Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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

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'It is a long time to pass without seeing you, but I hope, if it
please God that we all live on together, that it will be long before
such another interval occurs. I have not grown out of an occasional
fit of home sickness yet; and on these occasions Arthur and I talk
incessantly about domestic matters, and indulge our fancies in
conjecturing what you are all doing, and so forth. I followed Joan
and Clara's trip, step by step, from the Den at Teignmouth to St.
Mary Church, Oddiscombe, Rabbicombe, Anstey's Cave, Meadfoot, &c.
How I remember every inch of the dear old places! Better than the
mud banks at Felixstowe, are they not, Clara? I shall keep always
the scrap from the "Guardian" with Father's speech. I don't think I
remember any speech on a similar occasion so thoroughly good, and so
likely to do good. Plain, sensible, and manly, no question of words
and unimportant differences of opinion; no cant, high or low, just
like himself. I pray I may have but a tenth part of his honesty and
freedom from prejudice and party spirit. It may come, under God's
blessing, if a man's mind is earnestly set on the truth; but the
danger is of setting up your own exclusive standard of truth, moral
and intellectual. Father certainly is more free from it than any man
we ever knew. He tells me in his letter that the Bishop of Sydney is
coming home to consult people in England about Synodical Action, &c.,
and that he is going to meet him and explain to him certain
difficulties and mistakes into which he has fallen with regard to
administering the Oath of Abjuration and the like matters. How few
people, comparatively, know the influence Father exercises in this
way behind the scenes, as it were. His intimacy with so many of the
Bishops, too, makes his position really of very great importance. I
don't want to magnify, but the more I think of him, and know how very
few men they are that command such general respect, and bear such a
character with all men for uprightness and singleness of purpose, it
is very difficult to know how his place could be supplied when we
throw his legal knowledge over and above into the scale. I hope he
will write: I am quite certain that his opinion will exercise a great
influence on very many people. Such a speech as this at Mary Church
embodies exactly the sense of a considerable number of the most
prudent and most able men of the country, and his position and
character give it extra weight, and that would be so equally with his
book as with his speech. How delightful it will be to have him at
Oxford. He means to come in time for dinner on the 14th, and go away
on the 16th; but if he likes it, he will, I daresay, stop now and
then on his way to town and back. Jem will not be back in town when
he goes up for the Judicial Committee work, so he will be rather
solitary there, won't he. I am not, however, sure about the number
of weeks Jem must reside to keep his term....'

The enjoyment of the last few days at Dresden 'was much marred by a
heavy cold, caught by going to see an admirable representation of
'Egmont,' the last of these theatrical treats so highly appreciated.
The journey to Berlin, before the cold was shaken off, resulted in an
attack of illness; and he was so heavy and uncomfortable as to be
unable to avail himself of his opportunities of interesting
introductions.

He returned to his rooms at Merton direct from Germany. Like many
men who have come back to Oxford at a riper age than that of
undergraduate life, he now entered into the higher privileges and
enjoyments of the University, the studies, friendships, and
influences, as early youth sometimes fails to do. He was felt by his
Oxford friends to have greatly developed since his Balliol terms had
been over and the Eton boy left behind. Study was no longer a toil
and conscientious effort. It had become a prime pleasure; and men
wondered to find the plodding, accurate, but unenthusiastic student
of three years back, a linguist and philologist of no common power
and attainment. Mr. Roundell says, 'He had become quite another
person. Self-cultivation had done much for him. Literature and art
had opened his mind and enlarged his interests and sympathies. The
moral and spiritual forces of the man were now vivified, refined, and
strengthened by the awakening of his intellectual and esthetic
nature.'

Ever reaching forward, however, he was on his guard against, as he
said, making the means the end. Languages were his pleasure, but a
pleasure held in check as only subservient to his preparation for the
ministry. He did not mean to use them to the acquirement of
academical honour nor promotion, nor did he even rest in the
intellectual delight of investigation; he intended them only as keys
to the better appreciation of the Scriptures and of the doctrines of
the Church, unaware as yet that the gift he was cultivating would be
of inestimable value in far distant regions.

