Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands Part 15

'I talk with them about common things, and learn a great deal of their wild savage customs and habits, but I can do but little as yet in the way of real instruction. Some ideas, I trust, they are beginning to acquire concerning our Blessed Lord. Is it not a significant fact that the G.o.d wors.h.i.+ped in Gfera, and in one village of Bauro, is the Serpent, the very type of evil? I need not say that these dear boys have won their way to my heart, they are most docile and affectionate. I think some will really, if they live, leave their own island and live with me at Norfolk Island, or here, or wherever my dwelling may be whenever I am not in the "Southern Cross."

'But of course I must not dwell on such notions. If it come to pa.s.s that for some years I can retain a hold upon them, they may be instructed sufficiently to make them teachers in their turn to their own people.

But all this is in the hands of G.o.d. My home journal will tell you particulars of our voyage. Don't believe in the ferocity, &c., of the islanders. When their pa.s.sions are excited, they do commit fearful deeds, and they are almost universally cannibals, i.e. after a battle there will be always a cannibal feast, not otherwise. But treat them well and prudently, and I apprehend that there is little danger in visiting them, meaning by visiting merely landing on the beach the first time, going perhaps to a native village the next time, sleeping on sh.o.r.e the third, spending ten days the fourth, &c., &c. The language once learnt from the pupils we bring away, all is clear. And now good-bye, my dear Miss Neill. That I think of you and pray for you, you know, and I need not add that I value most highly your prayers for me. When I think of my happiness and good spirits, I must attribute much, very much, to G.o.d's goodness in accepting the prayers of my friends.'

After the old custom of telling the home party all his doings, the journal-letter of the 27th of November goes through the teaching to the Bauro boys:--

'I really think they comprehend thus much, that G.o.d, who made all things, made man, Adam and Eve, very good and holy; that Adam and Eve sinned, that they did not listen to the word of G.o.d, but to the Bad Spirit; that G.o.d found them out, though they were afraid and tried to hide (for He sees and knows all things); that He drove them out of the beautiful garden, and said that they must die; that they had two sons, Cain and Abel; that Cain killed his brother, and that all fighting and killing people, and all other sins (I mention all for which I have names) came into the world because of sin; that G.o.d and man were far apart, not living near, no peace between them because men were so evil. That G.o.d was so good that He loved men all the time, and that He promised to save all men who would believe in His Son Jesus Christ, who was to die for them (for I can't yet express, "was to die that men might not go down to the fire, but live for ever with G.o.d "); that by and by He sent a flood and drowned all men except Noah and seven other people, because men would not be good; that afterwards there was a very good man, named Abraham, who believed all about Jesus Christ, and G.o.d chose him, and his son Isaac, and his son Jacob, and his twelve sons, to be the fathers of a people called Jews; that those people alone knew about G.o.d, and had teachers and praying men: and that they killed lambs and offered them (gave them to G.o.d as a sign of Jesus Christ being one day slain and offered to G.o.d on a cross) but these very men became wicked too, and at last, when no man knew how to be happy and good, Jesus Christ came down from heaven. His mother was Mary, but He had no father on earth, only G.o.d the Father in heaven was His Father: the Holy Ghost made Mary to be mother of Jesus Christ.

'Then I take two books, or anything else, and say, This one is G.o.d, and this is man. They are far apart, because man is so bad and G.o.d is so good. But Jesus Christ came in the middle between them, and joins them together. He is G.o.d and He is Man too; so in(side) Him, G.o.d and Man meet, like the meeting of two men in one path; and He says Himself He is the true Way, the only true Path to G.o.d and heaven. G.o.d was angry with us because we sinned; but Jesus Christ died on the cross, and then G.o.d the Father forgave us because Jesus Christ gave His life that we might always live, and not die. By and by He will come to judge us; and He knows what we do, whether we steal and lie, or whether we pray and teach what is good. Men of Bauro and Gera and Santa Cruz don't know that yet, but you do, and you must remember, if you go on doing as they do after you know G.o.d's will, you will be sent down to the fire, and not see Jesus Christ, who died that you might live.

'I think that they know all this, and much in the exactly equivalent words. Of course I find difficulty in rendering religious ideas in a language which contains scarcely any words adequate to express them, but I am hopeful enough to believe that they do know so much at all events.

How far their hearts are affected, One alone knows. It is indeed but little after they have been with us four months; but till I had them on sh.o.r.e, I could get very little work done. The constant boat work took me away, and anywhere in sight of islands, of course they were on deck in eagerness to see the strange country. Then I could not work with energy while my leg would not let me take exercise. But it is now beginning to be a real pleasure as well as duty to teach both Nengone and Bauro people. Enough of the language to avoid most of the drudgery has been got over, I hope, though not near enough for purposes of 'exact and accurate translation.'

