Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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

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Curtis Island was inspected, but there was no possibility of leaving
a party to make experiment on it; and then the 'Southern Cross'
sailed for the Santa Cruz cluster, that group whose Spanish name was
so remarkable a foreboding of what they were destined to become to
that small party of Christian explorers. Young Atkin made no entry
in his diary of those days, and could never bear to speak of them;
and yet, from that time forward, his mind was fully made up to cast
in his lot with the Mission.

It was on August 15 that the first disaster at these islands took
place. Not till the 27th could the Bishop--on his sister Fanny's
birthday--begin a letter to her, cheering himself most touchingly
with the thought of the peace at home, and then he broke off half
way, and could not continue for some days:--

'My dearest Fan,--You remember the old happy anniversaries of your
birthday--the Feniton party--the assembly of relations--the regular
year's festivity.

'No doubt this anniversary brings as much true happiness, the
assurance of a more abiding joy, the consciousness of deeper and
truer sympathy. You are, I hope, to pass the day cheerfully and
brightly with perhaps ---- and ---- about you.... Anyhow, I shall
think of you as possibly all together, the remnant of the old family
gathering, on a calm autumn day, with lovely South Devon scenery
around you.

'The day comes to me in the midst of one of the deepest sorrows I
have ever known--perhaps I have never felt such sorrow...perhaps I
have never been so mercifully supported under it. It is a good and
profitable sorrow I trust for me: it has made so much in me reveal
itself as hollow, worldly, selfish, vainglorious. It has, I hope,
helped to strip away the veil, and may be by God's blessing the
beginning of more earnest life-long repentance and preparation for
death.

'On August 15 I was at Santa Cruz. You know that I had a very
remarkable day there three years ago. I felt very anxious to renew
acquaintance with the people, who are very numerous and strong.

'I went off in the boat with Atkin (twenty), Pearce (twenty-three or
twenty-four years old), Edwin Nobbs, Fisher Young, and Hunt
Christian, the last three Norfolk Islanders. Atkin, Edwin and Fisher
have been with me for two or three years--all young fellows of great
promise, Fisher perhaps the dearest of all to me, about eighteen, and
oh! so good, so thoroughly truthful, conscientious, and unselfish!

'I landed at two places among many people, and after a while came
back as usual to the boat. All seemed pleasant and hopeful. At the
third place I landed amidst a great crowd, waded over the broad reef
(partially uncovered at low water), went into a house, sat down for
some time, then returned among a great crowd to the boat and got into
it. I had some difficulty in detaching the hands of some men
swimming in the water.

'Well, when the boat was about fifteen yards from the reef, on which
crowds were standing, they began (why I know not) to shoot at us.--
(Another letter adds) 300 or 400 people on the reef, and five or six
canoes being round us, they began to shoot at us.--I had not shipped
the rudder, so I held it up, hoping it might shield off any arrows
that came straight, the boat being end on, and the stern, having been
backed into the reef, was nearest to them.

'When I looked round after a minute, providentially indeed, for the
boat was being pulled right into a small bay on the reef, and would
have grounded, I saw Pearce lying between the thwarts, with the long
shaft of an arrow in his chest, Edwin Nobbs with an arrow as it
seemed in his left eye, many arrows flying close to us from many
quarters. Suddenly Fisher Young, pulling the stroke oar, gave a
faint scream; he was shot through the left wrist. Not a word was
spoken, only my "Pull! port oars, pull on steadily." Once dear
Edwin, with the fragment of the arrow sticking in his cheek, and the
blood streaming down, called out, thinking even then more of me than
of himself, "Look out, sir! close to you!" But indeed, on all sides
they were close to us!

'How we any of us escaped I can't tell; Fisher and Edward pulled on,
Atkin had taken Pearce's oar, Hunt pulled the fourth oar. By God's
mercy no one else was hit, but the canoes chased us to the schooner.
In about twenty minutes we were on board, the people in the canoes
round the vessel seeing the wounded paddled off as hard as they
could, expecting of course that we should take vengeance on them.
But I don't at all think that they were cognisant of the attack on
shore.'

Several letters were written about this adventure; but I have thought
it better to put them together, every word being Bishop Patteson's
own, because such a scene is better realised thus than by reading
several descriptions for the most part identical. What a scene it
is! The palm-clad island, the reef and sea full of the blacks, the
storm of long arrows through the air, the four youths pulling bravely
and steadily, and their Bishop standing over them, trying to ward off
the blows with the rudder, and gazing with the deep eyes and
steadfast smile that had caused many a weapon to fall harmless!