In February, while Sir John Patteson was in London, his son James was
the cause of much alarm, owing to a mistake by which he swallowed an
embrocation containing a large amount of laudanum. Prompt measures,
however, prevented any ill effects; and all danger was over before
the letter was sent off which informed Coley of what had happened;
but the bare idea of the peril was a great shock to one of such warm
affections, and so deeply attached to his only brother. He wrote the
two following letters to his father and sisters on the first impulse
on the receipt of the intelligence:--

'Shrove Tuesday.

'My dearest Father,--I believe I speak truly when I say that I never
in my life felt so thoroughly thankful and grateful to God for His
great mercy as I did this morning, on reading of dear Jem's danger
and safety. He is less accustomed to talk about his feelings than I
am, in which I see his superiority, but partly because our tastes are
in several respects different, chiefly because of his exceeding
amiability and unselfishness. I am sure we love each other very
dearly. Ever since his illness at Geneva, I have from time to time
contemplated the utter blank, the real feeling of loss, which
anything happening to him would bring with it, and the having it
brought home close to me in this way quite upset me, as it well
might. I pray God that no ill effects may follow, and from what you
say I apprehend none. I have often thought that it is much better
when two brothers propose to themselves different objects in life,
and pursue them with tastes dissimilar on unimportant matters. They
act better upon one another; just as I look to Jem, as I have more
than once told him, to give me a hint when he sees a want of common
sense in anything I take up, because I know I act a good deal from
impulse, and take an interest in many things which are perhaps not
worth the time I spend on them. It is a mercy that I hope I shall
never forget, never cease to be thankful for. Many and many a time,
if it please God, I shall look to him in difficulties, and remember
how nearly once he was lost to me. I can get away with the greatest
ease for a few days on Thursday if desirable, and perhaps old Jem
will feel low after this, when you have left him. I think this very
likely, from what I know of him, and if you think it too, without
asking him if he would like it, I will come up for some other reason.
You will not go, I know, unless he is perfectly well; but he might,
and I think would, like to have some one with him just at first. Let
me know what you think.

'Good-bye, my dearest father.

'Ever your affectionate and dutiful son,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

'Merton, Shrove Tuesday.

'My dearest Joan and Fan,--How we must all have united this morning
in pouring out our thanks to God for His great mercy! You will not
suspect me of being wanting in love to you, if I say that the
contemplation of what might have happened presented such a scene of
desolation, such a void, that it would have required all the strength
I possess to turn to God in resignation and submission to His will.
I have often, very often, thought of that illness at Geneva, but this
brought it home to me, perhaps closer still; and I hope I shall never
cease to be mindful of, and thankful for, this special providence.
Father seems pretty confident that all mischief is prevented; and Jem
wrote six hours after he took the laudanum, and had then felt no
drowsiness to speak of, and Dr. Watson said there was no fear of
anything happening after two hours had elapsed.

'I should like to join with you in showing our gratitude by some deed
of charity, or whatever you think right. Something that without any
show might be a thank-offering to God for His signal act of mercy.

'Ever your loving Brother,

'J. C. PATTESON.

'5.30. I wrote this quite early this morning. I can hardly think
yet what it all means. Now, I feel only a sense of some very heavy
affliction removed. Poor dear Father, and all of us! what should we
have been without him!'

A letter to the brother himself was written under the same impulse,
even more tenderly affectionate, but so deep and intimate, that it
would almost be treason to give it to the world. The next letter was
written soon after the alarm had passed, but is undated:--

'My dear Fan,--Yesterday I was unluckily too seedy with headache to
go on the ice, and this morning I have been skating for half an hour,
but the ice is spoilt. Very jolly it is to be twisting and turning
about once more. I thought of writing to old Jem to come down for
it, as I should think the frost is not severe enough to freeze any
but the shallow water of the floods, but it was not good enough to
reward him for the trouble of coming so far.

