
us to dwell with our dear parents in heaven, for our blessed Lord's
sake.

'Your very loving Brother,

'J. C. PATTESON.'


And this most touching account from within is supplemented by the
following, by Mr. Dudley, from without:--


'He took it [the tidings of his father's death] quite calmly.
Evidently it had been long expected and prepared for. He was even
cheerful in his quiet grave way. In the evening there was singing
got up for him by some of the Norfolk Islanders, in one of the large
rooms of the old barracks. He enjoyed it; and after it had gone on
some time, he thanked them in a few touching words that went home, I
am sure, to the hearts of many of them, and then we all knelt down,
and he prayed extempore. I wish I had kept the words of that prayer!
Everyone was affected, knowing what was then occupying his mind, but
we were still more so next morning, at the service in church. His
voice had that peculiarly low and sweet tone which always came into
it when he was in great anxiety or sorrow, but his appeal to the
congregation was inspiring to the last degree. It was the Twenty-
third Sunday after Trinity, and the subject he took was from the
second lesson, the Parable of the Pounds, in St. Luke xix., and so
pointed out the difficulties between the reception of a talent and
the use of it. He showed that the fact of people's children growing
up as wild and careless as heathen was no proof that no grace had
been bestowed upon them; on the contrary, in the baptized it was
there, but it had never been developed; and then came the emphatic
assertion, "The best way of employing our gifts of whatever kind--
children, means, position--is by lending them to the Lord for His
service, and then a double blessing will be returned for that we
give. Hannah giving her child to the Lord, did she repent of it
afterwards, think you, when she saw him serving the Lord, the one
upright man of the house of Israel?"'

No doubt these words were founded on those heartfelt assurances which
stirred his very soul within him that his own father had never for a
moment regretted or mourned over the gift unto the Lord, which had
indeed been costly, but had been returned, 'good measure, pressed
together, and flowing over,' in blessing! can I grieve and sorrow
about my dear dear Father's blessed end?' are the words in a letter
to myself written on the 19th. It further contained thanks for a
photograph of Hursley Church spire and Vicarage, which had been taken
one summer afternoon, at the desire of Dr. Moberly (the present
Bishop of Salisbury), and of which I had begged a copy for him. 'I
shall like the photograph of Hursley Vicarage and Church, the lawn
and group upon it. But most shall I like to think that Mr. Keble,
and I dare say Dr. Moberly too, pray for me and this Mission. I need
the prayers of all good people indeed.' I quote this sentence because
it led to a correspondence with both Mr. Keble and Dr. Moberly, which
was equally prized by the holy and humble men of heart who wrote and
received the letters:--


'St. Andrew's, Kohimarama: November 20, 1861.

'Thank you, my dearest Sophy, for your loving letters, and all your
love and devotion to him.

'I fear I do not write to those two dear sisters of mine as they and
you all expect and wish. I long to pour it all out; I get great
relief in talking, as at Taurarua I can talk to the dear Judge and
Lady Martin. She met me with a warm loving kiss that was intended to
be as home-like as possible, and for a minute I could not speak, and
then said falteringly, "It has been all one great mercy to the end.
I have heard at Norfolk Island." But I feel it still pent up to a
great extent, and yet I have a great sense of relief. I fancy I
almost hear sometimes the laboured breathing, the sudden stop--the
"thanks be to God, he has entered into his rest."

'What his letters are, I cannot even fully say to another, perhaps
never fully realise myself.

'As I write, the tears come, for it needs but a little to bring them
now, though I suppose the world without thinks that I "bear up," and
go on bravely.

'But when any little word or thought touches the feelings, the
sensitive rather than the intellectual part of me, then I break down.

'And yet it seems to bring thoughts and hopes into more definite
shape. How I read that magnificent last chapter of Isaiah last
Sunday. I seemed to feel my whole heart glowing with wonder, and
exultation, and praise. The world invisible may well be a reality to
us, whose dear ones there outnumber now those still in the flesh.
Jem's most beautiful, most intensely affecting letter, with all his
thoughtfulness about the grave, &c., fairly upset me. I let the
Judge and Lady Martin read some parts of it, and they returned it,
saying it had quite overcome them. Now all day I feel really as much
as at those moments, only the special circumstances give more
expression at one time than at another to the inward state of mind.

'How I treasure up many many of his words and actions!

'What a history in these words: "All times of the day are alike to me
now; getting near, I trust, the time when it will be all day."

'Those are the things that break me down. I see his dear face, and
hear him slowly and calmly saying such words of patient trust and
faith, and it is too much. Oh! that I might live as the son of such
parents ought to live!

'And then I turn to the practical duties again, and get lost in the
unceasing languages and all the rest of it.

'Now enough--but I write what comes uppermost.

'Your loving Cousin,

'J. C. PATTESON.'


Very soon after the return, on the 6th December, 1861, an Ordination
was held at St. Paul's, Auckland, when the Primate ordained two Maori
deacons, and Bishop Patteson, the Rev. Benjamin Dudley.

