Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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'It is 2 P.M., and I feel tired: the crowds are gone, though little
fellows are as usual sitting all round one. I tell them I can't
talk; I must sit quietly, with Charlotte Yonge's "Pupils of St. John
the Divine." Dear me, what advantage young folks have nowadays,
though indeed the dangers of these times far outweigh those of our
young days.

'I suppose Lightfoot's "Commentaries" hardly come in your way. They
are critical and learned on the Greek of St. Paul's Epistles. But
there are dissertations which may be read by the English reader. He
seems to me to be a very valuable man, well fitted by his learning,
and moderation, and impartiality, and uncontroversial temper to do
much good. His sympathies with the modern school of thought are, I
fancy, beyond me.

'There is no doubt that Matthew Arnold says much that is true of the
narrowness, bigotry, and jealous un-Christian temper of Puritanism;
and I suppose no one doubts that they do misrepresent the true
doctrine of Christianity, both by their exclusive devotion to one
side only of the teaching of the Bible, and by their misconception of
their own favourite portions of Scripture. The doctrine of the
Atonement was never in ancient times, I believe, drawn out in the
form in which Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and others have lately stated
it.

'The fact of the Atonement through the Death of Christ was always
clearly stated; the manner, the "why," the "how" man's Redemption and
Reconciliation to God is thus brought about, was not taught, if at
all, after the Protestant fashion.

'Oxenham's "History of the Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement" is a
fairly-written statement of what was formerly held and taught. Such
words as "substitution," "satisfaction," with all the ideas
introduced into the subject from the use of illustrations, e.g. of
criminals acquitted, debts discharged, have perplexed it perhaps,
rather than explained, what must be beyond explanation.

'The ultra-Calvinistic view becomes in the mind and language of the
hot-headed ignorant fanatic a denial of God's Unity. "The merciful
Son appeasing the wrath of the angry Father" is language which
implies two Wills, two Counsels in the Divine Mind (compare with this
John iii. 16).

I suppose that an irreverent man, being partly disgusted with the
popular theology, having no scruples about putting aside Inspiration,
&c., and conceiving that he himself is an adequate representative of
the nineteenth century's intelligence, and that the nineteenth
century's intelligence is most profound and infallible, sets to work
to demolish what is distasteful to himself, and what the unerring
criticism of the day rejects, correcting St. Paul's mistakes,
patronising him whenever he is fortunate enough to receive the
approbation of the great thinkers of our day, and so constructs a
vague "human" religion out of the Christianity which he criticises,
eliminating all that lies beyond the speculative range of the mind,
and that demands assent by its own authority as God's Revelation.
I don't know how to state briefly what I mean.

'I think I can understand that this temper of mind is very prevalent
in England now, and that I can partly trace the growth of it.
Moreover, I feel that to ignore, despise, or denounce it, will do no
good.

'As a matter of fact, thousands of educated men are thinking on these
great matters as our fathers did not think of them. Simplicity of
belief is a great gift; but then the teaching submitted to such
simple believers ought to be true, otherwise the simple belief leads
them into error. How much that common Protestant writers and
preachers teach is not true! Perhaps some of their teaching is
untrue absolutely, but it is certainly untrue relatively, because
they do not hold the "proportion of the faith," and by excluding some
truths and presenting others in an extravagant form they distort the
whole body of truth.

'But when a man not only points out some of the popular errors, but
claims to correct St. Paul when he Judaizes, and to do a little
judicious Hellenizing for an inspired Apostle, one may well distrust
the nineteenth century tone and spirit.

'I do really and seriously think that a great and reverently-minded
man, conscious of the limits of human reason--a man like Butler--
would find his true and proper task now in presenting Christian
teaching in an unconventional form, stripped of much error that the
terms which we all employ when speaking doctrine seem unavoidably to
carry with them.

'Such a man might ask, "What do you mean by your theory of
Substitution, Satisfaction, &c.?" "Where do you find it?" "Prove it
logically from the Bible." "Show that the early Church held it."

'Butler, as you know, reproved the curiosity of men who sought to
find out the manner of the Atonement. "I do not find," he says,
"that it is declared in the Scriptures." He believed the fact, of
course, as his very soul's treasure. "Our ignorance," he says, "is
the proper answer to such enquiries."

