Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands Part 43

'Once more, the love of approbation is right and good, but then it must be the love of the approbation of G.o.d and of good men. Here, as everywhere, we abuse His gift; and it is a false teaching which bids us suppress the human instinct which G.o.d implanted in us, but a true leading, which bids us direct and use it to its appointed and legitimate use. On this general subject, read if you have not read them, and you can't read them too often, Butler's Sermons; you know, the great Butler. I think you will easily get an a.n.a.lysis of them, such as Mill's "a.n.a.lysis of Pearson on the Creed," which will help you, if you want it.

a.n.a.lyse them for yourself, if you like, and send me out your a.n.a.lysis to look at. There is any amount of fundamental teaching there and the imprimatur of thousands of good men to a.s.sure us of it.

'I think, as I have written to Joan, that if I were with you, after the first few days my chiefest delight would be in reading and talking over our reading of good books. Edwin and Fisher were beginning to understand thoughtful books; and how I did delight in reading with them, interspersing a little Pitcairn remark here and there! Ah! never more!

never more! But they don't want books now. All is clear now: they live where there is no night, in the Glory of G.o.d and of the Lamb, resting in Paradise, antic.i.p.ating the full consummation of the Life of the Resurrection. Thanks be to G.o.d, and it may not be long--but I must not indulge such thoughts.

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

'Your loving Brother,

'J. C. P.'

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

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

'Did I say I thought I might some day write a book? It will be some day indeed. It seems funny enough to think of such a thing. The fact is, it is much easier to me to speak than to write. I think I could learn with a good deal of leisure and trouble to write intelligibly, but not without it. I am so diffusive and wanting in close condensed habits of thought. How often I go off in a mult.i.tude of words, and really say nothing worthy to be remembered.

'How I should enjoy, indeed, a day or two at Hursley with Mr. and Mrs.

Keble. A line from him now and then, if he can find time, would be a great delight to me; but I know that he thinks and prays, and that is indeed a great happiness.

'Oh, the blessing of such thoughts as All Saints' Day brings!--and now more dear than ever, every day brings!--"Patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and every spirit made perfect in the faith of Christ," as an old Liturgy says. And the Collects in the Burial Service! How full, how simple and soothing, how full of calm, holy, tender, blessed hopes and antic.i.p.ations!

'So you think the large Adelaide photograph very sad. I really don't remember it; I fancy I thought it a very fair likeness. But you know that I have a heavy lumpy dull look, except when talking--indeed, then too for aught I know--and this may be mistaken for a sad look when it is only a dull stupid one. You can't get a nice picture out of an ugly face, so it's no use trying, but you are not looking for that kind of thing. You want to see how far the face is any index of the character and life and work.

I don't think it odd that I should look careworn. I have enough to make me so! And yet if I were with you now, brightened up by being with you, you would say, "How well he looks!" And you would think I had any amount of work in me, as you saw me riding or walking or holding services. And then I had to a very considerable extent got over that silly shyness, which was a great trial and drawback to me of old, and sadly prevented me from enjoying the society of people (at Oxford especially) which would have done me much good. But without all these bodily defects, I should have been even more vain, and so I can see the blessing and mercy now, though how many times I have indulged murmuring rebellious thoughts!

'Perhaps I shall live ten or twenty years, and look back and say, "I recollect how in '64 I really almost thought I should not last long."

But don't fancy that I am morbidly cheris.h.i.+ng such fancies. Only I like you all to know me as I am changing in feeling from time to time. There is quite enough to account for it all.'

A few days later he returned to Auckland, and thence wrote to me a letter on the pros and cons of a move from New Zealand. The sight of s.h.i.+ps and the town he had ceased to think of great importance, and older scholars had ceased to care for it, and there was much at that time to recommend Curtis Island to his mind. The want of bread-fruit was the chief disadvantage he then saw in it, but he still looked to keeping up Kohimarama for a good many years to come. I cannot describe how tender and considerate he was of feelings he thought I might possibly have of disappointment that St. Andrew's was not a successful experiment as far as health was concerned, evidently fearing that I had set my hopes on that individual venture, and that my feelings might be hurt if it had to be deserted.

