Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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

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'Before the building of the present vessel he had (I am told)
navigated at different times to and from the islands; of his capacity
in this respect, therefore, others who knew him there can speak.
During the time I remained in the "Southern Cross," he never in any
way, to the best of my recollection, interfered in the navigation or
management of the vessel; but I came to know--almost at once--that
his general planning of a voyage, knowledge of local courses and
distances, the method by which it could be done most quickly and
advantageously, and the time required to do it in, were thorough;
and, in fact, I suppose, that almost without knowing it, in all this
I was his pupil, and to the last felt the comfort of his advice or
assistance, as, e.g., when looking out together from aloft he has
seen shoal water more quickly than myself, or has decided whether
certain doubtful appearances ahead were or were not sufficient to
make us alter our course, &c.; and always speaking as no one who was
what sailors call a landsman could have done. There was, of course,
always a great deal of boat work, much of it to be done with a loaded
boat in a seaway, requiring practical knowledge of such matters, and
I do not remember any accidents, such as staving a boat on a reef,
swamping, &c. in all those years; and he invariably brought the boat
out when it was easy for the vessel to pick her up, a matter not
sufficiently understood by many people. This was where Mr. Atkin's
usefulness was conspicuous. Mr. Atkin was a fearless boatman, and
the knowledge of boating he gained with us at sea was well
supplemented when in Auckland, where he had a boat of his own, which
he managed in the most thorough manner, Auckland being at times a
rough place for boating. He (Mr. Atkin) pulled a good and strong
oar, and understood well how to manage a boat under sail, much better
in fact than many sailors (who are not always distinguished in that
respect). His energy, and the amount of work he did himself were
remarkable; his manner was quiet and undemonstrative. He took all
charge--it may in a manner be said--of the boys on board the vessel,
regulated everything concerning meals, sleeping arrangements, &c.,
how much food had to be bought for them at the different islands,
what "trade" (i.e. hatchets, beads, &c.) it was necessary to get
before starting on a voyage, calculated how long our supply of water
would last, and in fact did so much on board as left the master of
the vessel little to do but navigate. With regard to the loss the
Mission has sustained in Mr. Atkin, speaking from my personal
knowledge of his invaluable services on a voyage, I can safely say
there is no one here now fitted to take his place. He had always
capital health at sea, and was rarely sea-sick, almost the only one
of the party who did not suffer in that way. And his loss will be
the more felt now, as those who used to help in the boat are now
otherwise employed as teachers, &c.; and as Norfolk Island is a bad
place to learn boating, there is great need of some one to take his
place, for a good boat's crew is a necessity in this work as may be
readily understood when the boat is away sometimes for the greater
part of the day, pulling and sailing from place to place. At those
places where the Bishop landed alone, Mr. Atkin gradually acquired
the experience which made him so fit to look after the safety of the
boat and crew. In this manner he, next to the Bishop, became best
known to the natives throughout the islands, and was always looked
for; in fact, at many places they two were perhaps only recognised or
remembered.

'Bishop Patteson was hardly what could be called a good sailor in one
sense of the word; rough weather did not suit him, and although I
believe seldom if ever actually sea-sick, he was now and then obliged
to lie down the greater part of the day, or during bad weather. He
used to read and write a great deal on board, and liked to take brisk
walks up and down the deck, talking to whoever happened to be there.
He was orderly and methodical on board, liked to see things in their
places, and was most simple in all his habits. He always brought a
good stock of books on board (which we all made use of), but very few
clothes.

'The living on board was most simple, much the same as the crew,
those in the cabin waiting on themselves (carrying no steward), until
gradually boys used to volunteer to do the washing up, &c. School
with all the boys was kept up when practicable; but the Bishop was
always sitting about among them on the deck, talking to one and
another, and having classes with him in the cabin. There were
regular morning and evening native and English prayers. The sermons
on Sundays were specially adapted for the sailors, and listened to
with marked attention, as indeed they well might be, being so
earnest, simple, and suitable.

