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

Patteson often gave his services at the Maori village of Orakei, where there was to be a central native school managed by Pirimona (Philemon), a well-trained man, a candidate for Holy Orders.

'However, this did not satisfy his countrymen. As if I had not enough to do, old Wi comes with a request from the folks at Orakei that I would be their "minita," and take the management of the concern. Rather rich, is it not? I said, of course, that I was minita for the islanders. "Oh, let the Bishop take another man for that, you are the minister for us." He is, you know, wonderfully tatooed, and a great object of curiosity to the boys!

Before many days had passed, there had occurred the first case of that fatal tetanus, which became only too well known to those concerned in the Mission. Of course, all weapons were taken from the scholars; but one of the San Cristoval boys, named Tohehammai, fetched one of his own arrows out of Mr. Dudley's room to exchange with an English lad for a shirt, and as he was at play, carrying the arrow in his left hand behind his back and throwing a stick like a spear with the other, he sharply pricked his right arm, within the elbow, against the point of the arrow; but thinking nothing of the hurt, and knowing that the weapons were forbidden playthings, he said nothing for twelve days, but then complained of stiffness in the arm. Two doctors happened to be at the college that day; one thought it rheumatism, the other mentioned the word tetanus, but for three days more the arm was merely stiff, it was hung in a sling, and the boy went about as usual, until, on the fifteenth day, spasmodic twitchings in the arm came on.

Liniment of chloroform was rubbed in, and the boy was kept under chloroform, but in vain; the next day his whole body was perfectly rigid, with occasional convulsions. About 4 p.m. his throat had become contracted, and the endeavour to give him nourishment brought on convulsive attacks. The Bishop came at 8. p.m., and after another attempt at giving him food, which produced a further spasm, he was lying quietly when Patteson felt his pulse stop.

'"He is dying!" the Bishop said. '"Father, into Thy hands we commend his spirit."'

Patteson's 'Amen' came from his heart. The poor fellow made no sound as he lay with his frame rigid, his back arched so that an arm could be thrust under it. He was gone in that moment, unbaptized. Patteson writes:—

'I had much conflict with myself about it. He had talked once with me in a very hopeful way, but during his illness I could not obtain from him any distinct profession of faith, anything to make me feel pretty sure that some conviction of the truth of what he he had been taught, and not mere learning by rote, was the occasion of his saying what he did say. I did wish much that I might talk again with the Bishop about it, but his death took us by surprise. I pray God that all my omission and neglect of duty may be repaired, and that his very imperfect and unconscious yearnings after the truth may be accepted for Christ's sake.'

The arrow was reported to have been poisoned, but by the time the cause of the injury had been discovered it had been thrown away and could not be recovered for examination. Indeed, lockjaw seems to be so prevalent in the equatorial climates, and the natives so peculiarly liable to it, that poison did not seem needful to account for the catastrophe.

Altogether, these lads were exotics in New Zealand, and exceedingly fragile. In the very height of summer they had to wear corduroy trousers, blue serge shirts, red woollen comforters, and blue Scotch caps, and the more delicate a thick woollen jersey in addition; and with all these precautions they were continually catching cold, or getting disordered, and then the Bauro and Grera set could only support such treatment as young children generally need. The Loyalty Islanders were much tougher and stronger and easier to treat, but they too showed that the climate of Auckland was a hard trial to their constitutions.

On the last day of March came tidings of the sudden death of the much-beloved and honoured Dr. James Coleridge of Thorverton.

'It is a great shock,' says the letter written the same day; 'not that I feel unhappy exactly, nor low, but that many many memories are revived and keep freshening on my mind.... And since I left England his warm, loving, almost too fond letters have bound me very closely to him, and sorely I shall miss the sight of his handwriting; though he may be nearer to me now than before, and his love for me is doubtless even more pure and fervent.

'I confess I had thought sometimes that if it pleased God to take you first, the consciousness that he would be with you was a great comfort to me—not that any man is worth much then. God must be all in all. But yet he of all men was the one who would have been a real comfort to you, and even more so to others.' To his cousin he writes:—

'Wednesday in Passion Week, 1858: St. John's College.

