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

Soon after his return to Norfolk Island came a packet with a three months' accumulation of home despatches. He read and replied in his old conversational way, with occasionally a revelation of his deep inner self:—

'I have been thinking, dear old Fan, about your words, "there would be a good deal to give and take if you came home for a time;" less perhaps now than before I was somewhat tamed by my illness. I see more of the meaning of that petition, "from all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; and from all uncharitableness."

'Alas! you don't know what a misspent life I looked back upon, never losing hold, God be praised, of the sure belief in His promises of pardon and acceptance in Christ. I certainly saw that a want of sympathy, an indifference to the feelings of others, want of consideration, selfishness, in short, lay at the bottom of very much that I mourned over.

'There is one thing, that I don't mention as an excuse for a fault which really does exist, but simply as a fact, viz., that being always, even now, pressed for time, I write very abruptly, and so seem to be much more positive and dogmatic than I hope, and really think, is the case. I don't remember ever writing you a letter in which I was able to write but as I would have talked out the matter under discussion in all its bearings. This arises partly from impatience, my pen won't go fast enough; but as I state shortly my opinion, without going through the reasons which lead me to adopt it, no doubt much that I say seems to be without reason, and some of it no doubt is.'

I need make no excuse for giving as much as possible of the correspondence of these last few months, when—though the manner of his actual departure was violent, there was already the shadow, as it were, of death upon him.

To Sir J. T. Coleridge the letter was:—

'December 9, 1870.

'My dearest Uncle,—How long it is since I wrote to you!… And yet it is true that I think more often of you than of anyone, except Jem, Joan and Fan. In fact, your name meets me so often in one way or another—in papers from England, and much more in books continually in use, that I could not fail to think of you if I had not the true, deep love that brings up the old familiar face and voice so often before my eyes....

'I wish I could talk with you, or rather hear you answer my many questions on so many points. I get quite bewildered sometimes. It is hard to read the signs of our times; so hard to see where charity ends and compromise begins, where the old opinion is to be stoutly maintained, and where the new mode of thought is to be accepted. I suppose there always was some little difference among divines as to "fundamentals," and no ready-made solution exists of each difficult question as it emerges.

'There is reason for that being so, because it is part of our duty and trial to exercise our own power of discretion and judgment. But so much now seems to be left to individuals, and so little is accepted on authority. In Church matters I have for years thought Synods to be the one remedy. If men meet and talk over a difficulty, there is a probability of men's understanding each other's motives, and thus preserving charity. If one-twentieth part of a diocese insists upon certain observances which nineteen-twentieths repudiate, it seems clear that the very small minority is put out of court. Yet how often the small minority contains more salt than the large majority!

'I know indeed I am speaking honestly, that I am not worthy to understand dear Mr. Keble on many points. "The secret of our Lord" is with such men, and we fail to understand him, nous autres I mean, outside the sanctuary. Yet there is, I must confess it to you, my dear uncle, a something about his book on Eucharistic Adoration which has the character to me of foreign rather than of English divinity. I don't want to be exclusive, far from it. I don't want to be Anglican versus Primitive; but yet somehow, to me, there is a something which belongs more to French or Italian than to English character about some parts of the book. It is no doubt because I can't see what to his eye was plain.'

[An account of the voyage follows as before given.] 'The islanders are beginning to find out the true character of the many small vessels cruising among them, taking away people to the plantations in Queensland, Fiji, &c. So now force is substituted for deceit. Natives are enticed on board under promises (by signs of course, for nowhere can they talk to them) of presents, tempted down below into the hold to get tomahawks, beads, biscuit, &c., then the hatches are clapped on, and they are stolen away. I have to try and write a statement about it, which is the last thing I can do properly.'

[Then the history of the weddings and baptisms.] 'There is another pleasant feature to be noticed. The older scholars, almost all of whom are Banks Islanders, talk and arrange among themselves plans for helping natives of the islands. Thus Edward Wogale, of Mota, volunteers to go to Anudha, 300 or 400 miles off, to stay there with his friend Charles Sapinamba of that island, to aid him in working among his people. Edward is older and knows more than Charles. They talk in Mota, but Edward will soon have to speak the tongue of Anudha when living there. B– and his wife offer to go to Santa Maria, Robert Pantatun and his wife to go to Matlavo, John Nonono to go to Savo, and Andrew Lalena also. This is very comforting to me. It is bona fide giving up country and home. It is indicative of a real desire to make known the Gospel to other lands. So long as they will do this, so long I think we may have the blessed assurance that God's Holy Spirit is indeed working in their hearts. Dear fellows! It makes me very thankful.