'Speaking for myself, I used to look forward to the voyage as the
time when I should have the privilege of being much with him for some
months. While on shore at Kohimarama I saw but comparatively little
of him, except at meals; but during the voyage I saw of course a
great deal of him, and learned much from him--learned to admire his
unselfishness and simplicity of mode of life, and to respect his
earnestness and abilities. His conversation on any subject was free
and full; and those on the few nights when quietly at anchor they
could be enjoyed more, will be long remembered. Of his manner to
Melanesians, others will, no doubt, say enough, but I may be excused
for mentioning one scene that very much struck me, and of which I am
now the only (white) one left who was present at it. We were paying
a visit for the first time to an island, and--the vessel being safe
in the offing--the Bishop asked me if I would go with them as he
sometimes did on similar occasions. We pulled in to a small inner
islet among a group, where a number of (say 200) natives were
collected on the beach. Seeing they looked as if friendly, he waded
on shore without hesitation and joined them; the reception was
friendly, and after a time he walked with them along the beach, we in
the boat keeping near. After a while we took him into the boat
again, and lay off the beach a few yards to be clear of the throng,
and be able to get at the things he wanted to give them, they coming
about the boat in canoes; and this is the fact I wished to notice--
viz., the look on his face while the intercourse with them lasted. I
was so struck with it, quite involuntarily, for I had no idea of
watching for anything of the sort; but it was one of such extreme
gentleness, and of yearning towards them. I never saw that look on
his face again, I suppose because no similar scene ever occurred
again when I happened to be with him. It was enough in itself to
evoke sympathy; and as we pulled away, though the channel was narrow
and winding, yet, as the water was deep, we discussed the possibility
of the schooner being brought in there at some future time. I am
quite aware of my inability to do justice to that side of the
Bishop's character, of which, owing to the position in which I stood
to him as master of the Mission vessel, I have been asked to say a
few words. There are others who know far better than myself what his
peculiar qualifications were. His conduct to me throughout the time
was marked by an unvarying confidence of manner and kindliness in our
everyday intercourse, until, gradually, I came to think I understood
the way in which he wished things done, and acted in his absence with
an assurance of doing his wishes, so far as I could, which I never
had attained to before with anyone else, and never shall again. And,
speaking still of my own experience, I can safely say the love we
grew to feel for him would draw such services from us (if such were
needed) as no fear of anyone's reproof or displeasure ever could do.
And perhaps this was the greatest privilege, or lesson, derived from
our intercourse with him, that "Love casteth out fear!"

'Tiros. CAPEL TILLY.

'Auckland: October 28, 1872.'

This letter to Mr. Derwent Coleridge follows up the subject of the
requisites for missionary work:--

'"Southern Cross," Kohimarama: August 8, 1863.

'My dear Cousin,--Thank you for a very kind letter which I found here
on my return from a short three months' voyage in Melanesia. You
will, I am sure, give me any help that you can, and a young man
trained under your eye would be surely of great use in this work. I
must confess that I distrust greatly the method adopted still in some
places of sending out men as catechists and missionaries, simply
because they appear to be zealous and anxious to engage in missionary
work. A very few men, well educated, who will really try to
understand what heathenism is, and will seek, by God's blessing, to
work honestly without prejudice and without an indiscriminating
admiration for all their own national tastes and modes of thought--a
few such men, agreeing well together and co-operating heartily, will
probably be enabled to lay foundations for an enduring work. I do
not at all wish to apply hastily for men--for any kind of men--to
fill up posts that I shall indeed be thankful to occupy with the
right sort of men. I much prefer waiting till it may please God to
put it into the head of some two or three more men to join the
Mission--years hence it may be. We need only a few; I don't suppose
that ten years hence I should (if alive) ever wish to have more than
six or eight clergy; because their work will be the training of young
natives to be themselves teachers, and, I pray God, missionaries in
due time. I am so glad that you quite feel my wants, and sympathise
with me. It is difficult to give reasons--intelligible to you all at
a distance--for everything that I may say and do, because the
circumstances of this Mission are so very peculiar. But you know
that I have always the Primate to consult with as to principles; and
I must, for want of a better course, judge for myself as to the mode
of working them out in detail.