'At the same time, no one now can do, it seems, what another Butler
might do, viz., deal with the Bible as the best of the nineteenth-
century men wish to hear a divine deal with it. He would never make
mere assertions. He would never state as a proved truth, to be
presented to a congregation's acceptance, a statement or a doctrine
which really equalled only an opinion of Wesley or any other human
teacher. He would never make arbitrary quotations from Scripture,
and try to prove points by illogical reasoning, and unduly pressing
texts which a more careful collation of MSS. has shown to be at least
doubtful. And by fairness and learning he would win or conciliate
right-minded men of the critical school. What offends these men is
the cool reckless way in which so many preachers make the most
audacious statements, wholly unsupported by any sound learning and
logical reasoning. A man makes a statement, quotes a text or two,
which he doesn't even know to be capable of at least one inter-
pretation different from that which he gives to it; and so the
critical hearer is disgusted, and no wonder.

'One gain of this critical spirit is, that it makes all of us Clergy
more circumspect in what we say, and many a man looks at his Greek
Testament nowadays, and at a good Commentary too, before he ventures
to quote a text which formerly would have done duty in its English
dress and passed muster among an uncritical congregation. Nowadays
every clergyman knows that there are probably men in his congregation
who know their Bible better than he does, and as practical lawyers,
men of business, &c., are more than his match at an argument. It
offends such men to have a shallow-minded preacher taking for granted
the very points that he ought to prove, giving a sentence from some
divine of his school as if it settled the question without further
reference even to the Bible.

'This critical spirit becomes very easily captious; and a man needn't
be unbelieving because he doesn't like to be credulous. Campbell's
book on the Atonement is very hard, chiefly because the man writes
such unintelligible English. I think Shairp in his "Essays," gives a
good critique as far as it goes on the philosophical and religious
manner of our day.

'Alexander Knox says somewhere in his correspondence with Bishop Jebb
that he couldn't understand the Protestant theory of Justification.
And it does seem to be often stated as if the terms employed in
describing a mere transaction could adequately convey the true power
and meaning of a Divine mystery.

'But I only puzzle you, I dare say, and certainly I am liable to the
charge of not writing intelligible English. I can tell you I am glad
enough that I am not called on to preach on these subjects after the
fashion that a preacher in England must go to work.

'It is a cool thing to say, but I do believe that what half our
English congregations want is just the plain simple teaching that our
Melanesians get, only the English congregations wouldn't stand it.'

A letter to Arthur Coleridge is of the same date:--

'Mota Island: August 6, 1871-

'My dear Arthur,--I have had a busy day, having baptized thirty-two
persons, of whom twenty-five are adults; and then the crowd, the
incessant talking, teaching, and the anxious feeling which attend any
step of so much importance as the Baptism from heathenism. Fourteen
of the men are married, two are elderly, several are middle-aged,
five women are among the number. I believe that God's spirit is
indeed working in the hearts of these people. Some twelve or
thirteen years have passed, and only now have I felt that I could
take the step of baptizing the infants and young children here, the
parents promising that they shall be sent to school as they grow up.
About 200 young children have during the past month been baptized:
things seem hopeful. It is very happy work; and I get on pretty
well, often very tired, but that doesn't matter.

'I could wish all my good friends were here, that those who have been
enabled to contribute to this end might see for themselves something
of the long hoped for beginning of a new state of things in this
little island.

'August 11.--In a little more than a month 248 persons have been
baptized here, twenty-five of them adults, the rest infants and young
children. I am very sorry to think that I must leave them soon, for
I expect the "Southern Cross" in a few days; and I must go to the
Solomon Islands, from them to Santa Cruz Island, and so to Norfolk
Island, calling here on the way. Then I am off to the Fiji Islands
for, I suppose, a month or six weeks. There are some 6,000 or 7,000
white people there, and it is assumed by them and the Church people
in this part of the world that I must be regarded as their Bishop.
Very soon a separate Bishop ought to be at work there, and I shall
probably have to make some arrangement with the settlers. Then, on
the other hand, I want to look into the question of South Sea
Islanders who are taken to the Fiji plantations.

'How far I can really examine into the matter, I hardly know. But
many of the settlers invite me to consider the matter with them.

'I believe that for the most part the islanders receive good
treatment when on the plantations, but I know that many of them are
taken away from their islands by unfair means.

