Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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

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'During his last illness, and for a short time before he actually
took to his bed, he frequently received the Holy Communion. And very
remarkable were his words to me the day after his first Communion. I
was sitting by him, when he said, apropos of nothing, "Very good!"

'"What is very good, Walter?"

'"The Lord's Supper."

'"Why do you think so?"

'"I can't talk about it. I feel it here (touching his heart), I
don't feel as I did!"

'"But you have long believed in Him."

'"Yes, but I feel different from that; I don't feel afraid for death.
My heart is calm (me masur kal, of a calm following a gale)." His
look was very earnest as he added: "I do believe that I am going to
Him." Presently, "Bishop!"

'"Well."

'"Last night--no, the night before I received the Lord's Supper, I
saw a man standing there, a tanum liana (a man of rank, or
authority). He said Your breath is bad, I will give you a new
breath.'"

'"Yes."

'"I thought it meant, I will give you a new life. I thought it must
be JESUS."

'He was weak, but not wandering. "Yes, better to die here with a
bright heart than to live in my old home with a dark one."

'January 28th.--The nine young Christians were baptized on Sunday
evening; a very touching and solemn service it was, very full of
comfort. It may be that now, in full swing of work, I am too
sanguine, but I try to be sober-minded, thankful, and hopeful. I
try, I say--it is not easy.

'God bless you, my dear Cousin, and as I pray for you, so I know you
pray for us.

'Your affectionate Cousin,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

A long letter to James Patteson, which was begun a few days later,
goes into the man's retrospect of the boy's career:--

'March 3rd.--I think often of your boys. Jack, in two or three
years, will be old enough for school, and I suppose it must make you
anxious sometimes. I look back on my early days, and see so much, so
very much to regret and grieve over, such loss of opportunities,
idleness, &c., that I think much of the way to make lessons
attractive to boys and girls. I think a good deal may be done simply
by the lessons being given by the persons the children love most, and
hence (where it can be done) the mother first, and the father too (if
he can) are the best people. They know the ways of the child, they
can take it at the right times. Of course, at first it is the
memory, not the reasoning power, that must be brought into exercise.
Young children must learn by heart, learn miles which they can't
understand, or understand but very imperfectly. I think I forget
this sometimes, and talk to my young Melanesians as I should to older
persons. But I feel almost sure that children can follow a simple,
lively account of the meaning and reasons of things much more than
one is apt to fancy. And I don't know how anything can be really
learnt that is not understood. A great secret of success here is an
easy and accurate use of illustration--parabolic teaching.

'Every day of my life I groan over the sad loss I daily experience in
not having been grounded properly in Latin and Greek. I have gone on
with my education in these things more than many persons, but I can
never be a good scholar; I don't know what I would not give to have
been well taught as a boy. And then at Eton, any little taste one
might have had for languages, &c., was never called out.

My fault again, but I can't help thinking that it was partly because
the reason of a rule was never explained. Who ever taught in school
the difference between an aorist and a perfect, e.g.? And at college
I was never taught it, because it was assumed that I knew it. I know
that at ten, fifteen, or twenty, I should not in any case have gone
into languages as I do now. But I might have learnt a good deal, I
think. A thoroughly good preparatory school is, I dare say, very
difficult to find. I would make a great point, I think, to send a
boy to a good one; not to cram him or make a prig of him, but simply
to give him the advantage which will make his whole career in life
different from what it will be if his opening days pass by
unimproved. Cool of me, Jem, to write all this; but I think of this
boy, and my boyish days, and what I might have been, and am not.

'I was always shallow, learned things imperfectly, thought I knew a
thing when I knew scarce any part of it, scrawling off common-place
verses at Eton, and, unfortunately, getting sent up for them. I had
a character which passed at school and at home for that of a fair
scholar. Thence came my disgrace at being turned out of the select,
my bad examination for the Balliol scholarship, my taking only a
second, &c. Nothing was really known! Pretty quick in seizing upon
a superficial view of a matter, I had little patience or deter-
mination to thoroughly master it. The fault follows me through life.
I shall never, I fear, be really accurate and able to think out a
matter fully. The same fault I see in my inner life. But it is not
right to talk perhaps too much of that, only I know that I get credit
for much that I don't do, and for qualities which I don't possess.
This is simple truth, not false humility. Some gifts I have, which,
I thank God, I have been now taught to employ with more or less of
poverty in the service.'