'The constant sense of his preservation from that great danger really
prevents my feeling so acutely perhaps as I ought to do the distress
of others. I really think I ought to be less cheerful and happy than
I feel myself to be. I had a pleasant little talk with Dr. Pusey on
Monday: he was recommending me two or three books for Hebrew reading,
but they would be of no use to me yet; the language is difficult to
advance far into, and you know my shallow way of catching a thing at
first rather quickly perhaps, but only superficially. I find my
interest increasing greatly in philological studies. One language
helps another very much; and the beautiful way in which the words,
ideas, and the whole structure indeed, of language pervades whole
families, and even the different families, (e.g., the Indo-Germanic
and Semitic races,) is not only interesting, but very useful. I wish
I had made myself a better Greek and Latin scholar, but unfortunately
I used to hate classics. What desperate uphill work it was to read
them, a regular exercise of self-denial every morning! Now I like it
beyond any study, except Divinity proper, and I try to make up for
lost time. There are admirable books in my possession which
facilitate the acquisition of critical scholarship very much, and I
work at these, principally applying it to New Test. Greek, LXX, &c.
But my real education began, I think, with my first foreign trip. It
seems as if there was not time for all this, for I have Hebrew,
Arabic, &c., to go on with (though this is a slow process), Pearson,
Hooker, Blunt on the Reformation (a mere sketch which I read in a day
or two at odd times), Commentaries, Trench's Books on Parables and
Miracles, which are in my room at home, and would in parts interest
you; he is a writer of good common sense, and a well-read man). But
I of course want to be reading history as well, and that involves a
good deal; physical geography, geology, &c., yet one things helps
another very much. I don't work quite as methodically as I ought;
and I much want some one to discuss matters with relating to what I
read. I don't say all this, I am sure you know, as if I wanted to
make out that I am working at grand subjects. I know exceeding
little of any one of them, so little history, e.g., that a school
girl could expose my ignorance directly, but I like to know what we
are doing among ourselves, and we all get to know each other better
thereby. I felt so much of late with regard to Jem, that a natural
reserve prevents so often members even of the same family from
communicating freely to each other their opinions, business, habits
of life, experiences of sympathy, approval, disapproval, and the
like; and when one member is gone, then it is felt how much more
closely such a habit of dealing with each other would have taught us
to know him.... Nothing tests one's knowledge so well as questions
and answers upon what we have read, stating difficulties, arguments
which we can't understand, &c., to each other. Ladies who have no
profession to prepare for, in spite of a very large correspondence
and numerous household duties, may (in addition to their parochial
work as curates!) take up a real course of reading and go into it
thoroughly; and this gives girls not only employment for the time,
but gives the mind power to seize every other subject presented to
it. If you are quite alone, your reading is apt to become desultory.
I find it useful to take once or twice a week a walk with Riddell of
Balliol, and go through a certain period of Old Testament history; it
makes me get it up, and then between us we hammer out so many more
explanations of difficult passages than, at all events, I should do
by myself. He is, moreover, about the best Greek scholar here, which
is a great help to me. You have no idea of the light that such
accurate scholarship as his throws upon many disputed passages in the
Bible, e.g., "Wisdom is justified of her children," where the Greek
preposition probably gives the key to the whole meaning, and many
such. So you see, dear old Fan, that the want of some one to pour
out this to, for it sounds fearfully pedantic, I confess, has drawn
upon you this grievous infliction.

'My kindest love to Father and dear Joan,

'Ever your loving

'J. C. P.'

Fanny Patteson answered with arguments on the other duties which
hindered her from entering on the course of deep study which he had
been recommending. He replies:--

'Feb. 25, 1853.

'My dearest Fan,--I must answer your very sensible well-written
letter at once, because on our system of mutual explanation, there
are two or three things I wish to notice in it. First, I never meant
that anything should supersede duties which I am well aware you
practise with real use to yourself and those about you, e.g., the
kindness and sympathy shown to friends, and generally due observance
of all social relations. Second, I quite believe that the practical
application of what is already known, teaching, going about among the
poor, is of far more consequence than the acquisition of knowledge,
which, of course, for its own sake is worth nothing. Third, I think
you perfectly right in keeping up music, singing, all the common
amusements of a country life; of course I do, for indeed what I said
did not apply to Joan or you, except so far as this, that we all know
probably a great deal of which each one is separately ignorant, and
the free communication of this to one another is desirable, I think.