'Two plans are open for obtaining a supply of young men. First, I
may receive some few ready-trained men, who nevertheless will have to
learn the particular lessons that only can be taught here on the
spot. Secondly, I may have youths of (say) sixteen to eighteen years
of age, sent out from such a school as Stephen Hawtrey's for example,
who will come with a good general knowledge of ordinary things, and
receive a special training from myself. I think, too, that New
Zealand will now and then supply an earnest, active-minded young
fellow--who will be a Greek or Latin scholar, yet may find a useful
niche in which he may be placed. At present I have means only to
maintain one or two such persons, and this because I am able to use
the money my dear Father left me for this purpose. Indeed, I have no
other use for it. The money received on public account would not
keep the Mission in its present state, and the expenditure ought to
be increased by maintaining more scholars and teachers. I don't
forget what you say about the philological part of my business. My
difficulty is this, mainly: that it is next to impossible to secure a
few hours of continuous leisure. You can have no idea of the amount
of detail that I must attend to: seeing everything almost, and having
moreover not a few New Zealand matters to employ my time, besides my
Melanesian work. I have, I suppose, a considerable amount of
knowledge of Melanesian tongues, unknown by name to anyone else
perhaps; I quite feel that this ought not to die with me, if anything
should suddenly happen to me. I hoped this summer to put together
something; but now there is this Maori war, and an utterly unsettled
state of things. I may have to leave New Zealand with my Melanesians
almost any day. But I will do what I can, and as soon as I can.
Again: I find it so hard to put on paper what I know. I could talk
to a philologist, and I fancy that I could tell him much that would
interest him; but I never wrote anything beyond a report in my life,
and it is labour and grief to me to write them--I can't get on as a
scribe at all. Then, for two or three years I have not been able to
visit some islands whose language I know just enough of to see that
they supply a valuable link in the great Polynesian chain. One might
almost get together all the disjecta membra and reconstruct the
original Polynesian tongue. But chiefly, of course, my information
about Melanesia may be interesting. I have begun by getting together
numerals in forty quite unknown dialects. I will give, at all
events, short skeleton grammars too of some. But we have no time.
Why, I have from five hundred to two thousand or more carefully
ascertained words in each of several dialects, and of course these
ought to be in the hands of you all at home. I know that, and have
known it for years; but how to do it, without neglecting the daily
necessary work?

'Again: the real genius of the language, whatever it may be, is
learned when I can write down what I overhear boys saying when they
are talking with perfect freedom, and therefore idiomatically, about
sharks, cocoa-nuts, yams, &c. All translations must fail to
represent a language adequately, and most of all the translation into
a heathen language of religious expressions. They have not the
ideas, and the language cannot be fairly seen in the early attempts
to make it do an unaccustomed work.

'I remember more of you and my Aunt than you suppose. Even without
the photograph (which I am very glad to have--thank you for it), I
could have found you and Aunt out in a crowd. I can't say that I
remember my own generation so well.

'Thank you again for writing so kindly.

'Always, my dear Cousin,

'Affectionately yours,

'J. C. PATTESON, Missionary Bishop.'

The next mail carried the reply to Johanna's sympathy with the
troubles of the time of sickness in the early part of the year.

'August 28, 1863.

'My dear Joan,--Very full of comfort to have all your kind loving
thoughts and words about our sickness. I know you thought and talked
much about it, and indeed it was a very heavy visitation viewed in
one way, though in another (and I really can't analyze the reason
why) there was not only peace and calmness, but eyen happiness. I
suppose one may be quite sure one is receiving mercies, and be
thankful for them, although one is all the time like a man in a
dream. I can hardly think of it all as real. But I am sure that God
was very, very merciful to us. There was no difficulty anywhere
about the making known the death of the lads to their relatives. I
did not quite like the manner of the people at Guadalcanar, from
which island poor Porasi came; and I could not get at the exact place
from which Taman came, though I landed on the same island north and
south of the beach from which I brought him.

'I do not at all think that any interruption of the work has been
occasioned by it. It was very unfortunate that I could not, last
voyage, make visits (and long ones too, as I had hoped) to many
islands where in the voyage before I had met with such remarkable
tokens of good-will, especially Leper's Island and Santa Cruz, but I
think that if I can make a regular good round next time, it may be
all as well. I imagine that in a great many islands it would now
take a good deal to shake their confidence in us. At the same time
it was and is a matter of great regret that I did not at once follow
up the openings of the former year, and by returning again to the New
Hebrides and Solomon Islands (as in the contemplated six months'
voyage I intended to do), strengthen the good feeling now existing.
Moreover, many scholars who were here last year would have come again
had I revisited them and picked them up again. But the Mota
sickness, the weather, and Mr. Tilly's illness made it more prudent
to return by what is on the whole the shorter route, i.e., to the
west of New Caledonia.

