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

'I missed seeing the Bishop knocked clean over by the breakers as he was swimming off to the boat; I was still talking to the people, with my back to the sea, and only saw him staggering to his feet again. Thinking to myself that if he was knocked over, I had better look out, I awaited a "smooth" and swam out comfortably.

'The next morning (Sunday) at ten, we dropped anchor in Port Patteson, the harbour which you know the Bishop would call after my father. The first person who came off to us was Sarawia, my old Lifu pupil, from this island! Then came a good many men. I told them there would be no going ashore and no trading till the next day. Palemana, your friend Matawathki, &c., were at church, all dressed and well-behaved. What nice orderly people they are, to be sure!

'The next day we bought lots of yams, and gave away seeds and fruit-trees, or rather planted them; and looked for a place for a station, and fixed at last on the rising-ground which forms the east side of the harbour, and the Bishop, arming himself with an axe, led a party to clear the bush, which was very thick. They made a fair path through in one afternoon to the top, and a healthy place might be found now with little trouble to return to at night from the schools, &c. in the village below, and so shirk the malaria.

'But the next day, as I had anticipated, rather changed his intentions as to the principal station being formed at Vanua Lava. We landed at Sugar Loaf Island, and with something of pride I showed off to him the beauties of the villages where I slept in May last—the dry soil, the spring of water, the wondrous fertility, the large and remarkably intelligent, well-looking population, the great banyan tree, twenty-seven paces round—and at once he said, "This is such a place as I have seen nowhere else for our purpose."

'The Bishop had seen this island before I was with him, during one of the "Border Maid's" voyages, and knew the people, of course, but had not happened to have walked in shore at all, and so the exceeding beauty and fitness of the island for a Mission station had not become so apparent to him. We know of no place where there seems to be such an unusual combination of everything that can be desired, humanly speaking, for such an institution. So that is settled (D.V.) that next winter I should be here, if alive and well; and that the Banks Islands should be regarded as the central point of the Mission.

'Such boys! Bright-eyed, merry fellows, many really handsome; of that reddish yellow tinge of colour which betokens affinity with Polynesian races, as their language also testifies. The majority of the people were pleasing in their appearance and manner. Well, all this was very hopeful, and we went off very happy, taking Eumau, the boy who first met us at Port Patteson when we found it out, and old Wompas (who was with me at Lifu), and another from Mota, to see the Northern Islands.

'I think our work is more likely now to revolve upon a fixed centre—Sugar Loaf Island in the Banks group—that we shall make the occupation of the group the first ohject, and do all with reference to that as the necessary part of the work to be attended to first. In the choice of scholars, e.g., we have considered whether we should not limit our selection to such as might pass the next winter with me at Sugar Loaf Island, and so that the vessel need not run down to leeward of it. Solomon Islands are the extreme verge. In the East Island, where there would be merely a question of nothing or something, we may take very young men who would perhaps not be easy to keep out of harm at Sugar Loaf, because there will be no difficulty about returning them to their homes....

'November 11th.—We found in the Santa Cruz group that the news of Captain Front's and his two men's death in Vanikoro, and (as we suppose) the news of the "Cordelia" having been at that island to inquire into the matter, had made the people anxious, uneasy, noisy, and rather rude. That poor man went to make a station at Vanikoro in the usual way, taking three poor New Caledonian women with him. The Vanikoro people killed the three English and took away the women.

'We did not land at Sta. Cruz, but we had a more pleasant intercourse than heretofore with thirty or forty canoes' crews.

'Timelin Island we ascertained to be identical with Nukapu, an old familiar place whose latitude we had not ascertained correctly before. The small reef (Polynesian) islands did not give us so good a reception as last year, though there was no unfriendliness. The news about Vanikoro had made them suspicious of visits from white men. But they will be all right by next time....

'We saw a pleasant party at Bligh Island, brought away one young man from that island, and two lads belonging to a neighbouring small island called Eowa. The next day we watered on the north side of Vanua Lava, and in the evening went across to Santa Maria. Here we landed on the next day among two hundred or more people, shy and noisy. We bought a few yams, and I detected some young fellows stealing from our little heap I would not overlook this, but the noticing it made them more suspicious that we meant to hurt them. As the Bishop and I, after some twenty minutes, turned to rejoin the boat, the whole crowd bolted like a shot right and left into the bush. Evidently they must have had some trading crew tire a parting shot in mere wantonness at them from their boat. I expected some arrows to be shot at us; but they did not shoot any.