The next letters are a good deal occupied with the troubles incident to the judgment upon 'Essays and Reviews.' He took a view, as has been seen, such as might be expected of the delicate refining metaphysical mind, thinking out points for itself, and weighing the possible value of every word, and differed from those who were in the midst of the contest, and felt some form of resistance and protest needful. He was strongly averse to agitation on the subject, and at the same time grieved to find himself for the first time, to his own knowledge, not accepting the policy of those whom he so much respected; though the only difference in his mind from theirs was as to the manner of the maintenance of the truth, and the immediate danger of error going uncondemned--a point on which his remote life perhaps hardly enabled him to judge.

All these long letters and more, which were either in the same tone, or too domestic to be published, prove the leisure caused by having an unusually small collection of pupils, and happily all in fair health; but with Christmas came a new idea, or rather an old one renewed.

Instead of only going to Norfolk Island, on sufferance from the Pitcairn Committee, and by commission from the Bishop of Tasmania, a regular request was made, by Sir John Young, the Governor of Australia, that the Pitcairners might be taken under his supervision, so that, as far as Government was concerned, the opposition was withdrawn which had hindered his original establishment there, though still Curtis Island remained in the ascendency in the schemes of this summer. The ensuing is a reply to Sir John Coleridge's letter, written after hearing of the attack at Santa Cruz:--

'Kohimarama: March 3, 1865.

'My dearest Uncle,--Many many thanks for your letter, so full of comfort and advice. I need not tell you that the last budget of letters revived again most vividly not only the actual scene at Santa Cruz, but all the searchings of heart that followed it. I believe that we are all agreed on the main point. Enough ground has been opened for the present.

Codrington was right in saying that the object of late has been to fill up gaps. But some of the most hazardous places to visit lie nearest to the south, e.g. some of the New Hebrides, &c., south of the Banks Islands. My notion is, that I ought to be content even to pa.s.s by (alas!) some places where I had some hold when I had reason to feel great distrust of the generally kind intentions of the people (that is a dark sentence, but you know my meaning). In short, there are very few places where I can feel, humanly speaking, secure against this kind of thing. It is always in the power of even one mischievous fellow to do mischief. And if the feeling of the majority might be in my favour, yet there being no way of expressing public opinion, no one cares to take an active part in preventing mischief. It is not worth his while to get into a squabble and risk his own life.

'But I shall be (D.V.) very cautious. I dare say I was becoming presumptuous: one among the many faults that are so discernible. It is, dear Uncle, hard to see a wild heathen party on the beach, and not try to get at them. It seems so sad to leave them. But I know that I ought to be prudent, even for my own sake (for I quite suppose that, humanly speaking, my life is of consequence for a few years more), and I can hardly bear the thought of bringing the boat's crew, dear good volunteers, into danger. Young Atkin, the only son of my neighbour, behaved admirably at Santa Cruz, and is very staunch. But his parents have but him and one daughter, and I am bound to be careful indeed.

But don't think me careless, if we get into another sc.r.a.pe. There is scarcely one island where I can fully depend upon immunity from all risk. There was no need to talk so much about it all before.

'As to Curtis Island, I need not say that I have no wish indeed to take Australian work in hand. I made it most clear, as I thought, that the object of a site on Curtis Island was the Melanesian and not the Australian Mission. I offered only to incorporate Australian blacks, if proper specimens could be obtained, into our school, regarding in fact East Australia as another Melanesian island. This would only have involved the learning a language or two, and might have been of some use. I did not make any pledge. But I confess that I think some such plan as this one only feasible one. I don't see that the attempts at mission work are made on the most hopeful plan. But I have written to the Brisbane authorities, urging them to appropriate large reserves for the natives. I tell them that it is useless for them to give me a few acres and think they are doing a mission work, if they civilize the native races off their own lands. In short, I almost despair of doing anything for blacks living on the same land with whites. Even here in New Zealand, the distrust now shown to us all, to our religion even, is the result in very great measure of the insolent, covetous behaviour exhibited by the great majority of the white people to the Maori. Who stops in Australia to think whether the land which he wants for his sheep is the hunting ground of native people or not?