I have given at length this account of Patteson's fundamental teaching, though to some it may seem to savour of the infant school, because in spite of being hampered by imperfect knowledge of the language, he has thrown into it the great principle both of his action and teaching; namely, the restoration of the union of mankind with G.o.d through Christ.

It never embraced that view of the heathen world which regards it as necessarily under G.o.d's displeasure, apart from actual evil, committed in wilful knowledge that it is evil. He held fast to the fact of man having been created in the image of G.o.d, and held that whatever good impulses and higher qualities still remained in the heathen, were the remnants of that Image, and to be hailed accordingly. Above all, he realised in his whole life the words to St. Peter: 'What G.o.d hath cleansed that call not thou common,' and not undervaluing for a moment Sacramental Grace, viewed human nature, while yet without the offer thereof, as still the object of fatherly and redeeming love, and full of fitful tokens of good coming from the only Giver of life and holiness, and needing to be brought nearer and strengthened by full union and light, instead of being left to be quenched in the surrounding flood of evil. 'And were by nature the children of wrath,' he did not hold to mean that men were objects of G.o.d's anger, lying under His deadly displeasure; but rather, children of wild impulse, creatures of pa.s.sion, swayed resistlessly by their own desires, until made 'children of grace,' and thus obtaining the spiritual power needful to enable them to withstand these pa.s.sions. An extract from the sermon he had preached at Sydney may perhaps best serve to ill.u.s.trate his principle:--

'And this love once generated in the heart of man, must needs pa.s.s on to his brethren; that principle of life must needs grow and expand with its own inherent energy; the seed must be developed into the tree, and strike its roots deep and wide, and stretch out its branches unto the sea and its boughs unto the rivers. No artificial nor accidental circ.u.mstances can confine it, it recognises no human ideas of nationality, or place, or time, but embraces like the dome of heaven all the works of G.o.d. And love is the animating principle of all. In every star of the sky, in the sparkling, glittering waves of the sea, in every flower of the field, in every creature of G.o.d, most of all in every living soul of man, it adores and blesses the beauty and the love of the great Creator and Preserver of all.

'Viewed indeed from that position which was occupied by ancient philosophers, the existing contrarieties between nations might well appear inexplicable, and intellectual powers might seem to be the exclusive heritage of particular nations. But Christianity leads us to distinguish between the nature of man as he came fresh from the hands of his Creator, and that natural propensity to sin which he has inherited in consequence of his fall from original innocence. It teaches that as G.o.d has "made of one blood all nations to dwell together on the face of the whole earth," and has given in virtue of this common origin one common nature destined to be pure and holy and divine, so, by virtue of Redemption and Regeneration, the image of G.o.d may be restored in all, and whatever is the result of his depravity therefore may be overcome.

And this seems to be the answer to all statements relating to the want of capacity in certain nations of the earth for the reception of Divine Truth, that every man, because he is a man, because he is a partaker of that very nature which has been taken into the Person of the Son of G.o.d, may by the grace of G.o.d be awakened to the sense of his true life, of his real dignity as a redeemed brother of Christ.

'The spark of heavenly fire may indeed have been all but quenched by the unbridled indulgence of his pa.s.sions; the natural wickedness of the heart of man may have exhibited itself with greater fearfulness where no laws and customs have introduced restraints against at least the outward expression of vice; but the capacity for the Christian life is there; though overlaid, it may be, with monstrous forms of superst.i.tion or cruelty or ignorance, the conscience can still respond to the voice of the Gospel of Truth.'

And one who so entirely believed and acted upon these words found them true. The man who verily treated the lads he had gathered round him with a perfectly genuine sympathy, a love and a self-denial--nay more, an identification of self with them--awoke all that was best in their characters, and met with full response. Enthusiastic partiality of course there was in his estimate of them; but is it not one of the absolute requisites of a good educator to feel that enthusiasm, like the parent for the child? And is it always the blind admiration at which outsiders smile; is it not rather indifference which is blind, and love which sees the truth?

'I would not exchange my position with these lads and young men for anything (he wrote, on December 8, to his uncle, the Eton master). I wish you could see them and know them; I don't think you ever had pupils that could win their way into your heart more effectually than these fellows have attached themselves to me. It is no effort to love them heartily. Gariri, a dear boy from San Cristoval, is standing by me now, at my desk, in amazement at the pace that my pen is going, not knowing that I could write to you, my dear old tutor, for hours together if I had nothing else to do. He is, I suppose, about sixteen, a most loveable boy, gentle, affectionate, with all the tropical softness and kindliness.