'The same evening (Saturday) we stood across the passage with a brisk breeze, and took up our party, consisting of five and including Sarawia and four others anciently noted as promising in appearance....

'We reached Mota (Sugar Loaf Island) in time to leave me for a night's visit to the people. I had time before the boat called next day at noon to see five or six of their villages. People quite accustomed to expect me—all most friendly, apparently pleased to be told that I would stop with them in the winter. Seven scholars joined us here....

'At Mai, I slept in the house of Petere and Laure. Things are promising. It is quite ready for a missionary. We brought away Moto, Pepeu, and the two young boys who were with me at Lifu, and very many wished to come.

'Thence we had a very long passage to Lifu. John Cho is, I am thankful to say, very much better. The two men from the London Missionary Society are on the island.... The Lifu people tell me that in the north of the island many are accepting the teaching of the two French priests. William Martin Tahia and Chakham, a principal chief and old scholar, are with us.

'At Nengone, Wadrokala, George Simeona, and Harper Malo have come away for good.... We number thirty-nine Melanesians.... This is a long letter which will try your patience.

'Always, my dear Bishop,

'Affectionately yours,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Another long letter was written during this voyage to Mr. Edward Coleridge, a great portion of it on the expediency of the islands being taken under British protection, also much respecting the Church of New Zealand, which is scarcely relevant to the immediate subject, and only at the end is there anything more personal:—

'The last accounts of my father were unusually good, but I well know what news may be awaiting our return from a voyage whether long or short, and I try to be ready for any news; yet I suppose that I cannot at all realize what it would be. It makes some difference when the idea of meeting again in this world has been relinquished for now four and a half years, yet it is all very well to wait or think about it! I was not so upset by dear Uncle James's death as I should no doubt have been had I enjoyed the prospect of frequently seeing him. Somehow, when all ideas of time and space are annihilated by death, one must think about such separations in a religious way: for separations in any other sense to us here, from people in England, have already taken place. I must except, however, the loving wise letters, and the power of realising more clearly perhaps the occupations of those still in the body—their accustomed places and duties; though I suppose we can tell quite enough about all this in the case of those who have died in the true faith of Christ to know, at all events, that we are brought and united to them whenever we think or do anything religiously. I often think that this is well brought out in the "Heir of Redclyffe"—the loss of "the bright outside," the life and energy and vigour, and all the companionable and sociable qualities, contrasted with the power of thinking oneself into the inner spiritual relations that exist between the worlds visible and invisible.

'All this effort is much diminished in our case. There is no very great present loss; at least, it is not so sensibly felt by a great deal as it would be if we missed some one with whom we lived up to the time of his death. It is much easier to think of them as they are than it could be in the case of persons who remember so vividly what they so lately were; and this is why, I suppose, the news of Uncle James's death seemed to affect me so much less than I should have expected, and it may be so again: certain it is that I loved him dearly, and that I miss his letters very much indeed; but I think that the point I felt most about him was the sad affliction to his family, and the great loss to my dear father, who had of late seen more than ever of him.'

From the home letter I only quote from the reflections so regularly inspired by the anniversary of the 28th of November.

After lamenting that it was difficult to realise those scenes in his mother's illness which he and his brother only knew from narration, Patteson adds:—

'The memory of those days would perhaps have been more precious to me if I had witnessed more with my own eyes. And yet of course it really mattered nothing at all, because the lesson of her life does not depend on an acquaintance with a few days of it; and what I saw when I was there I never have forgotten, and hope that I never may forget.

'And indeed I feel now with regard to you, my dear Father, that I have not learned to know you better while I was with you than I do now. I think that in some ways I enter more almost into your mind and thought, or that I fancy I do so: just as the present possession of anything so often prevents our really taking pains to learn all about it. We rest content with the superficial knowledge of that which is most easily perceived and recognised in it....

'I think I know from your letters, and from the fact of my absence from you making me think more about you, as much about you as those present. I very much enjoy a letter from Joan, which gives me a kind of tableau vivant of you all. That helps me to realize the home life; so do the photographs, they help in the same way. But your letters, and the fact that I think so much about them, and about you, are my real helps.'