'My dearest Sophy,—Your letter with the deep black border was the first that I opened, with trembling hand, thinking: "Is it dear dear Uncle gone to his eternal rest; or dear Aunty? not that dear child, may God grant; for that would somehow seem to all most bitter of all—less, so to speak, reasonable and natural." And he is really gone; that dear, loving, courageous, warm-hearted servant of Christ; the desire of our eyes taken away with a stroke. I read your letter wondering that I was not upset, knelt down and said the two prayers in the Burial Service, and then came the tears; for the memory of him rose up very vividly before me, and his deep love for me and the notes of comfort and encouragement he used to write were very fresh in my mind. I looked at the print of him, the one he sent out to me, with "your loving old Uncle" in pencil on it. I have all his letters: when making a regular clearance some months ago, I could not tear up his, although dangerous ones for me to read unless used as a stimulant to become what he thought me. His "Jacob" sermon in his own handwriting, I have by me. But more than all, the memory of his holy life, and his example as a minister of Christ, have been left behind for us as a sweet, undying fragrance; his manner in the sick-room—I see him now, and hear that soft, steady, clear voice repeating verses over my dear mother's death-bed; his kindly, loving ways to his poor people; his voice and look in the pulpit, never to be forgotten. I knew I should never see him again in this world. May God of His mercy take me to be with him hereafter.

'Thank you, dear Sophy, for writing to me; every word about him is precious, from his last letter to me:—

'"You will believe how sweet it is to me every month now to give the Holy Eucharist to my three dear ones."

'"All complaints of old men must be serious."

'I wish I had more time to write, but I am too busy in the midst of school, and printing Scripture histories and private prayers, and translations in Nengone, Bauro, Lifu; and as all my time out of school is spent in working in the printing office, I really have not a minute unoccupied. With one exception, I have scarcely ever taken an hour's walk for some six weeks. A large proportion of the printing is actually set up by my own fingers; but now one Nengone lad, the flower of my flock, can help me much—a young man about seventeen or eighteen, of whom I hope very much—Malo, baptized by the name of Harper, an excellent young man, and a great comfort to me. He was setting up in type a part of the little book of private prayers I am now printing for them. I had just pointed out to him the translation of what would be in English—"It is good that a man as he lies down to sleep should remember that that night he may hear the summons of the Angel of God; so then let him think of his death, and remember the words of St. Paul: 'Awake, thou that sleepest,'" etc.; when in came the man whom the Archdeacon left in charge here with my letters. "I hope, sir, there is no bad news for you;" and my eye lighted on the deep black border of your envelope.

'To-morrow, if I live, I enter upon my thirty-second year—a solemn warning I have received to-day, as another year is passing from me. May some portion of his spirit rest on me to bless my poor attempt to do what he did so devotedly for more than forty years: his duty as a soldier and servant of his Lord and Master, into whose joy he has no doubt now entered.

'Easter Day.—What an Easter for him! and doubtless we all who will by and by, as the world rolls round, receive the Holy Eucharist shall be in some way united to him as well as to all departed saints—members of His Mystical Body.

'April 12.—Bishop came out yesterday afternoon from Auckland. After baptisms at 5, and evening service at 7, sat till past 11 settling plans: thus, God willing, start this day fortnight to return the boys—this will occupy about two months; as we come back from the far north, he will drop one at Lifu, one of the Loyalty Islands, with large population; he will go on to New Zealand, stay perhaps six weeks in New Zealand, or it may be two months; so that with the time occupied by his voyage from Lifu to New Zealand, 1,000 miles and back, he will be away from Lifu about two and a half or three months. Then, picking me up (say about September 12), we go on at once to the whole number of our islands, spending three months or so among them, getting back to New Zealand about the end of November. So that I shall be in Melanesia, D.V., from the beginning of May to the end of November. I shall be able to write once more before we start—letters which you will get by the June mail from Sydney—and of course I shall send letters by the Bishop when he leaves me at Lifu. But I shall not be able to hear again from England till the Bishop comes to pick me up in September. Never mind. I shall have plenty to do; and I can think of those dear ones at home, and of you all, in God's keeping, with perfect comfort. The Lifu people are in a more critical state than any others just now, otherwise I should probably stop at San Cristoval. A few years ago they were very wild—cannibals of course; but they are now building chapels, and thirsting for the living waters. What a privilege and responsibility to go to them as Christ's minister, to a people longing for the glad tidings of the Gospel of Peace. Samoan teachers have been for a good many years among them.