'I confess that while I can't bear to despair and leave these poor souls uncared for, I can't propose any scheme but one, and who will work that?

If, indeed, one or two men could be found to go and live with a tribe, moving as they move and really identifying himself with their interests!

But where are such men, and where is a tribe not already exasperated by injurious treatment?

'It was the statement for our mode of action which commended itself so much to people in Australia, that they urged me to try and do something.

But I answered as I have now written; and when at one meeting in Sydney I was asked whether I would take Australians into my school, I said, "Yes, if I can get the genuine wild man, uncontaminated by contact with the white man." I can't, in justice to our Melanesian scholars, take the poor wretched black whose intercourse with white men has rendered him a far more hopeless subject to deal with than the downright ferocious yet not ungenerous savage. "If," was the answer, "you can get them, I will pay for them."

'Indeed, dear Uncle, I don't want more but less work on my hands: yet as I look around, I see (as far as I can judge) so great a want of that prudence and knowledge and calm foresight that the Primate has shown so remarkably, that I declare I do think his plan is almost the only reasonable one for dealing with black races. Alas! you can't put hearty love for strangers into men's hearts by paying them salaries.

'I think that in two or three years I may, if I live, have some preparatory branch school at Curtis Island. If it should clearly succeed, then I think in time the migration from New Zealand might take place. I do not think two schools in two different countries would answer. We want the old scholars to help us in working the school; we can't do without them, and the old scholars can't be trained without the younger ones, the material on whom their teaching, and training faculties must be exercised.

'You all know how deeply I feel about dear Mr. Keble!

'Thank G.o.d, we have as yet no dysentery. I baptized last week a lad dying of consumption. There are many blessings, as all clergymen know, in having death scenes so constantly about one; and the having to do everything for these dear fellows makes one love them so....

'Your affectionate and dutiful Nephew,

'J. C. P.'

The above sentence refers to the paralytic attack Mr. Keble had on November 30, 1864. Nevertheless, almost at that very time, he was writing thus:--

'Penzance: March 7, 1865.

'My dear and more than dear Bishop,--It would be vain for me to write to you, if I pretended to do more than just express my heart's wish that I could say something of the doings and sufferings which now for years past we of course a.s.sociate with your name, so as to encourage and support you in your present manifold distress. But (especially for reasons known only to myself) I must leave that altogether to Him who helps His own to do and suffer. One thing only I would say, that to us at our great distance it looks as if the sanguis martyrum were being to you as the s.e.m.e.n Ecclesiae, and you know how such things were hailed in the time of St. Cyprian. May it please G.o.d before long to give you some visible earnest of this sure blessing! but I suppose that if it tarry, it may be the greater when it comes. Our troubles as a Church, though of a different kind, are not small. The great point with me is, lest, if in our anxiety to keep things together, we should be sinfully conniving at what is done against the faith, and so bringing a judgment upon ourselves. I do not for a moment think that by anything which has yet been done or permitted our being as a Church is compromised (though things look alarmingly as if it might be before long), but I fear that her well-being is more and more being damaged by our entire and conscious surrender of the disciplinary part of our trust, and that if we are apathetic in such things we may forfeit our charter. There is no doubt, I fear, that personal unbelief is spreading; but I trust that a deeper faith is spreading also; it is (at Oxford, e.g.) Pusey and Moberly, &c., against the Rationalists and other tempters. As to the question of the Bible being (not only containing) the Word, I had no scruples in signing that Declaration. One thought which helped me was, the use made in the New Testament of the Old, which is such as to show that we are not competent judges as to what pa.s.sages convey deep moral or religious meanings or no. Another, that in every instance where one had the means of ascertaining, so far as I have known, the Bible difficulty has come right: therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that so it would be in all the rest, if we knew the right reading and the right interpretation of the words. And as to what are called the Divine and Human Elements, I have seemed to help myself with the thought that the Divine adoption (if so be) of the human words warrants their truthfulness, as a man's signature makes a letter his own; but whether this is relevant, I doubt. My wife and I are both on the sick list, and I must now only add that we never forget you.