The voyage ended on the 7th of December. It was the last made under the guidance of the Bishop of New Zealand, and, alas! the last return of the first 'Southern Cross.'

CHAPTER IX. MOTA AND ST. ANDREW'S COLLEGE, KOHIMARAMA. 1859-1862

With the year 1860 a new period, and one far more responsible and eventful, began. After working for four years under Bishop Selwyn's superintendence, Coleridge Patteson was gradually passing into a sphere of more independent action; and, though his loyal allegiance to his Primate was even more of the heart than of the letter, his time of training was over; he was left to act more on his own judgment; and things were ripening for his becoming himself a Bishop. He had nearly completed his thirty-third year, and was in his fullest strength, mental and bodily; and, as has been seen, the idea had already through Bishop Selwyn's letters become familiar to his family, though he himself had shrunk from entertaining it.

The first great change regarded the locality of the Melanesian school in New Zealand. Repeated experience had shown that St. John's College was too bleak for creatures used to basking under a vertical sun, and it had been decided to remove to the sheltered landing-place at Kohimarama, where buildings for the purpose had been commenced so as to be habitable in time for the freight of 1859.

It should be explained, that the current expenses of the Mission had been defrayed by the Eton and Sydney associations, with chance help from persons privately interested, together with a grant of £200, and afterwards £300 per annum from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The extra expense of this foundation was opportunely met by a discovery on the part of Sir John Patteson, that his eldest son, living upon the Merton Fellowship, had cost him £200 a year less than his younger son, and therefore that, in his opinion, £800 was due to Coleridge. Moreover, the earlier voyages, and, in especial the characters of Siapo and Umao, had been so suggestive of incidents fabricated in the 'Daisy Chain,' that the proceeds of the book were felt to be the due of the Mission and at this time these had grown to such an amount as to make up the sum needful for erecting such buildings as were immediately requisite for the intended College.

These are described in the ensuing letter, which I give entire, because the form of acknowledgment is the only style suitable to what, however lightly acquired, was meant as an offering, even though it cost the giver all too little:

'Kohimarama: Dec. 21, 1859.

'My dear Cousin,—I have received at length from my father a distinct statement of what you have given to the Melanesian Mission. I had heard rumours before, and the Bishop of Wellington had spoken to me of your intentions, but the fact had not been regularly notified to us.

'I think I know you too well to say more than this. May God bless you for what you have lent to Him, and give us, who are specially connected with the Mission, grace to use your gift as you intend it to be used, to His glory in the salvation of souls.

'But you will like to hear how your gift will be appropriated. For three summers the Melanesian scholars lived at St. John's College, which is situated on a low hill, from which the ground falls away on every side, leaving it exposed to every wind that blows across and around the narrow isthmus.

'Thank God, we had no death traceable to the effect of the climate, but we had constant anxiety and a considerable amount of illness. When arrangements were completed for the arrival of a new principal to succeed the Bishop of Wellington, the college was no longer likely to be available for the Mission school. Consequently, we determined to build on the site long ago agreed upon; to put up some substantial buildings, and to remove some of the wooden buildings at the College which would not be required there, and set them up again at Kohimarama.

'Just opposite the entrance into the Auckland harbour, between the island of Eangitoto with its double peak and the easternmost point of the northern shore of the harbour, lies a very sheltered bay, with its sea-frontage of rather more than a quarter of a mile, bounded to the east, south, and west by low hills, which where they meet the sea become sandy cliffs, fringed with the red-flower-bearing pohutakawa. The whole of this bay, the seventy acres of flat rich soil included within the rising ground mentioned, and some seventy acres more as yet lying uncleared, adjoining the same block of seventy acres, and likely to be very valuable, as the land is capital—the whole of this was bought by the Bishop many years ago as the property of the Mission, and is the only piece of Church land over which he retains the control, every other bequest or gift to the amount of 14,000 acres, having been handed over by him to the General Synod. This he retains till the state of the Melanesian Mission is more definitely settled.

'On the west corner of this bay we determined to build. A small tide creek runs for a short way about S.S.E. from the extreme end of the western part of the beach, then turns early eastward, and meets a small stream coming down from the southern hill at its western extremity. This creek encloses a space extending along the whole width of the bay of about eighteen or twenty acres.