'I cannot write now to dearest Aunty or Pena.

'May God bless you and abundantly comfort you.... I think I see his dear face. I see him always.

'Your loving cousin,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Cho's wife had arrived in a cart at the College when her baby was a day old, so rapid is recovery with mothers in those climates. 'I saw the baby,' observes the journal, quite strong, not dark,—but I don't care for them till they can talk; on the contrary, I think them a great bore, especially in wooden houses, where a child with good lungs may easily succeed in keeping all the inhabitants awake.'

'April 12.—Settled that I stop at Lifu in the interval between the two voyages. I think Lifu wants me more than any other island just now. Some 15,000 or 20,000 stretching out their hands to God. The London Mission (Independent) sent Samoan teachers long ago, but no missionary, even after frequent applications. At last they applied personally to the Bishop, he being well known to them of old. I can't go for good, because I have of course to visit all these islands; but I shall try to spend all the time that I am not at sea or with boys in New Zealand, perhaps three months yearly, with them, till they can be provided with a regular clergyman.

'So I shall have no letters from you till the return of the vessel to pick me up in September. But be sure you think of me as very happy and well cared for, though, I am glad to say, not a white man on the island; lots of work, but I shall take much exercise and see most of the inhabitants. The island is large, not so large as Bauro, but still large.

'You will say all that is kind to all relations, Buckerell, etc. Thank the dear old vicar for the spurs, and tell him that I had a battle royal the other day with a colonial steed, which backed into the bush, and kicked, and played the fool amazingly, till I considerably astonished him into a gallop, in the direction I wanted to go, by a vigorous application of the said spurs.

'God bless and keep you all.

'Your loving

'J. C. PATTESON.'

A few days later he writes:—

'The "Southern Cross," returning to Lifu, will bring my letters; but unless a stray whaler comes to Lifu while I am there, on its way to Sydney, that will be the only exchange of letters. I am afraid this will be an increase of the trial of separation to you all, but it is not sent until you have learnt to do pretty well without me, and you will be comforted by knowing that this island of Lifu, with many inhabitants, is in a very critical state; that what it most wants is a missionary, and that as far as I am concerned, all the people will be very anxious to do all they can for me. I take a filter and some tea. We shall have yams, taro, cocoa-nuts, occasionally a bit of turtle, a fowl, or a bit of pork. So, you see, I shall live like an alderman; I mean, if I am to go to every part of the island, heathen and all. Perhaps 20,000 people, scattered over many miles. I say heathen and all, because only a very small number of the people now refuse to admit the new teaching. Samoans have been for some time on the island, and though, I dare say, their teaching has been very imperfect and only perhaps ten or fifteen people are baptized, they have chapels, and are far advanced beyond any of the islands except Nengone and Toke, always excepting Anaiteum. Hence it is thought the leaven may work quietly in the Solomon Islands without me, but that at Lifu they really require guidance. So now I have a parochial charge for three months of an island about twenty-five miles long and some sixteen or eighteen broad.

'I feel that my letters, after so long an absence, may contain much to make me anxious, so that I shall not look with unmixed pleasure to my return to my great packet; yet I feel much less anxiety than you might imagine; I know well that you are in God's keeping, and that is enough.'

After just touching at Nengone early in May the 'Southern Cross' went on to Lifu, and on landing, the Bishop and Mr. Patteson found a number of people ready to receive them, and to conduct them to the village, where the chief and a great number of people were drawn up in a half-circle to receive them. The young chief, Angadhohua, bowed and touched his hat, and taking Coley's hand, held it, and whispered, 'We will always live together.'