'We have seven Solomon Islanders--five from Mata, a village at the north-west of San Cristoval, and two from the south-east point of Guadalcanar, or Gera, a magnificent island about twenty-five or twenty miles to the north-west of San Cristoval. From frequent intercourse they are almost bilingual, a great "lounge" for me, as one language does for both; the structure of the two island tongues is the same, but scarcely any words much alike. However, that is not much odds.

'Then from Nengone, where you remember Mr. Nihill died after eighteen months' residence on the island, we have four men and two women, both married. Of these, two men and both the women have been baptized, some time ago, by the Bishop, in 1852, and one by the London Mission, who now occupy the island. These four I have, with full trust, admitted to the Holy Communion. Mr. Nihill had taught them well, and I am sure they could pa.s.s an examination in Scriptural history, simple doctrinal statements, &c., as well as most young English people of the middle cla.s.s of life. The other two are well taught, and one of them knows a great deal, but, poor fellow, he misconducted himself at Nengone, and hence I cannot recommend him to the Bishop for baptism without much talk about him.

'But I think my love is more poured out upon my Bauro and Gera lads.

They are such dear fellows, and I trust that already they begin to know something about religion. Certain it is that they answer readily questions and say with their mouths what amounts almost to a statement of the most important Christian truths. Of course I cannot tell what effect this may have on their hearts. They join in prayer morning and evening, they behave admirably, and really there is nothing in their conduct to find fault with. If it please G.o.d that any of them were at some future time to stay again with us, I have great hopes that they may learn enough to become teachers in their own country.

'The Nengone lads are quite in a different position. Their language has been reduced to writing, the Gospel of St. Mark translated, and they can all read a little English, so that at evening prayers we read a verse all round, and then I catechise and expound to them in Nengone.

'I really trust that by G.o.d's blessing some real opening into the great Solomon group has been effected. There is every hope that many boys will join us this next voyage. No one can say what may be the result. As yet it is possible to get on without more help, but I do not for a moment doubt that should G.o.d really grant not only a wide field of labour, but some such hope of cultivating it, He will send forth plenty of men to share in this work. Men who have some means of their own--100 a year is enough, or even less--or some apt.i.tude for languages, surely will feel drawn in this direction. It is the happiest life a man can lead, full of enjoyment, physical and mental, exquisite scenery, famous warm climate, lots of bathing, yams and taro and cocoa-nut enough to make an alderman's mouth water, and such loving, gentle people. But of course something depends on the way in which a man looks at these things, and a fine gentleman who can't get on without his servant, and can't put his luggage for four months into a compa.s.s of six feet by one-and-a-half, won't like it....

'You know the kind of incidents that occur, so I need not repeat them to you. I have quite learnt to believe that there are no "savages"

anywhere, at least among black or coloured people. I'd like to see anyone call my Bauro boys savages! Why, the fellows on the reef that have never seen a white man will wade back to the boat and catch one's arms to prevent one falling into pits among the coral, just like an old nurse looking after her child. This they did at Santa Maria, where we two swam ash.o.r.e to a party of forty or fifty men, and where our visit was evidently a very agreeable one on both sides, though we did not know one syllable of the language, and then.... But I almost tremble to think of the immense amount of work opening upon one. Whither will it lead?

But I seldom find any time for speculations; and oh, my dear tutor, I am as happy as the day is long, though it never seems long to me!....

My dear father writes in great anxiety about the Denison case. Oh dear!

what a cause of thankfulness it is to be out of the din of controversy, and to find hundreds of thousands longing for crumbs which are shaken about so roughly in these angry disputes! It isn't High or Low or Broad Church, or any other special name, but the longing desire to forget all distinctions, and to return to a simpler state of things, that seems naturally to result from the very sight of heathen people. Who thinks of anything but this: "They have not heard the Name of the Saviour Who died for them," when he is standing with crowds of naked fellows round him? I can't describe the intense happiness of this life. I suppose trials will come some day, and I almost dread the thought, for I surely shall not be prepared to bear them. I have no trials at all, even of a small kind, to teach me how to bear up under great ones.'