The vessel that took away the above despatches brought the tidings of
New Zealand's beloved Primate being appointed to the See of
Lichfield. It was another great wrench to the affectionate heart, as
will be seen in this filial reply to the intelligence:--

'2nd Sunday in Lent, 10 P.M.

'My dear, dear Bishop,--I don't think I ever quite felt till now what
you have been to me for many a long year. Indeed, I do thank God
that I have been taught to know and dearly love you; and much I
reproach myself (not now for the first time) that I have been wilful,
and pained you much sometimes by choosing for myself when I ought to
have followed your choice. I could say much, but I can't say it now,
and you don't desire it. You know what I think and feel. Your
letter of the 3rd reached me last night. I don't yet realise what it
is to me, but I think much more still of those dear people at
Taurarua. It is perfectly clear to my mind that you could not have
acted otherwise. I don't grudge you to the Mother Church one atom!

'I write at this time because I think you may possibly be soon
beginning your first Ordination Service in your Cathedral. It was
almost my first thought when I began to think quietly after our 8
P.M. prayers. And I pray for those whom you may be leading to their
work, as so often you have laid your hands on me. I understand
Bishop Andrewes' [Greek text] now.

'What it must have been to you and still is!...

'This move to Norfolk Island does make a great difference, no doubt.
And full well I know that your prayers will be around us; and that
you will do all that mortal man can do for us and for the islands.
Indeed, you must not trouble yourself about me too much. I shall
often need you, often sadly miss you, a just return for having
undervalued the blessing of your presence. But I do feel that it is
right. I humbly pray and trust that God's blessing may be on us all,
and that a portion of your spirit may be with us.

'More than ever affectionately yours,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

The tidings had come simultaneously with the history of the
Consecration of All Saints, Babbicombe, for indeed the Bishop and
Mrs. Selwyn were staying with Joanna and Fanny Patteson for the
Octave Services when the first offer arrived. So that the two mails
whose contents were transported together to Norfolk Island contained
matter almost overwhelming for the brother and friend, and he had
only one day in which to write his answers. To the sisters the
assurance is, 'Only be quite comforted about me!' and then again,
'No, I don't grudge him one bit. There is no room for small personal
considerations when these great issues are at stake.'

'I don't think I quite know yet what it is to me. I can't look at
his photograph with quite dry eyes yet. But I don't feel at all sad
or unhappy. You know the separation, if God, in His mercy, spare me
at last, can't be long; and his prayers are always around us, and he
is with us in spirit continually, and then it will be such joy and
delight to me to watch his work.

'I think with such thankfulness of the last Holy Week; the last
Easter Sunday spent wholly with him. I think too, and that sadly
enough, of having pained him sometimes by being self-willed, and
doing just what he has not done, viz., chosen for myself when I ought
to have followed him.

'Do you remember when, on the morning of Mamma's death, we came into
the study where Uncle and Aunt Frank were, and our dear Father in his
great faith and resignation said, with broken voice, "I thank God,
who spared her to me so long"? Surely I may with far greater ease
say, "I thank God for the blessing for now thirteen, years of his
example and loving care of me." Had he been taken away by death we
must have borne it, and we can bear this now by His grace.'

The thought engrossed him most completely. It is plain in all his
letters that it was quite an effort to turn his mind to anything but
the approaching change. His Primate had truly been a 'Father in God'
to him. His affections had wound themselves about him and Mrs.
Selwyn, and the society that they formed together with Sir William
and Lady Martin had become the next thing to his home and family.
Above all, the loneliness of sole responsibility was not complete
while the Primate was near to be consulted. There had been an almost
visible loss of youth and playfulness ever since the voyages had been
made without the leader often literally at the helm; and though
Bishop Patteson had followed his own judgment in two decided points--
the removal to Norfolk Island, and the use of Mota language instead
of English, and did not repent having done so, yet still the being
left with none to whom to look up as an authority was a heavy trial
and strain on mind and body, and brought on another stage in that
premature age that the climate and constant toil were bringing upon
him when most men are still in the fulness of their strength.

The next letter spoke the trouble that was to mark the early part of
the year 1868 as one of sickness and sorrow.