'By and by we will talk about it,' was the answer; and they were taken to a new house, belonging to one of the Samoans, built of lath plastered and thatch, with one large room and a lesser one at each of its angles. There the Bishop and Mr. Patteson sat on a chest, and seventy or eighty men squatted on mats, John Cho and the native teacher foremost. There was a five minutes' pause. Lifu was not yet familiar to Coley, who spoke it less well than he had spoken German, and John Cho said to him: 'Shall I tell them what you have said to me formerly?'

He then explained that Mr. Patteson could only offer them a visit of three or four months, and would then have the charge of lads from 'dark isles.'

Silence again; then Angadhohua asked: 'Cannot you stop always?'

'There are many difficulties which you cannot understand, which prevent me. Would you like me to shut the door which God has opened to so many dark lands?'

'No, no; but why not have the summer school here as well as the winter?'

'Because it does the lads good to see New Zealand, and because the Bishop, who knows better than I do, thinks it right.'

'And cannot we have a missionary?'

However, they were forced to content themselves with all that could be granted to them, and it was further explained that Mr. Patteson would not supersede the native teachers, nor assume the direction of the Sunday services, only keep a school which any one might join who liked. This was felt to be only right in good faith to the London Mission, in order not to make dire confusion if they should be able to fill up the gap before the Church could.

After sleeping in the house, Patteson produced the books that had been printed for them at St. John's.

'Would that you could have seen their delight! About two pages, indifferently printed, was all they had hitherto. Now they saw thirty-two clearly printed 8vo. pages of Bible History, sixteen of prayers, rubrics, &c., eight of questions and answers. "You see," said I cunningly; "that we don't forget you during these months that I can't live among you."'

They began reading at once, and crying, 'Excellent, exactly right, the very thing.'

It was thought good that some one from Lifu should join the Mission party and testify to their work, and on the invitation, the chief, Angadhohua, a bright youth of seventeen, volunteered to go. It was an unexampled thing that a chief should be permitted by his people to leave them, there was a public meeting about it, and a good deal of excitement, but it ended in Cho, as spokesman, coming forward with tears in his eyes, saying, 'Yes, it is right he should go, but bring him back soon. What shall we do?'

Patteson laid his hand on the young chief's shoulder, answering, 'God can guard him by sea as on land, and with His blessing we will bring him back safe to you. Let some of the chiefs go with him to protect him. I will watch over him, but you may choose whom you will to accompany him.'

So five chiefs were selected as a body-guard for the young Angadhohua, who was prince of all the isle, but on an insecure tenure, for the French, in New Caledonia, were showing a manifest inclination to annex the Loyalty group.

The heavily loaded boat had a perilous strife with the surf before the ship was reached, and it was a very rough passage to Anaiteum, where some goods had to be left for Mr. Inglis, and he asked that four Fate visitors might be taken home. This was done, and Mr. Grordon was visited at Erromango on the way, and found well and prosperous.

At Mai, the reception of Petere and Laure was ecstatic. There was a crowd on shore to meet them, and on the two miles' walk to the village parties met, hugged, and wept over them. At the village Mr. Patteson addressed the people for ten minutes, and Petere made an animated exposition of what he had learnt, and his speeches evidently had great effect. His younger brother and two little boys all came in his stead, and would form part of the winter school at Lifu.

The Espiritu Santo boy, the dunce of the party, was set down at home, and the Banks Islanders were again found pleasant, honest, and courteous, thinking, as it appeared afterwards, that the white men were the departed spirits of deceased friends. A walk inland at Vanua Lava disclosed pretty villages nestling under banyan trees, one of them provided with a guest-chamber for visitors from other islands. Two boys, Sarawia and another, came away to be scholars at Lifu, as well as his masters in the language, of which he as yet scarcely knew anything, but which he afterwards found the most serviceable of all these various dialects.

The 26th of May brought the vessel to Bauro, where poor old Iri was told of the death of his son, and had a long talk with Mr. Patteson, beginning with, 'Do you think I shall see him again?' It was a talk worth having, though it was purchased by spending a night in the house with the rats.