Pearce, it should be observed, was a volunteer for the Mission then
on a trial-trip.

There was an even more trying time to come on board. The Bishop
continues:--

'I drew out the arrow from Pearce's chest: a slanting wound not going
in very deep, running under the skin, yet of apparently almost fatal
character to an ignorant person like myself; Five inches were
actually inside him. The arrow struck him almost in the centre of
the chest and in the direction of the right breast. There was no
effusion of blood, he breathed with great difficulty, groaning and
making a kind of hollow sound, was perfectly composed, gave me
directions and messages in case of his death. I put on a poultice
and bandage, and leaving him in charge of some one, went to Fisher.
The wrist was shot through, but the upper part of the arrow broken
off and deep down; bleeding profuse, of which I was glad; I cut
deeply, though fearing much to cut an artery, but I could not extract
the wooden arrow-head. At length getting a firm hold of the
projecting point of the arrow on the lower side of his wrist, I
pulled it through: it came out clean. The pain was very great, he
trembled and shivered: we gave him brandy, and he recovered. I
poulticed the wound and went to Edwin. Atkin had got out the
splinter from his wound; the arrow went in near the eye and came out
by the cheek-bone: it was well syringed, and the flow of blood had
been copious from the first. The arrows were not bone-headed, and
not poisoned, but I well knew that lock-jaw was to be dreaded.
Edwin's was not much more than a flesh wound. Fisher's being in the
wrist, frightened me more: their patience and quiet composure and
calm resignation were indeed a strength and comfort to us all.

'This was on Monday, August 15. All seemed doing well for a day or
two, I kept on poultices, gave light nourishing food, &c. But on
Saturday morning Fisher said to me, "I can't make out what makes my
jaws feel so stiff."

'Then my heart sank down within me, and I prayed earnestly, earnestly
to God. I talked to the dear dear lad of his danger, night and day
we prayed and read. A dear guileless spirit indeed. I never saw in
so young a person such a thorough conscientiousness as for two years
I witnessed in his daily life, and I had long not only loved but
respected him.

'We had calm weather and could not get on. By Saturday the jaws were
tight-locked. Then more intense grew the pain, the agony, the whole
body rigid like a bar of iron! Oh! how I blessed God who carried me
through that day and night. How good he was in his very agonies, in
his fearful spasms, thanking God, praying, pressing my hand when I
prayed and comforted him with holy words of Scripture. None but a
well-disciplined, humble, simple Christian could so have borne his
sufferings: the habit of obedience and faith and patience; the
childlike unhesitating trust in God's love and fatherly care,
supported him now. He never for a moment lost his hold upon God.
What a lesson it was! it calmed us all. It almost awed me to see in
so young a lad so great an instance of God's infinite power, so great
a work of good perfected in one young enough to have been confirmed
by me.

'At 1 A.M. (Monday) I moved from his side to my couch, only three
yards off. Of course we were all (I need not say) in the after
cabin. He said faintly, "Kiss me. I am very glad that I was doing
my duty. Tell my father that I was in the path of duty, and he will
be so glad. Poor Santa Cruz people! "Ah! my dear boy, you will do
more for their conversion by your death than ever we shall by our
lives. And as I lay down almost convulsed with sobs, though not
audible, he said (so Mr. Tilly afterwards told me), "Poor Bishop!"
How full his heart was of love and peace, and thoughts of heaven.
"Oh! what love," he said. The last night when I left him for an hour
or two at 1 A.M. only to lie down in my clothes by his side, he said
faintly (his body being then rigid as a bar of iron), "Kiss me,
Bishop." At 4 A.M. he started as if from a trance; he had been
wandering a good deal, but all his words even then were of things
pure and holy. His eyes met mine, and I saw the consciousness
gradually coming back into them. "They never stop singing there,
sir, do they?"--for his thoughts were with the angels in heaven.
Then, after a short time, the last terrible struggle, and then he
fell asleep. And remember, all this in the midst of that most
agonizing, it may be, of all forms of death. At 4 A.M. he was hardly
conscious, not fully conscious: there were same fearful spasms: we
fanned him and bathed his head and occasionally got a drop or two of
weak brandy or wine and water down. Then came the last struggle.
Oh! how I thanked God when his head at length fell back, or rather
his whole body, for it was without joint, on my arm: long drawn sighs
with still sadder contraction of feature succeeded, and while I said
the Commendatory Prayer, he passed away.