'You should have been with me when, as I jumped on shore at Mota, I
took Paraskloi's father by the hand. That dear lad I baptized as he
lay in his shroud in the chapel, when the whole weight of the trial
seemed, as it were, by a sudden revelation to manifest itself, and
thoroughly overwhelmed and unnerved me. I got through the service
with the tears streaming down my cheeks, and my voice half choked.
He was his father's pride, some seventeen years old. A girl ready
chosen for him as his wife. "It is all well, Bishop, he died well.
I know you did all you could, it is all well." He trembled all over,
and his face was wet with tears; but he seemed strangely drawn to us,
and if he survives this present epidemic, his son's death may be to
him the means in God's hands of an eternal life. Most touching, is
it not, this entire confidence?

'At Aruas, the small island close to Valua, from which dear Sosaman
came, it was just the same; rather different at the west side of
Vanua Lava, where they did not behave so well, and where (as I heard
afterwards) there had been some talk of shooting me; but nothing
occurred while I was on shore with them to alarm me.

'At Ambrym I landed with Talsil (Joval, from the same place, had
died), a great crowd, all friendly, walked into the village and sat
down, speechifying by the principal man, a presentation to me of a
small pig; but such confidence that this man came back with me on
board, where I gave him presents. I much wished to land at Taman's
place, but could not do so, though I tried twice, without causing
great delay.

'I could have brought away any number of scho1ars from almost any of
these islands, probably from all. I have great reason to regret not
having revisited Ambrym and other islands, but I think that a year
hence, if alive, I may feel that it is better as it is.

'These Norfolk Islanders, four of them, I take as my children, for I
can't fairly charge them (except Edwin Nobbs) to the Mission, and I
wish to give Norfolk Island some help, as it is really, though not by
letters patent, part of my charge. Edwin Nobbs is a thoroughly good
fellow, and Fisher Young is coming on very well.

'Now, my dearest Joan, good-bye. My hats will come no doubt in good
time, my present chapeau is very seedy, very limp and crooked and
battered; as near green as black almost--a very good advertisement of
the poverty of the Mission. But if I go about picking up gold in
Australia, I shall come out in silk cassock and all the
paraphernalia--very episcopal indeed!

'Your loving Brother,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Herewith was a letter for Dr. Moberly:--

'St. Andrew's College, Kohimarama: August 29, 1863. 'My dear Dr.
Moberly,--Thank you for a very kind and most interesting letter
written in May. I know that you can with difficulty find time to
write at all, and thank you all the more. If you knew the real value
to us of such letters as you have now sent, containing your
impressions and opinions of things in general, men, books, &c., you
would be well rewarded for your trouble, I assure you. To myself, I
must say to you, such letters are invaluable; they are a real help to
me, not only in that they supply information from a very good
authority on many questions which I much desire to understand, but
even more because I rise up or kneel down after reading them, and
think to myself, "how little such men who so think of me really know
me; how different I ought to be," and then it is another help to me
to try and become by God's grace less unlike what you take me to be.
Indeed, you must forgive me for writing thus freely. I live very
much alone as far as persons of the same language, modes of thought,
&c., are concerned. I see but little (strange as it may seem to you)
even of my dear Primate. We are by land four or five miles apart,
and meet perhaps once or twice a month for a few minutes to transact
some necessary business. His time is, of course, fully occupied; and
I never leave this place, very seldom even this little quadrangle,
and when other work does not need immediate attention (a state of
things at which I have not arrived as yet), there are always a dozen
new languages to be taken up, translations to be made, &c. So that
when I read a letter which is full of just such matters as I think
much of, I naturally long to talk on paper freely with the writer.
Were I in England, I know scarcely any place to which I would go
sooner than Winchester, Hursley, Otterbourne, and then I should
doubtless talk as now I write freely. All that you write of the
state of mind generally in England on religious questions is most
deeply interesting. What a matter of thankfulness that you can say,
"With all the sins and shortcomings that are amongst us, there is an
unmistakeable spreading of devotion and the wish to serve God rightly
on the part of very many."