It seemed as though the time were come for calling on the Baurese to cease to be passive, and sixty or seventy men and women having come together, Mr. Patteson told them that he did not mean to go on merely taking their boys to return them with heaps of fish-hooks and knives, but that, unless they cared for good teaching, to make them good and happy here and hereafter, he should not come like a trader or a whaler. That their sons should go backwards and forwards and learn, but to teach at home; and that they ought to build a holy house, where they might meet to pray to God and learn His will.

Much of this was evidently distasteful, though they agreed to build a room.

'I think,' he writes, 'that the trial stage of the work has arrived. This has less to attract outwardly than the first beginning of all, and as here they must take a definite part, they (the great majority who are not yet disposed to decide for good) are made manifest, and the difficulty of displacing evil customs is more apparent.'

In fact, these amiable, docile Baurese seemed to have little manliness or resolution of character, and Sumaro, a scholar of 1857, was especially disappointing, for he pretended to wish to come and learn at Lifu, but only in order to get a passage to Gera, where he deserted, and was well lectured for his deceit.

The Gera people were much more warlike and turbulent, and seemed to have more substance in them, though less apt at learning. Patteson spent the night on shore at Perua, a subsidiary islet in the bay, sleeping in a kind of shed, upon two boards, more comfortably than was usual on these occasions. Showing confidence was one great point, and the want of safe anchorage in the bay was much regretted, because the people could not understand why the vessel would not come in, and thought it betokened mistrust. Many lads wished to join the scholars, but of those who were chosen, two were forced violently overboard by their friends, and only two eventually remained, making a total of twelve pupils for the winter school at Lifu, with five languages between them—seven with the addition of the Nengone and Lifu scholars.

'You see,' writes Patteson on June 10, on the voyage, 'that our difficulty is in training and organising nations, raising them from heathenism to the life, morally and socially, of a Christian. This is what I find so hard. The communication of religious truth by word of mouth is but a small part of the work. The real difficulty is to do for them what parents do for their children, assist them to—nay, almost force upon them—the practical application of Christian doctrine. This descends to the smallest matters, washing, scrubbing, sweeping, all actions of personal cleanliness, introducing method and order, habits of industry, regularity, giving just notions of exchange, barter, trade, management of criminals, division of labour. To do all this and yet not interfere with the offices of the chief, and to be the model and pattern of it, who is sufficient for it?'

On June 16, Mr. Patteson was landed at Lifu, for his residence there, with the five chiefs, his twelve boys, and was hospitably welcomed to the large new house by the Samoan. He and four boys slept in one of the corner rooms, the other eight lads in another, the Rarotongan teacher, Tutoo, and his wife in a third. The central room was parlour, school, and hall, and as it had four unglazed windows, and two doors opposite to each other, and the trade-wind always blowing, the state of affairs after daylight was much like that which prevailed in England when King Alfred invented lanterns, while in the latter end of June the days were, of course, as short as they could be on the tropic of Capricorn, so that Patteson got up in the dark at 5-30 in the morning.

At 7 the people around dropped in for prayers, which he thought it better not to conduct till his position was more defined. Then came breakfast upon yams cooked by being placed in a pit lined with heated stones, with earth heaped over the top. Mr. and Mrs. Tutoo, with their white guest, sat at the scrap of a table, 'which, with a small stool, was the only thing on four legs in the place, except an occasional visitor in the shape of a pig.' Then followed school. Two hundred Lifu people came, and it was necessary to hold it in the chapel. One o'clock, dinner on yams, and very rarely on pig or a fowl, baked or rather done by the same process; and in the afternoon some reading and slate work with the twelve Melanesians, and likewise some special instruction to a few of the more promising Lifuites. At 6.30, another meal of yams, but this time Patteson had recourse to his private store of biscuit; and the evening was spent in talk, till bedtime at 9 or 9.30. It was a thorough sharing the native life; but after a few more experiments, it was found that English strength could not be kept up on an exclusive diet of yams, and the Loyalty Isles are not fertile. They are nothing but rugged coral, in an early stage of development; great ridges, upheaved, bare and broken, and here and there with pits that have become filled with soil enough to grow yams and cocoa-nuts.