'The settlers are only indirectly responsible for this. The traders
and sailing masters of the vessels who take away the islanders are
the most culpable. But the demand creates the supply.

'Among all my multifarious occupations here, I have not much time for
reading; I am never alone night or day. I sleep on a table, with
some twelve or more fellows around me; and all day long people are
about me, in and out of school hours. But I have read, for the third
time I think, Lightfoot's "Galatians"--and I am looking forward to
receiving his book on the Ephesians. He doesn't lay himself out to
do exactly the work that Bishop Ellicott has done so excellently, and
his dissertations are perhaps the most valuable part of his work. He
will gain the ear of the men of this generation, rather than
Ellicott; he sympathises more with modern modes of thought, and is
less rigid than Ellicott. But he seems very firm on all the most
essential and primary points, and I am indeed thankful for such a
man. I don't find much time for difficult reading; I go on quietly,
Hebrew, &c. I have many good books on both Old and New Testaments,
English and German, and some French, e.g. Keuss and Guizot.

'I like to hear something of what this restless speculative
scientific generation is thinking and doing. But I can't read with
much pleasure the fragmentary review literature of the day. The
"Cornhill" and that class of books I can't stand, and sketchy
writings. The best specimens of light reading I have seen of late
are Charlotte Yonge's "Pupils of St. John the Divine," and Guizot's
"St. Louis," excellent.

'I did read, for it was put on board, Disraeli's novel. I was on my
back sea-sick for four days; what utter rubbish! clever nonsense!
And I have read Mr. Arnold's "St. Paul and Protestantism." He says
some clever things about the Puritan mind, no doubt. But what a
painful book it is: can't he see that he is reducing all that the
spirit of a man must needs rest on to the level of human criticism?
simply eliminating from the writings of the Apostles, and I suppose
from the words of the Saviour, all that is properly and strictly
Divine.--[Then follows much that has been before given.]--How
[winding up thus] thankful I am that I am far away from the noise and
worry of this sceptical yet earnest age!

'There is something hazy about your friend Davis's writings. I know
some of his publications, and sympathise to a very considerable
extent with him. But I can't be sure that I always understand him:
that school has a language of its own, and I am not so far initiated
as to follow.

'I can't understand Maurice, much as I respect him. It is simply
wasting my time and my brains to attempt to read him; he has great
thoughts, and he makes them intelligible to people less stupid than
me, and many writers whom I like and understand have taken their
ideas from him; but I cannot understand him. And I think many of his
men have his faults. At least I am so conceited as to think it is
not all my fault.

'Do you know two little books by Norris, Canon of Bristol, "Key to
the Gospel History," and a Manual on the Catechism?

'They are well worth reading, indeed I should almost say studying, so
as to mould the teaching of your young ones upon them.

'How you would be amused could you see the figures and scenes which
surround me here! To-day about 140 men, women, lads and girls are
working voluntarily here, clearing and fencing the gardens, and
digging the holes for the yams, and they do this to help us in the
school; we have two pigs killed, and give them a bit of a feast. The
feeling is very friendly. A sculptor might study them to great
advantage, though clothing is becoming common here now. Our thirty-
four baptized adults and our sixteen or twenty old scholars wear
decent clothing, of course.

'Well, I must leave off.

'I think very often of you, your wife and children, and, indeed, of
you all. It would be very nice to spend a few weeks with you, but I
should not get on well in your climate.

'The heat seems to suit me better, and I am pretty well here. Indeed
I am better than I have been for more than a year, though I have a
good deal of discomfort.

'Good-bye, dear Arthur. How often I think of your dear dear Father.

'Your affectionate Cousin,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

To the sisters, the journal continues--recording, on August 14, the
Baptism of twelve men and women the day before, the Communion of
sixteen at 7 A.M., the presence of fifty-six baptized persons at
morning service. More than 100 were working away the ensuing day in
preparing yam gardens for Kohimarama, while two pigs were stewing in
native ovens to feast them afterwards; and the Bishop was planting
cocoa-nut trees and sowing flower seeds, or trying experiments with a
machine for condensing water, in his moments of relaxation, which
were few, though he was fairly well, and very happy, as no one can
doubt on reading this:--

'Lots of jolly little children, and many of them know me quite well
and are not a bit shy. They are often very sad-looking objects, and
as they don't get regularly washed, they often have large sores and
abscesses, poor little things. But there are many others--clean-
skinned, reddish brown, black-eyed, merry little souls among them.
The colour of the people is just what Titian and the Venetian
painters delighted in, the colour of their own weather-beaten
Venetian boatmen, glowing warm rich colour. White folks look as if
they were bleached and had all the colour washed out of them.

