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

'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.

'Nearly all the time of the people here has been spent—wasted, perhaps, we should say—in making preparations for a great feast: so that Joe found it very hard to gain the attention of the people, when he tried to point out to them better things to think of than pigs, native money, tobacco and pipes. Such advance as has been made is rather in the direction of gaining the confidence and good-will of the people all about, and in becoming very popular among all the young folks. Nearly all the young people would come away with him, if the elders would allow them to do so. I have no doubt that much more has been really effected than is apparent to us now. Words have been said that have not been lost, and seed sown that will spring up some day. Just as at Mota, now, after some twelve or thirteen years, we first see the result in the movement now going on there, so it will be, by God's goodness, some day here. There at Mota the good example of George Sarawia, the collective result of the teaching of many years, and the steady conduct, with one exception, of the returned scholars, have now been blessed by God to the conversion of many of the people. We no longer hesitate to baptize infants and young children, for the parents engage to send them to school when they grow up, and are themselves receiving instruction in a really earnest spirit.

'Many, too, of those who have for some time abandoned the old ways, but yet did not distinctly accept the new teaching, have now felt the "power of the Gospel;" and though many candidates are still under probation, and I sought to act with caution, and to do all that lay in my power to make them perceive the exceeding solemnity of being baptized, the weighty promises, the great responsibility, yet I thought it right to baptize not less than forty-one grown men and women, besides seventeen lads of George's school, about whom there could be no hesitation. It has, indeed, been a very remarkable season there. I spent seven weeks broken by a New Hebrides trip of three weeks' duration into two periods of three and four weeks. Bice was with me for the first three weeks; and with a good many of our scholars turned into teachers here, we three (Bice, George, and I) kept up very vigorous school: a continual talking, questioning, &c., about religion, were always going on day and night. Many young children and infants were baptized, about 240 in all + 41 + 17.

'You will, I am sure, pray more than ever for George and all these converts to Christianity, that they may be strengthened and guarded against all evil, and live lives worthy of their profession. We hope to spend two or three days there on our return (D.V.); and if so, Joe will write you his impressions. Meanwhile, I tell him what I fully believe, that no one hearty effort of his to benefit these poor people is thrown away. Already they allow us to take boys, and perhaps this very day we may go off with two young girls also. And all this will result in some great change for the better some day.

'You will want to hear a word about myself. I am much better, partly I confess owing to the warmth of the climate, which certainly agrees with me. I may feel less well as we draw by-and-by to the south once more.

'I can't take strong exercise, and that is a privation. It did me good, and I feel the want of it; but I am much better than I was a year or ten months ago, and I do my work very fairly, and get about better than I expected. Remember me kindly to Mrs. Atkin and Mary, and believe me to be

'Your very sincere Friend,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Mr. Brooke and Edward Wogale had had a far more trying sojourn at Florida.

'Wogale suffered much from his eyes; and the labour ships were frequently on the coast—all the three varieties: the fairly conducted one with a Government agent on board; the "Snatch-snatch," which only inveigled, but did not kill without necessity; and the "Kill-kill," which absolutely came head-hunting. It was a dreary eleven weeks.

'On July 11, a "Sydney vessel," as the natives called it, was on the west of the island, and nine natives were reported to Mr Brooke as having been killed, and with so much evidence that he had no doubt on the subject.

'On the 13th Takua came to him to say the "Kill-kill" vessel had anchored four miles off. What was he to do?

'"How was it you and Bisope came first, and then these slaughterers? Do you send them?"

'Mr. Brooke advised them to remain on shore; but if the strangers landed and wanted to kill or burn them, to fight for their lives. "Your words are the words of a chief," said Takua.

'This ship, however, sailed away; but on August 13 another came, much like the "Southern Cross," and canoes went out to her, in one of them Dudley Lankona. These returned safely, but without selling their fruit; and Dudley related that the men said, "Bishop and Brooke were bad, but they themselves were good, and had pipes and tobacco for those who would go with them."