'Ever yours,

'J. K.

Nothing has. .h.i.therto been said of this term at St. Andrew's: so here is an extract from a letter to one of the cousinhood, who had proposed a plan which has since been carried out extensively and with good effect:--

'The difficulty about scholars appropriated to certain places or parishes is this: I cannot be sure of the same persons remaining with me. Some sickness in an island, some panic, some death of a relative, some war, or some inability on my part from bad weather or accident to visit an island, may at any time lose me a scholar. Perhaps he may be the very one that has been appropriated to some one, and what am I to say then?

'This year we have but thirty-eight Melanesians, we ought to have sixty.

But after dear Edwin and Fisher's wounds, I could not delay, but hurried southwards, pa.s.sing by islands with old scholars ready to come away.

This was sad work, but what could I do?

'I will gladly a.s.sign, to the best of my power, scholars whom I think likely to remain with me to various places or persons; but pray make them understand that their scholar may not always be forthcoming.

Anyhow, their alms would go to the support of some Melanesian, who would be their scholar as it were for the time being.

'You would perhaps feel interested in knowing that the Gospel of St.

Luke has been printed in the Mota language, to a great extent by our scholars, and that George Sarawia is printing now the Acts, composing it, and doing press-work and all. Young Wogale (about thirteen) prints very fairly, and sent off 250 copies of a prayer, which the Bishop of Nelson wanted for distribution, of which everything was done by him entirely. They both began to learn about last November.

'When morning school is over at 10 A.M., all hands, "dons" and all, are expected to give their time to the Mission till 12.45. Mr. Pritt is general overlooker (which does not mean doing nothing himself) of domestic work: kitchen, garden, farm, dairy, &c. You know that we have no servants. Mr. Palmer prints and teaches printing. Atkin works at whatever may be going on, and has a large share of work to get ready for me, and to read with me: Greek Testament, 12 to 12.45, Greek and Latin from 2 to 3. So all the lads are busy at out-door work from 10 to 12.45; and I a.s.sure you, under Mr. Pritt's management, we begin to achieve considerable results in our farm and garden work. We are already economising our expenditure greatly by keeping our own cows, for which we grow food (a good deal artificial), and baking our own bread. We sell some of our b.u.t.ter, and have a grand supply of milk for our scholars, perhaps the very best kind of food for them.

'If we can manage to carry on a winter's school here with some ten or twelve of the lads left under Mr. Pritt's charge, while I go off with the rest, I really think that the industrial department may become something considerable. It is an essential part of the system, for we must begin with teaching habits of order, punctuality, &c:, in respect of those things with which they have already some acquaintance. No Melanesian can understand why he is to sit spelling away at a black board; and he is not like a child of four or five years old, he must be taught through his power of reasoning, and perceiving the meaning of things. Secondly, we can gradually invest the more advanced scholars with responsible duties. There are the head cooks in the various weeks, the heads of departments in garden work, &c., &c. As these lads and men are being trained (we hope) to teach others, and as we want them to teach industry, decency, cleanliness, punctuality, to be, and to teach others to be honest, and careful, and thoughtful, so we find all these lessons are learnt more in the industrial work than in the mere book work, though that is not neglected. Indeed school, in the restricted sense of the word, is going on for four or four and a half hours a day.

'The main difficulty remains, of retaining our hold upon boys. Oh that I could live permanently in twenty islands at once! But I can't do so even in one; and all the letter-writing and accounts, and, worst of all, the necessity for being trustee for matters not a bit connected with Melanesia, because there is no one else, interferes sadly with my time. I think I could work away with the languages, &c., and really do something with these fellows, but I never get a chance. I never have two days together which I can spend exclusively at Melanesian work. And I ought to have nothing whatever to distract me. Twenty languages calling for arrangement and comparison causes confusion enough!'