'At the east end stand three wooden cottages, occupied by the master, mate, and a married seaman of the "Southern Cross." At the west end stands the Melanesian school. Fences divide the whole space into three portions, whereof the western one forms our garden and orchard; and the others pasture for cows and working bullocks; small gardens being also fenced off for the three cottages. The fifty acres of flat land south of the creek we are now clearing and ploughing.

'The situation here is admirably adapted for our school. Now that we have a solid wall of the scoria from the volcanic island opposite, we have a complete shelter from the cold south wind. The cliff and hill to the west entirely shut off the wind from that quarter, and the north and east winds are always warm. The soil is very dry, and the beach composed exclusively of small "pipi" shells—small bivalves. So that by putting many cart-loads of these under our wooden floors, and around our buildings, we have so perfect a drainage that after heavy rain the soil is quite dry again in a few hours. It causes me no anxiety now, when I am for an hour away from my flock, to be thinking whether they are lying on the ground, forgetting that the hot sun overhead does not destroy the bad effect of a damp clay soil such as that at St. John's College.

'The buildings at present form three sides of a quadrangle, but the south side is only partly filled up. The large schoolroom, eighty feet long, with three sets of transepts, has been removed from the College, and put up again so as to form the east side of the quadrangle. This is of wood; so is the small wooden quadrangle which serves now for dormitories, and a part of which I occupy; my house consisting of three little rooms, together measuring seventeen feet by seven. These dormitories are the southern side of the quadrangle, but do not reach more than half-way from the east to the west side, room being left for another set of dormitories of equal size, when we want them and can afford them. The west side consists of a very nice set of stone buildings, including a large kitchen, store room, and room for putting things in daily and immediate use; and the hall, which is the northern part of the side of the quadrangle, is a really handsome room, with simple open roof and windows of a familiar collegiate appearance. These buildings are of the dark grey scoria, almost imperishable I suppose, and look very well. The hall is just long enough to take seven of us at the high table (so to speak), and thirty-four at the long table, stretching from the high table to the end of the room.

'At present this is used for school also, as the carpenters who are making all our fittings, shelves, &c., are still in the large schoolroom. We take off the north end of the schoolroom, including one set of transepts for our temporary chapel. This part will be lined, i.e. boarded, neatly inside. The rest of the building is very rough, but it answers its purpose.

'In all the stone buildings, the rough stone is left inside just as it is outside. It does not look bad at all to my eye, and I doubt if I would have it lined if we had funds to pay for it.

'I hope eventually that stone buildings will take the place of the present wooden schoolroom and dormitories; but this ought to last many years. Here we live most happily and comfortably. The climate almost tropical in summer. The beautiful scenery of the harbour before our eyes, the smooth sea and clean dry beach within a stone's throw of my window. The lads and young men have their fishing, bathing, boating, and basking in the sun, which all day from sunrise to sunset beats right upon us; for the west cliff does not project more than a few yards to the north of us, and the eastern boundary is low and some way off. I see the little schooner at her moorings whenever I look off my book or my paper, and with an opera-glass can see the captain caulking the decks. All is under my eye; and the lads daily say, "College too cold; Kohimarama very good; all the same Bauro, Mota," as the speaker belongs to one or other of our fourteen islands represented.... The moment we heard of your gift, we said simultaneously, "Let it be given to this or to some specific and definite object." I think you will like to feel not only that the money came most opportunely, but that within the walls built with that money, many many hundreds, I trust, of these Melanesian islanders will be fed and taught, and trained up in the knowledge and fear of God....

'Your affectionate Cousin,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Before the old year was out came the tidings of the death of good Miss Neill, the governess whom Patteson had so faithfully loved from early childhood, and whose years of suffering he had done his best to cheer. 'At rest at last.' In the same letter, in answer to some complaint from his sister of want of detail in the reports, he says: 'Am I trying to make my life commonplace? Well, really so it is more or less to me. Things go on in a kind of routine. Two voyages a year, five months in New Zealand, though certainly two-thirds of my flock fresh every year. I suppose it still sounds strange to you sometimes, and to others always, but they should try to think for themselves about our circumstances.

'And you know, Fan, I can't write for the world at large anecdotes of missionary life, and swell the number of the "Gems" and other trashy books. If people who care to know, would think of what their own intuition tells them of human nature, and history tells them of heathenism, they can make out some notion of real missionary work.