'Some of the Solomon Islanders are black, and some of the New
Hebrides people glossy and smooth and strong-looking; but here you
seldom see any very dark people, and there are some who have the
yellow, almost olive complexion of the South European. Many of the
women are tattooed from head to foot, a regular network of a bluish
inlaid pattern. It is not so common with the men, rather I ought to
say very unusual with them, though many have their bodies marked
pretty freely.'

On the 17th sixteen more adults were baptized, elderly men, whose
sons had been baptized in New Zealand coming in, and enemies
resigning deadly feuds.

The work in Mota is best summed up in this last letter to Bishop
Abraham, begun the day after what proved the final farewell to the
flock there, for the 'Southern Cross' came in on the 19th, and the
last voyage was at once commenced:--

"'Southern Cross": Sunday, August 20, 1871.

'My dear dear Friends,--Yesterday the "Southern Cross" came to me at
Mota, twenty-seven days after leaving that island for Norfolk Island
with some fifty Melanesians on board under charge of Bice.

'Into what a new world your many kind affectionate letters take me!
And how good it must be for me to be taught to think more than I,
alas! usually do, about the trials and sorrows of others.

'I have had such a seven weeks at Mota, broken by a three weeks'
course in the New Hebrides, into two portions of three and four
weeks.

'Last year we said in our Report, that the time seemed to be come
when we should seek to move the people in Mota to do more than assent
to the truth of our words and the blessings promised in the Gospel,
when we should urge them to appropriate to themselves those
blessings, by abandoning their ignorant heathen ways, and embracing
Christianity.

'That time has come in the good Providence of God, in answer to His
all-prevailing Intercession, and hastened (who can doubt it?) by the
prayers of the faithful everywhere--your Whit-Sunday thoughts and
prayers, your daily thoughts and prayers, all contributing to bring
about a blessed change indeed in the little island.

'In these two months I have baptized 289 persons in Mota, 231
children and infants, seventeen of the lads and boys at Kohimarama,
George Sarawia's school, and forty-one grown and almost all married
men and women.

'I have tried to proceed cautiously and to act only when I had every
human probability of a personal conviction and sincere desire to
embrace Christian teaching and to lead a Christian life. I think the
adult candidates were all competently instructed in the great truths.

'I feel satisfied of their earnestness, and I think it looks like a
stable, permanent work. Yet I need not tell you how my old text is
ever in my mind, "Thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged." Now more
than ever are your prayers needed for dear old George Sarawia and his
infant Church.

'I never had such an experience before. It is something quite new to
me. Classes regularly, morning and evening, and all day parties
coming to talk and ask questions, some bringing a wife or child, some
a brother, some a friend. We were 150 sleeping on the Mission
premises, houses being put up all round by people coming from a
distance.

'Scarce a moment's rest, but the work so interesting and absorbing,
that I could scarcely feel weariness. The weather for six out of the
seven weeks was very rainy and bad generally; but I am and was well,
very well--not very strong, yet walking to Gatava and back, five or
six miles, on slippery and wet paths, and schooling and talking all
day.

'The actual services were somewhat striking. The behaviour of the
people reverent and quiet during the infants' and children's
baptisms; and remarkably so during the baptisms of adults.

'You can understand the drift of my teaching: trying to keep to the
great main truths, so as not to perplex their minds with a
multiplicity of new thoughts.

'I think that I shall have to stay a few days at Mota on my return
(D.V.) from Solomon and Santa Cruz Islands, as there are still many
Catechumens.

'I am half disposed to ordain George Priest on my return (D.V.) Yet
on the whole I think it may be better to wait till another year. But
I am balancing considerations. Should any delay occur from my
incapacity to go to Mota, which I don't at all anticipate, it would
be a serious thing to leave such a work in the hands of a Deacon,
e.g. ten communicants are permanent dwellers now in Mota; and I
really believe that George, though not learned, is in all essentials
quite a fit person to be ordained Priest. This growth of the work,
owing, no doubt, much to him, is a proof of God's blessing on him.