'The same day we anchored in Port Patteson, and buried him in a quiet
spot near the place where the Primate and I first landed years ago.
It seems a consecration of the place that the body of that dear child
should be resting there.

'Some six years ago, when Mrs. Selwyn stopped at Norfolk Island she
singled him out as the boy of special promise. For two or three
years he had been with me, and my affection flowed out naturally to
him. God had tried him by the two sicknesses at Kohimarama and at
Mota, and by his whole family returning to Pitcairn. I saw that he
had left all for this work. He had become most useful, and oh! how
we shall miss him!

'But about five days after this (August 22) Edwin's jaws began to
stiffen. For nine or ten days there was suspense, so hard to bear.
Some symptoms were not so bad, it did not assume so acute a form.
I thought he ought to be carried through it. He was older, about
twenty-one, six feet high, a strong handsome young man, the pride of
Norfolk Island, the destined helper and successor (had God so willed)
of his father, the present Clergyman. The same faith, the same
patience, the same endurance of suffering.

'On Friday, September 2, I administered the Holy Communion to him and
Pearce. He could scarce swallow the tiniest crumb. He was often
delirious, yet not one word but spoke of things holy and pure, almost
continually in prayer. He was in the place where Fisher had died,
the best part of the cabin for an invalid. Sunday came: he could
take no nourishment, stomach and back in much pain: a succession of
violent spasms at about 10.30 A.M., but his body never became quite
rigid. The death struggle at 1 A.M. September 5, was very terrible.
Three of us could scarcely hold him. Then he sank back on my arm,
and his spirit passed away as I commended his soul to God. Then all
motionless. After some minutes, I said the first prayer in the
Burial Service, then performed the last offices, then had a solemn
talk with Pearce, and knelt down, I know not how long.

'We buried him at sea. All this time we were making very slow
progress; indeed the voyage has been very remarkable in all respects.
Pearce seems to be doing very well, so that I am very hopeful about
him. The temperature now is only 72 degrees, and I imagine that his
constitution is less liable to that particular disease. Yet
punctured wounds are always dangerous on this account.

'Patience and trust in God, the same belief in His goodness and love,
that He orders all things for our good, that this is but a proof of
His merciful dealing with us: such comforts God has graciously not
withheld. I never felt so utterly broken down, when I thought, and
think, of the earthly side of it all; never perhaps so much realised
the comfort and power of His Presence, when I have had grace to dwell
upon the heavenly and abiding side of it. I do with my better part
heartily and humbly thank Him, that He has so early taken these dear
ones by a straight and short path to their everlasting home. I think
of them with blessed saints, our own dear ones, in Paradise, and in
the midst of my tears I bless and praise God.

'But, dear Fan, Fisher most of all supplied to me the absence of
earthly relations and friends. He was my boy: I loved him as I think
I never loved any one else. I don't mean more than you all, but in a
different way: not as one loves another of equal age, but as a parent
loves a child.

'I can hardly think of my little room at Kohimarama without him. I
long for the sight of his dear face, the sound of his voice. It was
my delight to teach him, and he was clever and so thoughtful and
industrious. I know it is good that my affections should be weaned
from all things earthly. I try to be thankful, I think I am thankful
really; time too will do much, God's grace much more. I only wonder
how I have borne it all. "In the multitude of the sorrows that I had
in my heart, Thy comforts have refreshed my soul." Mr. Tilly has
been and is full of sympathy, and is indeed a great aid. He too has
a heavy loss in these two dear ones. And now I must land at Norfolk
Island in the face of the population crowding the little pier. Mr.
Nobbs will be there, and the brothers and sisters of Edwin, and the
uncles and aunts of Fisher.

'Yet God will comfort them; they have been called to the high
privilege of being counted worthy to suffer for their Savior's sake.
However much I may reproach myself with want of caution and of prayer
for guidance (and this is a bitter thought), they were in the simple
discharge of their duty. Their intention and wish were to aid in
bringing to those poor people the Gospel of Christ. It has pleased
God that in the execution of this great purpose they should have met
with their deaths. Surely there is matter for comfort here!

'I can't write all this over again.... I have written at some length
to Jem also; put the two letters together, and you will be able to
realise it somewhat.