'Our two Ambrym boys are coming out; and I am hopeful as to some more
decided connection with the north face of the Island. Mahaga lads
very promising, but at present Banks Islanders much ahead of the
rest. Indeed, of some of them, I may say that while they have no
knowledge of many things that an English lad ought to know, yet they
have a very fair share of intelligence concentrated on the most
important subject, and know a good deal about it. They think.'

Then follows a working out of one of the difficult questions that
always beset missionaries respecting the heathen notions--or no
notions--about wedlock. Speaking of the persons concerned, the
journal continues:--

'They were not able to understand--and how can a man and woman, or
rather a girl and boy, understand--what we understand by marriage.
They always saw men and women exchanging husbands and wives when they
pleased, and grew up in the midst of such ideas and practices, so
that there never was a regular contract, nor a regularly well-
conceived and clearly-understood notion of living together till
"death us do part" in their minds. You will say, "And yet they were
baptized." Yes, but I did not know so much about heathen ways then,
and, besides, read St. Paul to the Corinthians, and see how the idea
of sanctity of marriage, and of chastity in general is about the last
idea that the heathen mind comprehends. Long after the heathen know
that to break the sixth, eighth, even the ninth and tenth
Commandments is wrong, and can understand and practically recognise
it to be so, the seventh is a puzzle to them. At the best they only
believe it because we say that it is a Commandment of God. Look at
the Canons of the early Church on the question; look how Luther
sanctioned the polygamy, the double marriage, of the Landgrave of
Hesse! So that although now, thank God, our scholars understand more
of what is meant by living with a woman, and the relation of husband
and wife is not altogether strange to them, yet it was not so at
first, and is not likely to be so with any but our well-trained
scholars for a long time.'

'Norfolk Island: March 26, 1868. 'My dearest Sisters,--How you are
thinking of me this anniversary? Thirteen years since I saw your
dear faces and his face. Oh! how thankful I am that it is so long
ago. It was very hard to bear for a long long time. Last night as I
lay awake I thought of that last Sunday, the words I said in church
(how absurdly consequential they seem to me now), the walk home,
calling to see C. L., parting with the Vicar and M., the last
evening--hearts too full to say what was in them, the sitting up at
night and writing notes. And then black Monday! Well, I look back
now and see that it was very hard at first, and I don't deny that I
found the mere bodily roughnesses very trying at first, but that has
long past. My present mode of life is agreeable to me altogether
now. Servants and company would be a very great bore indeed. So
even in smaller ways, you see, I have all that I can desire. I
always try to remember that I may miss these things, and specially
miss you if it should please God to send any heavy sickness upon me.
I dare say I should be very impatient, and need kind soothing nurses.
But I must hope for the best.

'Just now we have some anxiety. There has been and is a bad typhoid
fever among the Pitcairners: want of cleanliness, no sewerage, or
very bad draining, crowded rooms, no ventilation, the large drain
choked up, a dry season, so that the swampy ground near the
settlement has been dry, these are secondary causes. For two months
it has been going on. I never anticipated such a disease here.

'But the fever is bad. Last night two died, both young women of
about twenty. Two, one a married man of thirty, with five children,
the other a girl of twelve, had died before. I have been backwards
and forwards, but no one else of the party. The poor people like to
see me. For three weeks I have felt some anxiety about four or five
of our lads, and they have been with me in my room. I don't like the
symptoms of one or two of them. But it is not yet a clear case of
the fever.'

'Easter Eve.--Dear Sisters, once more I write out of a sick hospital.
This typhoid fever, strongly marked, as described in Dr. Watson's
books, Graye's edition of Hooper's "Vade Mecum," and, as a very
solemn lesson of Lent and Holy Week, seven Pitcairners have died.
For many weeks the disease did not touch us; we established a regular
quarantine, and used all precautions. We had, I think, none of the
predisposing causes of fever at our place. It is high, well-drained,
clean, no dirt near, excellent water, and an abundant supply of it;
but I suppose the whole air is impregnated with it. Anyhow, the
fever is here.

'April 23rd.--My house consists, you know, of Chapel, my rooms, and
hospital. This is the abode of the sick and suspected. The hospital
is a large, lofty, well-ventilated room; a partition, 6 feet high,
only divides it into two; on one side are the sick, on the other side
sleep those who are sickening.