'My own temptation consists perhaps chiefly in the love of reading
for its own sake. I do honestly think that for a considerable time
past I have read, I believe, nothing which I do not expect to be of
real use, for I have no taste naturally for novels, &c. (without,
however,, wishing to deny that there may be novels which teach a real
insight into character). Barring "I Promessi Sposi" which I take up
very seldom when tired, I have not read one for ages: I must except
"Old Mortality," read last Vacation at Feniton; but I can't deny that
I like the study of languages for its own sake, though I apply my
little experience in it wholly to the interpretation of the Bible. I
like improving my scholarship, it is true, but I can say honestly
that it is used to read the Greek Testament with greater accuracy: so
of the Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic. I feel, I confess, sometimes that it
is nice, &c., to know several languages, but I try to drive away any
such thoughts, and it is quite astonishing how, after a few weeks, a
study which would suggest ideas of an unusual course of reading
becomes so familiar that I never think of myself when pursuing it,
e.g., I don't think that after two hours' grind at Arabic the stupid
wrong feeling of its being an out-of-the-way study comes upon me now,
it is getting quite natural. It comes out though when I talk or
write perhaps with another, but I must try and get over it.

'I believe it to be a good thing to break off any work once or twice
a day in the middle of any reading, for meditating a little while and
for prayer. This is more easily done at College than elsewhere; and
is, I hope, a preventive against such thoughts. Then, as I jog on I
see how very little I know, what an immense deal I have to learn to
become ordinarily well acquainted with these things. I am in that
state of mind, perhaps, when Ecclesiastes (which I am now reading)
puts my own case exactly before me. I think, What's the good of it
all? And the answer comes, it may be very good properly used, or
very mischievous if abused. I do indeed look forward to active
parochial work: I think I shall be very happy so employed, and I
often try to anticipate the time in thought, and feel with perfect
sincerity that nothing is so useful or so full of comfort as the
consciousness of trying to fulfil the daily duties of my situation.
Here of course I need do nothing; I mean there is nothing to prevent
my sitting all day in an arm-chair and reading "Pickwick.".... One
word about the way languages help me, that you may not think what I
am doing harder than it really is. These three bear the same kind of
relation to each other (or rather say these five, Arabic, Syriac,
Hebrew, Chaldee, Ethiopia; but of the last I know nothing whatever,
and of Chaldee only so much as that it is a dialect of Hebrew in the
same character, and consequently anyone who knows Hebrew knows
something about it), as German to English, e.g., Bahlom (Arab.), Beel
(Syr.), Baal (Heb.), are the same word, as you can see, only written
in different characters, and all mean "a lord," so Baal, Beelzebub,
or Baalzebeb. Baal Peor, which means, literally, "the Lord of the
ravine," viz., the idol worshipped at the Pass in the wilderness.
Consequently, in reading any one of these languages, the same word
keeps on occurring in all; and the chief use is of course that often
a word which occurs only once or twice in Hebrew perhaps is in common
use in the others, and so its meaning is fixed. Add to all this,
that the Syriac version of the New Testament was made (as all agree)
early in the second century, if not at the end of the first, and thus
is the very best exponent of the New Testament where the Greek is
doubtful; and the additional fact, that though a mixture of Chaldee
and Syriac was the language of Palestine in our Lord's time, yet He
certainly sometimes spoke what is now our Syriac (e.g., Talitha cumi,
&c.), and the importance of it is apparent. Surely to read the
language that our Blessed Lord himself used is no small profit as
well as delight.

'So I think we may each go on in our several pursuits, each helping
each, and each trying to do so without a foolish affectation of
learning.

'My best love to dear Father and Joan,

'Ever your affectionate Brother,

'J. C. P.'

Fenelon has said that in a certain stage of piety there is much of
self, and Coley was evidently in that stage. His own figure was the
primary object before his eyes, neither indulged, nor admired, but
criticised, repressed, and by his very best efforts thrust aside,
whenever he was conscious that his self-contemplation was self-
complacency. Still it was in his nature to behold it, and discuss
it, and thus to conquer and outgrow the study in time, while leaving
many observations upon self-culture and self-training, that will no
doubt become deeply valued as the result of the practical experience
of one who so truly mastered that obtrusive self.