Sir William and Lady Martin spent part of this summer in the little
cottage at Kohimarama where the sailing master of the late 'Southern
Cross' had lived: and again we have to thank her for a picture of
life at St. Andrew's. She says:--

'The new settlement was then thought to be healthy, and he and his
boys alike rejoiced in the warmth of the sheltered bay, after the
keenness of the air at St. John's on higher ground. The place
looked very pretty. The green fields and hawthorn hedges and the
sleek cattle reminded one of England. As a strong contrast, there
was the white shelly beach and yellow sands. Here the boys sunned
themselves in play hours, or fished on the rocks, or cooked their
fish at drift-wood fires. On calm days one or two would skim across
the blue water in their tiny canoes. One great charm of the place
was the freedom and naturalness of the whole party. There was no
attempt to force an overstrained piety on these wild fellows, who
showed their sincerity by coming with the Bishop. By five in the
morning all were astir, and jokes and laughter and shrill
unaccountable cries would rouse us up, and go on all day, save when
school and chapel came to sober them.

'The Bishop had not lost his Eton tastes, and only liked to see them
play games, and the little fat merry-faced lads were always on the
look-out for a bit of fun with him. One evening a tea-drinking was
given in the hall in honour of us. The Mota boys sung in twilight
the story of the first arrival of the Mission vessel and of their
wonder at it. The air, with a monotonous, not unpleasing refrain,
reminded us of some old French Canadian ditties. I remember well the
excitement when the Bishop sent up a fire balloon. It sailed slowly
towards the sea, and down rushed the whole Melanesian party,
shrieking with delight after it. Our dear friend's own quarters were
very tiny, and a great contrast to his large airy room at St.
John's. He occupied a corner house in the quadrangle, to be close to
the boys. Neither bedroom nor sitting-room was more than ten feet
square. Everything was orderly, as was his wont. Photographs of the
faces and places he loved best hung on the walls. Just by the door
was his standing desk, with folios and lexicons. A table, covered
with books and papers in divers languages, and a chair or two,
completed his stock of furniture. The door stood open all day long
in fine weather, and the Bishop was seldom alone. One or other of
the boys would steal quietly in and sit down. They did not need to
be amused, nor did they interrupt his work. They were quite content
to be near him, and to get now and then a kind word or a pleasant
smile. It was the habitual gentle sympathy and friendliness on his
part that won the confidence of the wild timid people who had been
brought up in an element of mistrust, and which enabled them after a
while to come and open their hearts to him.

'How vividly the whole scene comes back to me as I write! The
Bishop's calm thoughtful face, the dusky lads, the white-shelled
square in front, relieved by a mass of bright geraniums or gay
creepers, the little bed-room with its camp bed, and medicine bottles
and good books, and, too often, in spite of our loving remonstrances,
an invalid shivering with ague, or influenza, in possession. We knew
that this involved broken nights for him, and a soft board and a rug
for a couch. He was overtasking his powers during those years. He
was at work generally from five A.M. to eleven P.M., and this in a
close atmosphere; for both the schoolroom and his own house were ill-
ventilated. He would not spare time enough either for regular
exercise. He had a horse and enjoyed riding, but he grudged the time
except when he had to come up to town on business or to take Sunday
services for the English in the country. It was very natural, as he
had all a student's taste for quiet study, yet could only indulge it
by cutting off his own hours for relaxation. He was constantly
called off during the day to attend to practical work, teaching in
school, prescribing for and waiting on the sick, weighing out
medicines, keeping the farm accounts, besides the night classes in
several languages.

'He was really never so happy as among his boys or his books. He had
no liking for general society, though his natural courteousness made
him shrink from seeming ungracious. He did thoroughly enjoy a real
talk with one or two friends at a time, but even this he denied
himself.'

Fanny Patteson had spent several days at Hursley in the course of the
winter, and the Vicar and Mrs. Keble had greatly delighted in hearing
her brother's letters. The following letter from Mr. Keble was
written, as will be perceived, immediately after hearing the account
of the baptism of the dying child at Mota:--


'Hursley, February 19, 1862.

'My dear Bishop Patteson,--I seat myself down on a low chair between
the pictures of your uncle and your Metropolitan, and that by command
of your sister, who is on a footstool in the corner opposite, I to
send two words, she 200, or, for aught I know, 2,000, to greet you on
the other side of the world. We have the more right, as your kind
sisters have kept us well up to your Missionary doings from time to
time, and we seem to be very often with you on board or in your
islands (I say we, for my dear wife is more than half of me, as you
may well suppose, in such sympathies), and it seems to me that,
perhaps, in the present state of your island or sea-work you may have
more time than by-and-by for thinking of one and another; anyhow we
trust that that may happen which we ask for every evening--that we
may be vouchsafed a part in the holy prayers which have been that day
offered to the Throne of Grace, in Melanesia or elsewhere. I don't
know whether I am right, but I fancy you at times something between a
Hermit and a Missionary. God grant you a double blessing! and as you
are a Bishop besides, you will breathe us a blessing in return for
this, such as it is. Fanny's visit has been, as you know it would
be, most charming and genial to us old folks (not that my wife ought
to be so spoken of), and I shall always think it so kind of her to
have spared us the time when she had so much to do and so short a
time to do it in; but she seems like one going about with a bag of
what Bishop Selwyn calls "hope-seed," and sowing it in everyplace;
yet when one comes to look close at it, it all consists of memories,
chiefly you know of whom. I only wish I could rightly and truly
treasure up all she has kindly told us of your dear Father; but it
must be a special grace to remember and really understand such
things. It will be a most peculiar satisfaction, now that we have
had her with us in this way, to think of you all three together,
should God's Providence allow the meeting of which we understand
there is a hope. The last thing she has told us of is the baptism on
St. Barnabas' Day--"the first fruits of Mota unto Christ." What a
thought--what a subject for prayer and thanksgiving! God grant it
may prove to you more than we can ask or think.