'As yet twenty have been in my quarters. Of these seven are now in
Codrington's house, half-way between hospital and ordinary school
life. They are convalescents, real convalescents. You know how much
so-called convalescents need care in recovering from fever, but these
seven have had the fever very slightly indeed, thank God; the type of
the disease is much less severe than it was at first. One lad of
about sixteen, Hofe from Ysabel Island, died last Friday morning.
The fever came on him with power from the first. He was very
delirious for some days, restless, sleepless, then comatose. The
symptoms are so very clearly marked, and my books are so clear in
detail of treatment, that we don't feel much difficulty now about the
treatment, and the nursery and hospital work we are pretty well used
to.

'Barasu, from Ysabel Island, who was near dying on Thursday week, a
fortnight ago to-day, has hovered between life and death. I baptized
him at 9 P.M. on Holy Thursday (the anniversary of Mr. Keble's
death). John Keble: rather presumptuous to give such a name, but I
thought he would not have been named here by it for many hours. He
is now sitting by the hospital fire. I have just fed him with some
rice and milk; and he is well enough to ask for a bit of sweet
potato, which he cannot yet hold, nor guide his hand to his mouth.
He has had the regular fever, and is now, thank God, becoming
convalescent. No other patient is at present in a dangerous state;
all have the fever signs more or less doubtful. No one is at present
in a precarious state. It has been very severe in the town, and
there are many cases yet. Partly it is owing to the utter ignorance
or neglect of the most ordinary rules of caution and nursing.
Children and men and women all lie on the ground together in the
fever or out of it. The contagion fastens upon one after another.
In Isaac Christian's house, the mother and five children were all at
one time in a dangerous state, wandering, delirious, comatose. Yet
the mortality has been small. Only seven have died; some few are
still very ill, yet the character of the fever is less severe now.
We had some sharp hospital work for a few days and nights, all the
accompaniments of the decay of our frail bodies. Now we have a
respite. Codrington, Palmer, and I take the nursing; better that the
younger ones, always more liable to take fever, should be kept out of
contagion; to no one but I have gone among the sick in town, or to
town at all. We are all quite well.

'Beef tea, chicken broth, mutton broth, wine, brandy, milk to any
extent, rice, &c.--Palmer manufactures all. The Pitcairners, most
improvident people, are short of all necessary stores. I give what I
can, but I must be stingy, as I tell them, for I never anticipated an
attack of typhus here. They will, I trust, learn a lesson from it,
and not provoke a recurrence of it by going on in their old ways.

'I don't deny that at times I have been a good deal depressed: about
Holy Week and Easter Week was the worst time. Things are much
brighter now; though I fully expect that several others, perhaps many
others, will yet have the attack, but I trust and fancy it may be
only in a modified form. We have regular Chapel and school, but the
school is a mild affair now; I who am only in bed from 12.30 or 1 to
5, and in the hospital all day, cannot be very bright in school. I
just open a little bit of my red baize door into Chapel, so that the
sick in my room join in the service. Nice, is it not?

'This will greatly unsettle plans for the voyage. The "Southern
Cross" is expected here about May 10; but I can't leave any sick that
may want my care then, and I can't take back to the islands any that
are only just convalescent, or indeed any of the apparently healthy
who may yet have the seeds of the fever in them. It would be fearful
if it broke out on the islands. I must run no risk of that; so I
think that very likely I may keep the whole party here another year,
and make myself a short visitation. I suppose that the Bishop will
come to New Zealand, and I must try to meet him; I should like to see
his face once more; but if he doesn't come, or if I can't (by reason
of this sickness) go to meet him--well, I shall be spared the parting
if I don't have the joy of the meeting, and these things are not now
what they once were.

'April 28th.--Barasu (John Keble) died this morning as I read the
Commendatory Prayer by his side. He had a relapse some five days
ago, how we cannot say, he was always watched day and night. I had
much comfort in him, he was a dear lad, and our most hopeful Ysabel
scholar. His peaceful death, for it was very peaceful at the last,
may work more than his life would have done; some twenty others
convalescent, or ailing, or sick. At this moment another comes to
say that he feels out of sorts; you know that sensation, and how
one's heart seems to stop for a minute, and then one tries to look
and speak cheerfully.