Patteson was one of the most decided workers for the admission of
improvements and reduction of abuses within his own college, with
which each Oxford foundation was endeavouring to forestall compulsory
reformation by a University Commission. Mr. Roundell says:--

'His early years as Fellow of Merton coincided with the period of
active reform at Oxford which followed upon the Report of the
Commission in 1852. What part did the future Missionary Bishop take
in that great movement? One who worked with him at that time--a time
when University reform was as unfashionable as it is now fashionable-
-well remembers. He threw himself into the work with hearty zeal; he
supported every liberal proposal. To his loyal fidelity and solid
common sense is largely due the success with which the reform of
Merton was carried out. And yet in those first days of college
reform the only sure and constant nucleus of the floating-Liberal
majority consisted of Patteson and one other. Whatever others did,
those two were always on the same side. And so, somehow, owing no
doubt to the general enlightenment which distinguished the senior
Fellows of Merton under the old regime--an enlightenment
unquestionably due to the predominance in that College of the lay
non-resident element--the new reforming spirit found itself in the
ascendency. It is to the honour of Patteson, and equally to the
honour of the older Fellows of the College at that time, that so
great an inroad upon old traditions should have been made with such
an entire absence of provocation on the one side, or of irritation on
the other. But Patteson, with all his reforming zeal, was also a
high-bred gentleman. He remembered what was due to others as well as
to himself. His bearing was one of respect for authority, of
deference towards those who were his superiors in age. He knew how
to differ. He showed towards others the considerate courtesy which
others in return so abundantly showed towards him. And this generous
forbearance of the seniors had its reward. It entailed upon the
juniors a reciprocity of respect. It was felt by them at the time to
be an additional incentive to moderation, to sobriety, to desistance
from extreme views. The result was that the work got done, and what
was done left no heartburnings behind.

'Yet it would be delusive to pretend to claim Bishop Patteson as a
Liberal in the political sense of the word. He was no such thing.
If anything, his instincts, especially in Church matters, drew him
the other way. But those who knew the man, like those who have seen
the Ammergau Play, would as soon think of fastening upon that a
sectarian character, as of fixing him with party names. His was a
catholic mind. What distinguished him was his open-mindedness, his
essential goodness, his singleness and simplicity of aim. He was a
just man, and singularly free from perturbations of self, of temper,
or of nerves. You did not care to ask what he would call himself.
You felt what he was, that you were in the presence of a man too pure
for party, of one in whose presence ordinary party distinctions
almost ceased to have a meaning. Such a man could scarcely be on the
wrong side. Both the purity of his nature and the rectitude of his
judgment would have kept him straight.'

Coley remained at Merton until the Long Vacation of 1853; when his
Oxford life terminated, though not his connection with the
University, for he retained his Fellowship until his death, and the
friendships he had formed both at Balliol and Merton remained
unbroken.

CHAPTER V.

THE CURACY AT ALFINGTON. 1853-1855.

Preparation for ordination had become Patteson's immediate object.
As has been already said, his work was marked out. There was a
hamlet of the parish of Ottery St. Mary, at a considerable distance
from the church and town, and named Alfington.

Some time previously, the family of Sir John Kennaway had provided
the place with a school, which afterwards passed into the hands of
Mr. Justice Coleridge, who, in 1849, there built the small church of
St. James, with parsonage, school, and house, on a rising ground
overlooking the valley of Honiton, almost immediately opposite to
Feniton; and, at the same time, took on himself the expenses of the
curacy and school, for the vicar of the parish, the Rev. Dr. Cornish,
formerly master of Ottery School.

The first curate of Alfington was Judge Coleridge's son Henry, the
well-known author of the beautiful Life of St. Francis Xavier. On
his leaving our communion, it was his father's wish that Coleridge
Patteson should take the cure; and, until his ordination, it was
committed temporarily to other hands, in especial to the Rev. Henry
Gardiner, who was much beloved there. In the spring of 1853, he had
a long and dangerous illness, when Coley came to nurse him, and
became so much attached to him, that his influence and unconscious
training became of great importance. The church was served by such
clerical friends as could give their assistance on Sunday, and the
pastoral care, attention to the school, cottage visiting, &c., became
the employment of the candidate for Holy Orders, who thus began his
work under the direction of his disabled friend.