'I pray God that this may be a little gleam of light to cheer you,
dear friends, on your far more toilsome and darksome path. It is a
little indeed in one sense; yet to me, who know the insufficiency of
the human agency, it is a proof indeed that the Gospel is dunamis
Theou eis soterian.

'I can hardly realize it all yet. It is good to be called away from
it for a month or two. I often wished that Codrington, Palmer, and
the rest could be with me: it seemed selfish to be witnessing by
myself all this great happiness--that almost visible victory over
powers of darkness.

'There is little excitement, no impulsive vehement outpouring of
feeling. People come and say, "I do see the evil of the old life; I
do believe in what you teach us. I feel in my heart new desires, new
wishes, new hopes. The old life has become hateful to me; the new
life is full of joy. But it is so mawa (weighty), I am afraid. What
if after making these promises I go back?"

"What do you doubt--God's power and love, or your own weakness?"

'"I don't doubt His power and love; but I am afraid."

'"Afraid of what?"
'"Of falling away."

'"Doesn't He promise His help to those who need it?"

'"Yes, I know that."
'"Do you pray?"

'"I don't know how to pray properly, but I and my wife say--God, make
our hearts light. Take away the darkness. We believe that you love
us because you sent JESUS to become a Man and die for us, but we
can't understand it all. Make us fit to be baptized."

'"If you really long to lead a new life, and pray to God to
strengthen you, come in faith, without doubting."

'Evening by evening my school with the baptized men and women is the
saying by heart (at first sentence by sentence after me, now they
know them well) the General Confession, which they are taught to use
in the singular number, as a private prayer, the Lord's Prayer, the
Creed, the ten Commandments (a short version). They are learning the
Te Deum. They use a short prayer for grace to keep their baptismal
vows.

'I think that they know fairly well the simpler meaning of these
various compendiums of Prayer, Faith and Duty. But why enter into
details? You know all about it. And, indeed, you have all had your
large share, so to say, in bringing about this happy change.

'And then I turn from all this little secluded work to the thoughts
of England and France, the Church at home, &c....

'I have now read the "Guardian's" account of the civil war in France.
There is nothing like it to be read of, except in the Old Testament
perhaps. It is like the taking of Jerusalem.

'It is an awful thing! most awful! I never read anything like it.
Will they ever learn to be humble? I don't suppose that even now
they admit their sins to have brought this chastening on them. It is
hard to say this without indulging a Pharisaic spirit, but I don't
mean to palliate our national sins by exaggerating theirs. Yet I
hardly think any mob but a French or Irish mob could have done what
these men did.

'And what will be the result? Will it check the tendency to
Republicanism? Will Governments unite to put down the many-headed
monster? Will they take a lesson from the fate of Paris and France?
Of course Republicanism is not the same thing as Communism. But
where are we to look for the good effects of Republicanism?

'August 22nd.--The seventh anniversary of dear Fisher's death.
May God grant us this year a blessing at Santa Cruz!

'Your affectionate

'J. C. PATTESON.'

The last letter to the beloved sister Fanny opened with the date of
her never-forgotten birthday, the 27th of August, though it was
carried on during the following weeks; and in the meantime Mr.
Atkin, Stephen, Joseph and the rest were called for from Wango, in
Bauro, where they had had a fairly peaceable stay, in spite of a
visit from a labour traffic vessel, called the 'Emma Bell,' with
twenty-nine natives under hatches, and, alas! on her way for more.
After picking the Bauro party up, the Bishop wrote to the elder Mr.
Atkin:--

'Wango Bay (at anchor): August 25, 1871.

'My dear Mr. Atkin,--You may imagine my joy at finding Joe looking
really well when we reached this part of the world on the 23rd. I
thought him looking unwell when he spent an hour or two with me at
Mota, about ten weeks since, and I begged him to be careful, to use
quinine freely, &c. He is certainly looking now far better than he
was then, and he says that he feels quite well and strong. There is
the more reason to be thankful for this, because the weather has been
very rough, and rain has been falling continually. I had the same
weather in the Banks Islands; scarcely a day for weeks without heavy
rain. Here the sandy soil soon becomes dry again, it does not retain
the moisture, and so far it has the advantage over the very tenacious
clayey soil of Mota.