'April 29th.--I read the Service over another child to-day, son of
James and Priscilla Quintall, the second child they have lost within
a few days, and Priscilla herself is lying ill of the fever. Poor
people, I did what little I could to comfort them; the poor fellow is
laid up too with a bad foot; a great many others are very ill, some
young ones especially.

'May 5th.--Jemima Young sent for me yesterday morning. I was with
her the day before, and she was very ill. I reached the room at
11.45, and she died at noon. [Jemima Young had been particularly
bright, pleasant, and helpful when Mrs. Selwyn was on the island].

'May 7th.--The sick ones doing pretty well. You must not think it is
all gloom, far from it, there is much to cheer and comfort us. The
hearty co-operation of these excellent fellow-workers is such a
support, and is brought out at such times.

'We are going on with divers works, but not very vigorously just now.
We are sawing the timber for our large hall: the building still to be
put up, and then our arrangements will be complete for the present.

'Then our fencing goes on. We have one large field of some ninety or
one hundred acres enclosed, the sea and a stream bounding two sides,
and two other fields of about forty and twenty acres. I have good
cart mares and one cart horse, a riding mare which I bought of Mr.
Pritt, and Atkin has one also, eleven cows, and as many calves,
poultry (sadly destroyed by wild cats) and pigs, and two breeding
sows, and a flock of fifty well-bred sheep imported. These cost me
£4. 10s. a head; I hope they are the progenitors of a fine flock.
The ram cost £12. We have plenty of work, and must go on fencing and
subdividing our fields. Most of the land is wooded; but a
considerable quantity can easily be cleared. Indeed 200 or 300 acres
are clear now of all but some smaller stuff that can easily be
removed. A thick couch-grass covers all. It is not so nutritious as
the ordinary English grasses; but cattle, sheep, and horses like it,
only a larger quantity is needed by each animal. It gives trouble
when one wants to break it up, it is such a network of roots; but
once out of the ground and the soil clear, and it will grow anything.
Our crops of sweet potatoes are excellent. The ordinary potato does
very well too; and maize, vegetables of all sorts, many fruit trees,
all the semi-tropical things, capitally; guavas by the thousand, and
very soon I hope oranges; lemons now by thousands, melons almost a
weed, bananas abundant; by-and-by coffee, sugar-cane, pineapples
(these last but small), arrowroot of excellent quality. Violets from
my bed, and mignonette from Palmer's, scent my room at this minute.
The gardeners, Codrington, Palmer, and Atkin, are so kind in making
me tidy, devising little arrangements for my little plot of ground,
and my comfort and pleasure generally. Well, that is a nice little
chat with you. Now it is past 8 P.M., and the mutton broth for
Clement and Mary is come. I must feed my chicks. Excellent patients
they are, as good as can be. They don't make the fuss that I did in
my low fever when I was so savage with your doves that would go on
cooing at my window, don't you remember?

'My dear Bishop will be touched by the confidence in him shown by his
late Diocesan Synod in entrusting to him the nomination of his
successor. It was clearly the right thing to do. As for me, no one
who knows anything about it or me would dream of removing me from
Melanesia, as long as I have health and strength, and still less of
putting me into another diocese. When I break down, or give up, it
will not be to hold any other office, as I think.

'May 8th.--All going on pretty well, thank God. Mary is weak, but I
think better; did not wander last night. Clement, with strong
typhoid symptoms, yet, at all events, not worse. But he is a very
powerful, thickset fellow, not a good subject for fever. I feel that
I am beginning to recover my interest in things in general, books,
&c. For two months I was entirely occupied with hospital work, and
with visiting daily the sick Pitcairners, and I was weary and
somewhat worn out. Now I am better in mind and body; some spring in
me again. This may be to fit me for more trials in store; but I
think that the sunshine has come again.'

There were, however, two more deaths--the twins of Mwerlau. Clement
died on the 24th of May; the other brother, Richard, followed him a
fortnight later. They were about seventeen, strong and thick-set;
Clement had made considerable progress during his two years of
training, and had been a Communicant since Christmas. Before passing
to the other topics with which, as the Bishop said, he could again be
occupied, here is Mr. Codrington's account of this period of
trouble:--