'This is a joint letter to you and Joan. It was begun on your
birthday, and it has been written with a heavy, dull weight of sorrow
on my heart, yet not unrelieved by the blessed consciousness of being
drawn, as I humbly trust, nearer to our most merciful Father in
heaven, if only by the very impossibility of finding help elsewhere.
It has not been a time without its own peculiar happiness. How much
of the Bible seemed endued with new powers of comfort.... How true it
is, that they who seek, find. "I sought the Lord, and He heard me."
The closing chapters of the Gospels, 2 Corinthians, and how many
other parts of the New Testament were blessings indeed! Jeremy
Taylor's "Life of Christ," and "Holy Living and Dying," Thomas a
Kempis, most of all of course the Prayer-book, and such solemn holy
memories of our dear parents and uncles, such blessed hopes of
reunion, death brought so near, the longing (if only not unprepared)
for the life to come: I could not be unhappy. Yet I could not
sustain such a frame of mind long; and then when I sank to the level
of earthly thoughts, then came the weary heartache, and the daily
routine of work was so distasteful, and I felt sorely tempted to
indulge the "luxury of grief." But, thanks be to God, it is not
altogether an unhealthy sorrow, and I can rest in the full assurance
that all this is working out God's purposes of love and mercy to us
all--Melanesians, Pitcairners, and all; and that I needed the
discipline I know full well....

'Your loving Brother,

'J. C. P.'

It was not possible to touch at Norfolk Island, each attempt was
baffled by the winds; and on September 16 the 'Southern Cross'
anchored at Kohimarama, and a sad little note was sent up to the
Primate with the announcement of the deaths and losses.

In spite of the comfort which, as this note said, Patteson felt 'in
the innocence of their lives, and the constancy of their faith' unto
the death, the fate of these two youths, coming at the close of a
year of unusual trial, which, as he had already said, had diminished
his elasticity, had a lasting effect. It seemed to take away his
youthful buoyancy, and marked lines of care on his face that never
were effaced. The first letter after his return begins by showing
how full his heart was of these his children:--

'Kohimarama: Sunday, September 18, 1864.

'My dearest Fan,--I must try to write without again making my whole
letter full of dear Edwin and Fisher. That my heart is full of them
you can well believe.

'These last five weeks have taught me that my reading of the Bible
was perhaps more intellectual and perhaps more theological than
devotional, to a dangerous extent probably; anyhow I craved for it as
a revelation not only of truth, but of comfort and support in heavy
sorrow. It may be that when the sorrow does not press so heavily,
the Bible cannot speak so wonderfully in that particular way of which
I am writing, and it is right to read it theologically also.

'But yet it should always be read with a view to some practical
result; and so often there is not a special, though many general
points which may make our reading at once practical. Then comes the
real trial, and then comes the wondrous power of God's Word to help
and strengthen.

'Now it helps me to know where I am, to learn how others manage to
see where they are.

'All that you say about self-consciousness, &c., can't I understand
it! Ah! when I saw the guileless pure spirit of those two dear
fellows ever brightening more and more for now two years. I had
respected them as much as I loved them. I used to think, "Yes, we
must become such as they; we too must seek and pray for the mind of a
little child."

'And surely the contemplation of God is the best cure. How admirable
Jeremy Taylor is on those points! Oh that he had not overlaid it all
with such superabundant ornamentation of style and rhetoric. But it
is the manner of the age. Many persons I suppose get over it,
perhaps like it; but I long for the same thoughts, the same
tenderness and truthfulness, and faithful searching words with a
clear, simple, not unimaginative diction. Yet his book is a great
heritage.

'Newman has a sermon on Contemplation or Meditation, I forget which;
and my copy is on board. But I do hope that by praying for humility,
with contemplation of God's majesty and love and our Savior's
humility and meekness, some improvement may be mercifully vouchsafed
to me.

'To dwell on His humiliation, His patience, that He should seek for
heavenly aids, accept the ministration of an angel strengthening Him,
how full of mystery and awe! and yet written for us! And yet we are
proud and self-justified and vainglorious!

'The Archbishop of York, in "Aids to Faith," on the Death of Christ,
has some most solemn and deep remarks on the Lord's Agony. I don't
know that it could ever be quite consistent with reverence to speak
on what is there suggested. Yet if I could hear Mr. Keble and Dr.
Pusey (say) prayerfully talking together on that great mystery, I
should feel that it might be very profitable. But he must be a very
humble man who should dare to speak on it. Yet read it, Fan, it
cannot harm you; it is very awful, it is fully meant that He was
sinless, without spot, undefiled through all. It makes the mystery
of sin, and of what it cost to redeem our souls, more awful than
ever.