'Then, the Church preferments have lately been good; Bishop Ellicott,
one of your four coadjutors in the revision of the A. V., especially.
I know some part of his Commentary, and am very glad to find that you
speak so very highly of it. What a contrast to be sure between such
work as his and Jowett's and Stanley's! Jowett actually avows a
return to the old exploded theory of the inaccurate use of language
in the Greek Testament. This must make men distrust him sooner or
later as an interpreter of Scripture. I thank you heartily for your
offer of sending me Bishop Ellicott's Commentary, but I hardly like
you to send me so valuable a gift. What if you substitute for it a
copy of what you have written yourself, not less valuable to me, and
less expensive to you? I hardly like to write to ask favours of such
people as Bishop Ellicott; I mean I have no right to do so; yet I
almost thought of asking him to send a copy of his Commentaries to us
for our library. I have ventured to write to Dean Trench: and I am
pretty sure that Mr. Keble will send me his "Life of Bishop Wilson."
But pray act as you wish. I am very grateful to you for thinking of
it at all; and all such books whether yours or his will be used and
valued, I can undertake to say. My good friend Kidding knows that I
was, alas! no scholar at Eton or Oxford. I have sought to remedy
this in some measure as far as the Greek Testament is concerned, and
there are some excellent books which help one much; yet I can never
make myself a good scholar, I fear; one among many penalties I pay
for want of real industry in old days.

'Miss Yonge will hear from my sisters, and you from her, I have no
doubt, my very scanty account of a very uninteresting voyage. I see
everywhere signs of a change really extraordinary in the last few
years. I can tell no stories of sudden conversions, striking
effects, &c. But I know that in twenty, thirty, perhaps forty
places, where a year or two ago no white man could land without some
little uncertainty as to his reception, I can feel confident now of
meeting with friends; I can walk inland--a thing never dreamt of in
old days, sleep ashore, put myself entirely into their hands, and
meet with a return of the confidence on their part. We have, too,
more dialects, talk or find interpreters in more places; our object
in coming to them is more generally known--and in Mota, and two or
three other small islands of the Banks group, there is almost a
system of instruction at work. The last voyage was a failure in that
I could not visit many islands, nor revisit some that I longed to
land at for the second or third time. But I don't anticipate any
difficulty in reestablishing (D. V.) all the old familiarity before
long. No doubt it is all, humanly speaking, hazardous where so much
seems to depend upon the personal acquaintance with the people.

'By-and-by I hope to have some young man of character and ability
enough to allow of his being regarded as my probable successor, who
may always go with me--not stop on any one island--but learn the kind
of work I have to do; then, when I no longer can do the work, it will
be taken up by a man already known to the various islanders.

'I have not touched on many points in your letter. Again, thank you
for it: it is very kind of you to write. I must send a line to Dr.
Eidding.

'I am, my dear Dr. Moberly,

'Yours very truly,

'J. C. PATTESON, Bishop.'

The next of the closely written sheets that every mail carried was
chiefly occupied with the Maori war and apostasy, on which this is
not the place to enter, until the point where more personal
reflections begin.

'How all this makes me ponder about my own special work I need not
say. There is not the complication of an English colony, it is true;
that makes a great difference.

'My own feeling is that one should teach positive truth, the plain
message of Christianity, not attacking prejudices. Conviction as it
finds its way into the heart by the truth recommending itself will do
the work of casting out the old habits. I do not mean to say that
the devil is not in a special way at work to deceive people to follow
lying delusions. But all error is a perversion of truth; it has its
existence negatively only, as being a negation of truth. But God is
truth, and therefore Truth is ----. Now this is practically to be
put, it seems to me, in this way. Error exists in the mind of man,
whom God has created, as a perversion of truth; his faculties are
constructed to apprehend and rest satisfied with truth. But his
faculties are corrupted,, and the devil supplies a false caricature
of truth, and deceives him to apprehend and rest satisfied with a
lie. But inasmuch as his nature, though damaged, is not wholly
ruined by the Fall, therefore it is still not only possible for him
to recognise positive truth when presented to him, but he will never
rest satisfied with anything else--he will be restless and uneasy
till he has found it.