The yams—except those for five of the lads, whose maintenance some of the inhabitants had undertaken—were matter of purchase, and formed the means of instruction in the rules of lawful exchange. A fixed weight of yams were to constitute prepayment for a pair of trousers, a piece of calico, a blanket, tomahawk, or the like, and all this was agreed to, Cho being a great assistance in explaining and dealing with his people. But it proved very difficult to keep them up to bringing a sufficient supply, and as they had a full share of the universal spirit of haggling, the commissariat was a very harassing and troublesome business, and as to the boys, it was evident that the experiment was not successful. Going to New Zealand was seeing the world. Horses, cows, sheep, a town, soldiers, &c., were to be seen there, whereas Lifu offered little that they could not see at home, and schooling without novelty was tedious. Indeed, the sight of civilised life, the being taken to church, the kindness of the friends around the College, were no slight engines in their education; but the Lifu people were not advanced enough to serve as an example—except that they had renounced the more horrible of their heathen habits. They were in that unsettled state which is peculiarly trying in the conversion of nations, when the old authoritative customs have been overthrown, and the Christian rules not established.

It was a good sign that the respect for the chief was not diminished. One evening an English sailor (for there turned out to be three whites on the island) who was employed in the sandal-wood trade was in the house conversing with Tutoo, when Angadhohua interrupted him, and he—in ignorance of the youth's rank—pushed him aside out of the way. The excitement was great. A few years previously the offender would have been killed on the spot, and as it was, it was only after apology and explanation of his ignorance that he was allowed to go free; but an escort was sent with him to a place twenty miles off lest any one should endeavour to avenge the insult, not knowing it had been forgiven.

Many of the customs of these Loyalty Isles are very unhealthy, and the almost exclusive vegetable diet produced a low habit of body, that showed itself in all manner of scrofulous diseases, especially tumours, under which the sufferer wasted and died. Much of Patteson's time was taken up by applications from these poor creatures, who fancied him sure to heal them, and had hardly the power, certainly not the will, to follow his advice.

Nor had he any authority. He only felt himself there on sufferance till the promised deputation should come from Rarotonga from the London Mission, to decide whether the island should be reserved by them, or yielded to the Church. Meantime he says on Sunday:—

'Tutoo has had a pretty hard day's work of it, poor fellow, and he is anything but strong. At 9.30 we all went to the chapel, which began by a hymn sung as roughly as possible, but having rather a fine effect from the fact of some 400 or 500 voices all singing in unison. Then a long extemporary prayer, then another hymn, then a sermon nearly an hour long. It ought not to have taken more than a quarter of an hour, but it was delivered very slowly, with endless repetitions, otherwise there was some order and arrangement about it. Another hymn brought the service to an end about 11. But his work was not done; school instantly succeeded in the same building, and though seven native teachers were working their classes, the burthen of it fell on him. School was concluded with a short extemporary prayer. At three, service again—hymn, prayer, another long sermon, hymn, and at last we were out of chapel, there being no more school.'

'To be sure,' is the entry on another Sunday, 'little thought I of old that Sunday after Sunday I should frequent an Independent chapel. As for extemporary prayer not being a form, that is absurd. These poor fellows just repeat their small stock of words over and over again, and but that they are evidently in earnest, it would seem shockingly irreverent sometimes. Most extravagant expressions! Tutoo is a very simple, humble-minded man, and I like him much. He would feel the help and blessing of a Prayer-book, poor fellow, to be a guide to him; but even the Lord's Prayer is never heard among them.'

So careful was Mr. Patteson not to offend the men who had first worked on these islands, that on one Sunday when Tutoo was ill, he merely gave a skeleton of a sermon to John Cho to preach. On the 27th of July, however, the deputation arrived in the 'John Williams'—two ministers, and Mr. Creagh on his way back to Nengone, and the upshot of the conference on board, after a dinner in the house of Apollo, the native teacher, was that as they had no missionary for Lifu, they made no objection to Mr. Patteson working there at present, and that if in another year they received no reinforcement from home, they would take into consideration the making over their teachers to him. 'My position is thus far less anomalous, my responsibility much increased. God will, I pray and trust, strengthen me to help the people and build them up in the faith of Christ.'