'These, however, went away without doing them harm, only warning them that another vessel which was becalmed near at hand was a "killer," and the people were so uneasy about her that Mr. Brooke went on board, and was taken by the captain for a maker of cocoa-nut oil. He was a Scotchman, from Tanna, where he had settled, and was in search of labourers; a good-natured friendly kind of person on the whole, though regarding natives as creatures for capture.

'"If I get a chance to carry a lot of them off," he said, "I'll do it; but killing is not my creed."

'Mr. Brooke hinted that the natives might attack him, and he pointed to six muskets. "That's only a few of them. Let them come. We'll give it them pretty strong."

'He was rather taken aback when he found that he was talking to a clergyman. "Well, wherever you go nowadays there's missionaries. Who would have thought you'd got so far down?"

'And he looked with regret at Mr. Brooke's party of natives in their canoes, and observed, "Ah! my fine fellows, if your friend was not here I'd have the whole lot of you: what a haul!"

'He said the other ship was from Queensland, and had a Government agent on board, of whom he spoke with evident awe.

'On Mr. Brooke's return, Takua and Dikea were furbishing up old guns which some incautious person on board the "Curacoa" had given them, and they were disappointed to find that there could be no attack on the vessel.'

She, however, was scarcely gone before, at the other end of the island, Vara, four out of five men were killed by a boat's crew. The survivor, Sorova, told Mr. Brooke that he and one companion had gone out in one canoe, and three more in another, to a vessel that lay near the shore. He saw four blacks in her, as he thought Ysabel men. A white man came down from the boat, and sat in the bow of Sorova's canoe, but presently stood up and capsized both canoes, catching at Sorova's belt, which broke, and the poor fellow was thus enabled to get away, and shelter himself under the stern of the canoe, till he could strike out for land; but he saw a boat come round from the other side of the ship, with four men—whether whites or light-coloured islanders was not clear—but they proceeded to beat his companions with oars, then to fall on them with tomahawks, and finally cut off their heads, which were taken on board, and their bodies thrown to the sharks.

These men evidently belonged to that lowest and most horrible class of men-stealers, who propitiate the chiefs by assisting them in head-hunting.

Of course the island was full of rage, and on the 26th again another brig was in sight. Spite of warning, desire to trade induced five men to put off in a canoe. Two boats came down, and placed themselves on either side. Mr. Brooke could not watch, but a fierce shout arose from the crowd on shore, they rushed to the great canoe house, and a war fleet was launched, Dikea standing up in the foremost, with a long ebony spear in his hand. Fortunately they were too late: the boats were hauled up, and the brig went off at full sail. Whether the five were killed or carried captive is not clear.

The whole place was full of wailing. Revenge was all the cry. 'Let not their pigs be killed,' said Takua; 'we will give them to Bisope, he shall avenge us.' His brother Dikea broke out: 'My humour is bad because Bisope does not take us about in his vessel to kill-kill these people!'

When, two days later, the 'Southern Cross' was unmistakeably in sight, Takua said, 'Let Bisope only bring a man-of-war, and get me vengeance on my adversaries, and I shall be exalted like—like—like our Father above!'

The residence of Mr. Brooke in the island, and the testimony of their own countrymen to the way of life in Norfolk Island, had taught the Floridians to separate the Bishop from their foes; but it could scarcely be thus in places where confidence in him had not been established.

The Bishop meanwhile wrote on:—

'The New Zealand Bishops have sent me a kind letter, a round robin, urging me to go to England; but they are ignorant of two things:– 1st, that I am already much better; 2nd, that I should not derive the benefit generally to my spirits, &c. from a visit to England as they would, and take it for granted that I should do so.

'They use only one other argument, viz., that I must rest after some years' work. That is not so. I don't feel the pressure of work for a very simple reason, viz., that I don't attempt to work as I used to do.