In truth Coleridge Patteson had entered on the happiest period of his life. He had found his vocation, and his affections were fastening themselves upon his black flock, so that, without losing a particle of his home love, the yearnings homewards were appeased, and the fully employed time, and sense of success and capability, left no s.p.a.ce for the self-contemplation and self-criticism of his earlier life. He gives amusing sketches of the scenes:--

'The donkey here, a fatally stubborn brute, is an unceasing amus.e.m.e.nt to my boys. No one of them can retain his seat more than ten minutes, but they all fall like cats on their legs amid cries of laughter. The donkey steers straight for some small scrubby trees, and then kicks and plunges, or else rubs their legs against the sides of the house, and all this time the boys are leaping about the unfortunate fellow who is mounted, and the fun is great.

'Wadrokala, one of the Nengone lads, who had recently made his first communion, became the prominent scholar at this time. He had thought a good deal. One night he said: "I have heard all kinds of words used--faith, repentance, praise, prayer--and I don't clearly understand what is the real great thing, the chief thing of all. They used these words confusedly, and I feel puzzled. Then I read that the Pharisees knew a great deal of the law, and so did the Scribes, and yet they were not good. I am not doing anything good. Now I know something of the Bible, and I can write; and I fear very much, I often feel very much afraid, that I am not good, I am not doing anything good."'

He was talked to, and comforted with hopes of future work; but a day or two later his feelings were unconsciously hurt by being told in joke that he was wearing a shabby pair of trousers to save the good ones to take home to Nengone. His remonstrance was poured out upon a slate:--

'Mr. Patteson, this is my word:--I am unhappy because of the word you said to me that I wished for clothes. I have left my country. I do not seek clothes for the body. What is the use of clothes? Can my spirit be clothed with clothes for the body? Therefore my heart is greatly afraid; but you said I greatly wished for clothes, which I do not care for.

One thing only I care for, that I may receive the life for my spirit.

Therefore I fear, I confess, and say to you, it is not the thing for the body I want, but the one thing I want is the clothing for the soul, for Jesus Christ's sake, our Lord.'

Soon after a very happy Christmas, Wadrokala and Kainwhat expressed a desire, after a final visit to their native island, to return with Mr.

Patteson, and be prepared to be sent as native teachers to any dark land, as the Samoans had come to them.

Wadrokala narrated something of the history of his island, a place with 6,000 inhabitants, with one tribe forming a priestly caste, the head of which was firmly believed by even these Christian Nengonese to possess the power of striking men dead by his curse. Caroline, Kainwhat and Kowine were the children of a terrible old chief named Bula, who had fifty-five wives, and whose power was almost absolute. If anyone offended him, he would send either a priest or one of his sons to kill the man, and bring the corpse, of which the thighs were always reserved for his special eating, the trunk being given to his slaves. If one of his wives offended him, he sent for the high priest, who cursed her--simply said, 'She has died,' and die she did. A young girl who refused to marry him was killed and eaten, or if any person omitted to come into his presence crouching, the penalty was to be devoured; in fact, he seems to have made excuses for executions in order to gratify his appet.i.te for human flesh, which was considered as particularly dainty fare. Everyone dreaded him, and when at last he died a natural death, his chief wife was strangled by her own brother, as a matter of course. Such horrors as these had pretty well ceased by that time, though still many Nengonese were heathen, and the priests were firmly believed to have the power of producing death and disease at will by a curse. Wadrokala, with entire conviction, declared that one of his father's wives had thus been made a cripple for life.

Nengonese had become almost as familiar to Coley as Maori, and his Sundays at this time were decidedly polyglot; since, besides a regular English service at Taranaki, he often took a Maori service, and preached extempore in that tongue, feeling that the people's understanding went along with him; and there were also, in early morning and late evening, prayers, partly in Nengonese, partly in Bauro, at the College chapel, and a sermon, first in one language, and then repeated in the other. The Nengone lads, who had the question of adherence to the London Mission at home, or the Church in New Zealand, put to them, came deliberately to entreat to remain always with Mr. Patteson, saying that they saw that this teaching of the Church was right, and they wished to work in it. It was a difficult point, as the London Mission was rea.s.serting a claim to the Loyalty Isles, and the hopes of making them a point d'appui were vanis.h.i.+ng; but these men and their wives could not but be accepted, and Simeona was preparing for baptism. A long letter to Professor Max Muller on the languages will be found in the Appendix. The Bishop of New Zealand thus wrote to Sir John Patteson respecting Coley and his work:--

'Taurarua, Auckland: March 2, 1857.