'And then, surely to the contemplation of God and the necessary
contrast of our own weakness and misery, we add the thought of our
approaching death, we anticipate the hours, the days, it may be the
weeks and months, even the years of weariness, pain, sleeplessness,
thirst, distaste for food, murmuring thoughts, evil spirits haunting
us, impatient longings after rest for which we are not yet prepared,
the thousand trials, discomforts, sadnesses of sickness--yes, it must
come in some shape; and is it to come as a friend or an enemy to
snatch us from what we love and enjoy, or to open the gates of
Paradise?

'I humbly thank God that, while I dare not be sure that I am not
mistaken, and suppose that if ready to go I should be taken, the
thought of death at a distance is the thought of rest and peace, of
more blessed communion with God's saints, holy angels and the Lord.
Yet I dare not feel that if death was close at hand, it might not be
far otherwise. How often the "Christian Year," and all true divinity
helps up here! Why indulge in such speculations? Seek to prepare
for death by dying daily. Oh! that blessed text: Be not distracted,
worry not yourselves about the morrow, for the morrow shall, &c. How
it does carry one through the day! Bear everything as sent from God
for your good, by way of chastisement or of proving you. Pusey's
sermon on Patience, Newman's on a Particular Providence, guarding so
wisely against abuse as against neglect of the doctrine. How much to
comfort and guide one! and then, most of all, the continual use of
the Prayer-book. Do you often use the Prayer at the end of the
Evening Service for Charles the Martyr? Leave out from "great
deep...teach us to number"-- and substitute "pride" for "splendour."
Leave out "according to... blessed martyr." In the Primate's case,
it is a prayer full of meaning, and it may have a meaning for us all.

'Once more, the love of approbation is right and good, but then it
must be the love of the approbation of God and of good men. Here, as
everywhere, we abuse His gift; and it is a false teaching which bids
us suppress the human instinct which God implanted in us, but a true
leading, which bids us direct and use it to its appointed and
legitimate use. On this general subject, read if you have not read
them, and you can't read them too often, Butler's Sermons; you know,
the great Butler. I think you will easily get an analysis of them,
such as Mill's "Analysis of Pearson on the Creed," which will help
you, if you want it. Analyse them for yourself, if you like, and
send me out your analysis to look at. There is any amount of
fundamental teaching there and the imprimatur of thousands of good
men to assure us of it.

'I think, as I have written to Joan, that if I were with you, after
the first few days my chiefest delight would be in reading and
talking over our reading of good books. Edwin and Fisher were
beginning to understand thoughtful books; and how I did delight in
reading with them, interspersing a little Pitcairn remark here and
there! Ah! never more! never more! But they don't want books now.
All is clear now: they live where there is no night, in the Glory of
God and of the Lamb, resting in Paradise, anticipating the full
consummation of the Life of the Resurrection. Thanks be to God, and
it may not be long--but I must not indulge such thoughts.

'I feel better, but at times this sad affliction weighs me down much,
and business of all kinds seems almost to multiply. Yet there are
many many comforts, and kindest sympathy.

'Your loving Brother,

'J. C. P.'

Just at this time heavy sorrow fell upon Bishop Hobhouse of Nelson;
and the little council of friends at Auckland decided that Bishop
Patteson should go at once to do his best to assist and comfort him,
and bring him back to Auckland. There was a quiet time of wholesome
rest at Nelson; and the effects appeared in numerous letters, and in
the thinking out of many matters on paper to his sisters.

'Oh! how I think with such ever-increasing love of dear Fisher and
Edwin! How I praised God for them on All Saints' Day. But I don't
expect to recover spring and elasticity yet awhile. I don't think I
shall ever feel so young again. Really it is curious that the number
of white hairs is notably increased in these few weeks (though it is
silly to talk about it. Don't mention it!), and I feel very tired
and indolent. No wonder I seem to "go softly." But I am unusually
happy down in the depths, only the surface troubled. I hope that it
is not fancy only that makes the shortness and uncertainty of this
life a ground of comfort and joy. Perhaps it is, indeed I think it
is, very much a mere cowardly indolent shirking of work.