'But just now, it is quite clear that I must not go, unless there were a very obvious necessity for it. For, 1st, Mota needs all the help we can give; 2nd, several Melanesians are coming on rapidly to the state when they ought to be ordained; 3rd, we are about to start (D.V.) new stations at Ambrym, Leper's Island, and Savo; 4th, the school is so large that we want "all hands" to work it; 5th, I must go to Fiji, and watch both Fiji and Queensland; 6th, after the 1872 voyage, we shall need, as I think, to sell this vessel, and have another new one built in Auckland. The funds will need careful nursing for this. But I will really not be foolish. If I have a return of the bad symptoms, I will go to Dr. Goldsboro', and if he advises it strongly, will go to England.

'The deportation of natives is going on to a very great extent here, as in the New Hebrides and Banks Islands. Means of all kinds are employed: sinking canoes and capturing the natives, enticing men on board, and getting them below, and then securing hatches and imprisoning them. Natives are retaliating. Lately, two or three vessels have been taken and all hands killed, besides boats' crews shot at continually. A man called on me at Mota the other day, who said that five out of seven in the boat were struck by arrows a few days before. The arrows were not poisoned, but one man was very ill. It makes even our work rather hazardous, except where we are thoroughly well known. I hear that a vessel has gone to Santa Cruz, and I must be very cautious there, for there has been some disturbance almost to a certainty.

'Whatever regulations the Government of Queensland or the Consul of Fiji may make, they can't restrain the traders from employing unlawful means to get hold of the natives. And I know that many of these men are utterly unscrupulous. But I can't get proofs that are sufficient to obtain a verdict in a court of law.

'Some islands are almost depopulated; and I dread the return of these "labourers," when they are brought back. They bring guns and other things, which enable them to carry out with impunity all kinds of rascality. They learn nothing that can influence them for good. They are like squatters in the bush, coming into the town to have their fling. These poor fellows come back to run riot, steal men's wives, shoot, fight, and use their newly acquired possessions to carry out more vigorously all heathen practices.

'September 3rd.—At anchor: Savo Island: Sunday. The experiment of anchoring at Sara (Florida) and this place answers well. The decks were crowded and crammed; but the people behaved very well, barring the picking up of everything they could lay hands upon, as is natural to many persons whose education has been neglected.

'Yesterday I took Wadrokala (of Nengone) to the village here, where he is to live with some of our old scholars from these parts, and try to begin a good work among the people. He has four baptized friends, a married couple being two, and three other very good lads, to start with. It was a long and very hot walk. A year ago I could not have got through it. I was tired, but not over-tired.

'And now we have had Holy Communion; and this afternoon we take our party on shore: Wadrokala's wife Carry, and Jemima, their daughter of eight or nine. There is no fighting or quarrelling here now. I know all the people, so I leave them with good hope.'

On the 7th, Joseph Atkin began a letter as follows:—

'Our Bishop is much improved in health and strength. His stay at Mota has put new life into him again; the whole island is becoming Christian.

'The Bishop is now very strong and clear about establishing permanent schools on the islands; I fear in almost too great a hurry. The great requisite for a school is a native teacher; and generally, if not always, a teacher ought, as George was at Mota, to be well supported by a little band of native converts, who, if their teaching, in the common use of the word, is not much, can, by their consistent lives, preach a continual sermon, that all who see may understand. What is the use of preaching an eloquent sermon on truth to a people who do not know what it means, or purity of which they have never dreamt? Their ears take in the words, they sound very pleasant, and they go away again to their sin; and the preacher is surprised that they can do so. I do not forget the power of the Spirit to change men's hearts, but do not expect the Holy Spirit to work with you as He never worked with anyone else, but rather as He always has worked with others.... If in looking into the history of Missions, you find no heathen people has been even nominally and professionally Christianised within, say, ten or fifteen years, why not be content to set to work to try that the conversion of those to whom you are sent may be as thorough and real as possible in that time, and not to fret at being unable to hurry the work some years?'....