'My dear Judge,--Your letter of December 5 made me very happy, by a.s.suring me of the satisfaction which you feel in your son's duties and position. I do indeed most thankfully acknowledge the goodness of G.o.d in thus giving me timely aid, when I was pledged to a great work, but without any steady force to carry it on. Coley is, as you say, the right man in the right place, mentally and physically: the multiplicity of languages, which would try most men, is met by his peculiar gift; the heat of the climate suits his const.i.tution; his mild and parental temper makes his black boys cling about him as their natural protector; and his freedom from fastidiousness makes all parts of the work easy to him; for when you have to teach boys how to wash themselves, and to wear clothes for the first time, the romance of missionary work disappears as completely as a great man's heroism before his valet de chambre.

'On Sunday, February 22, we had a native baptism, an adult from Nengone and his infant child. Coley used the Baptismal Service, which he had translated, and preached fluently in the Nengone tongue, as he had done in the morning in New Zealand. The careful study which we had together of the latter on our voyage out will be of great use in many other dialects, and Mrs. Nihill has given him her husband's Nengone ma.n.u.scripts.

'You know in what direction my wishes tend, viz., that Coley, when he has come to suitable age, and has developed, as I have no doubt he will, a fitness for the work, should be the first island Bishop, upon the foundation, of which you and your brother Judge, and Sir W. Farquhar, are trustees; that Norfolk Island should be the see of the Bishop, because the character of its population, the salubrity of its climate, and its insular position, make it the fittest place for the purpose.

'Your affectionate and grateful friend,

'G. A. NEW ZEALAND.'

By the same mail Patteson himself wrote to Miss Neill:--

'If it please G.o.d to give us some few native teachers from Bauro and Grera, not to be sent before, but to go with or follow us (i.e. Bishop and me), in a short time the word of G.o.d might be heard in many a grand wild island, resplendent with everything that a tropical climate and primeval forests, etc., can bestow, and thickly populated with an intelligent and, as I imagine, tolerably docile race, of whom some are already "stretching out their hands unto G.o.d."

'All these Solomon Islanders here would answer questions about Christianity as well, perhaps, as children of nine or ten years old in England. Some seem to feel that there is a real connection between themselves and what they are taught, and speak of the love of G.o.d in giving Jesus Christ to die for them, and say that G.o.d's Holy Spirit alone can enlighten their dark hearts.

'That beautiful image of light and darkness seems common to all nations.

The regular word used by the Nengone people, who are far more advanced in Christian knowledge and practice, for all heathen places is "the dark lands."

'On Sunday week, February 22, we had a deeply interesting service in the College chapel at 7.15 P.M., just as the English world was beginning its Sunday. Simeona and his infant boy of four weeks and three days old were baptized. The College chapel was nicely lighted, font decorated simply.

I read the service in Nengone, having had all hands at work setting the types and printing on Friday and Sat.u.r.day. The Bishop took the part of the service which immediately precedes the actual baptism, and baptized them both--first the father, by the name of George Selwyn, then the baby, by the name of John Patteson. This was the special request of the parents, and as it is my dear Father's name, how could I object? He is, of course, my G.o.dson, and a dear little fellow he is. At the end of my sermon, I added a few words to "George," and besought the prayers of the Nengone people for him and his child. We have now four regular communicants among them--Wadrokala, Mark (Kainwhat), Carry and Sarah.

George is baptized, and baby; and Sarah's child, Lizzy, I baptized long ago. In about two months (D. V.), we are off for a good spell of four or five months among the islands, taking back this party, though some of them will, by and by, rejoin us again, I hope.'

The plan of starting in April for a four or five months' cruise was disconcerted, as regarded Bishop Selwyn, by the delay of Bishop Harper and the Archdeacons in arriving for the intended Synod, which was thus put off till May, too wintry a month for the Melanesians to spend in New Zealand. After some doubt, it was decided that Mr. Patteson should make a short voyage, for the mere purpose of returning his scholars to their homes, come back to Auckland, and make a fresh start when the Bishop was ready.

In prospect of the parting, Patteson writes to his beloved old governess (March 19, 1857):--

'You will like a report of my pupils, especially as I can give most of them a good ticket, little mark and all, as we used to say of yours (though not as often as we ought to have done) to our dear mother.

You never had such willing pupils, though you turned out some, I hope, eventually as good. In your hands these lads would be something indeed.

Really they have no faults that I can detect, and when their previous state is considered, it is wonderful; for all this time they have been with us, the greatest fault has been a fit of sulkiness, lasting about half a day, with three of them. Their affection, gentleness, unselfishness, cheerfulness, willingness to oblige, in some of them a natural gentlemanly way of doing things, and sometimes indications of what we should call high principle--all these things give one great hopes, not for them only, but for all these nations, that, refined by Christianity, they may be bright examples of manly virtues and Christian graces.'