'My clerical staff is increased by a Mr. Jackson, long a friend and supporter of the Mission....

'Atkin is a steady-going fellow, most conscientious, with a good head-piece of his own, diligent and thoughtful rather than quick. He and Bice read Hebrew daily with me, and they will have soon a very fair knowledge of it. Joe Atkin knows his Greek Testament very fairly indeed: Ellicott, Trench, Alford, Wordsworth and others are in use among us.

'I wish you could see some of these little fellows. It is, I suppose, natural that an old bachelor should have pleasure in young things about him, ready-made substitutes for children of his own. I do like them. With English children, save and except Pena, I never was at my ease, partly I think from a worse than foolish self-consciousness about so ugly a fellow not being acceptable to children. Anyhow, I don't feel shy with Melanesians; and I do like the little things about me, even the babies come to me away from almost anyone, chiefly, perhaps, because they are acquainted at a very early age with a corner of my room where dwells a tin of biscuits.

'To this day I shut up and draw into my shell when any white specimen of humanity looms in sight. How seldom do one's natural tastes coincide with one's work. And I may be deceiving myself all along. It is true that I have a very small acquaintance with men; not so very small an acquaintance with men passed from this world who live in their books; and some living authors I read—our English Commentators are almost all alive.

'I think that I read too exclusively one class of books. I am not drawn out of this particular kind of reading, which is alone really pleasant and delightful to me, by meeting with persons who discuss other matters. So I read divinity almost if not quite exclusively. I make dutiful efforts to read a bit of history or poetry, but it won't do. My relaxation is in reading some old favourite, Jackson, Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, &c. Not that I know much about them, for my real studying time is occupied in translating and teaching. And so I read these books, and others some German, occasionally (but seldom) French: Reuss, for example, and Guizot. And on the whole I read a fair amount of Hebrew; though even now it is only the narrative books that I read, so to say, rapidly and with ease.

'I wish some of our good Hebrew scholars were sound Poly- and Melanesian scholars also. I believe it to be quite true that the mode of thought of a South Sea islander resembles very closely that of a Semitic man. And their state of mental knowledge or ignorance, too. It is certainly a mistake to make the Hebrew language do the work of one of our elaborated European languages, the products of thoughts and education and literary knowledge which the Hebrew knew nothing of. A Hebrew grammar constructed on the principle of a Greek or a Latin grammar is simply a huge anachronism.

'How did the people of the time of Moses, or David, or Jeremiah think? is the first question. How did they express their thoughts? is the second. The grammar is but the mode adapted in speech for notifying and communicating thoughts. That the Jew did not think, consequently did not speak, like a European is self-evident. Where are we to find people, children in thought, keenly alive to the outer world, impressible, emotional, but devoid of the power of abstract thought, to whom long involved processes of thought and long involved sentences of speech are unknown? Consequently, the contrivances for stringing together dependent clauses don't exist. Then some wiseacre of an 18th or 19th century German writes a grammar on the assumption that a paulo-post-futurum is necessarily to be provided for the unfortunate Israelite who thought and talked child's language. Now, we Melanesians habitually think and speak such languages. I assure you the Hebrew narrative viewed from the Melanesian point of thought is wonderfully graphic and lifelike. The English version is dull and lifeless in comparison. No modern Hebrew scholar agrees with any other as to the mode of construing Hebrew. Anyone makes anything out of those unfortunately misused tenses. Delitzsch, Ewald, Gesenius, Perowne, Thrupp, Kay too, give no rule by which the scholar is to know from the grammar whether the time is past, present, or future, i.e., whether such and such a verse is a narrative of a past fact or the prophecy of a future one. It is much a matter of exegesis; but exegesis not based on grammar is worth very little.

'Really the time is not inherent in the tense at all. But that is a strong assertion, which I think I could prove, give me time and a power of writing clearly. Sir William Martin is trying to prove it.

'All languages of the South Seas are constructed on the same principle. We say, "When I get there, it will be right." But all South Sea Islanders, "I am there, and it is right." The time is given by something in the context which indicates that the speaker's mind is in past, present, or future time. "In the beginning God made" rightly, so, but not because the tense gives the past sense, for the same tense very often can't have anything to do with a past sense, but in the beginning indicates a past time.

'The doctrine of the Vaw conversive is simply a figment of so-called grammarians; language is not an artificial product, but a natural mode of expressing ideas.

'And if they assume that Hebrew has a perfect and imperfect, or past and future (for the grammars use all kinds of names), why on earth should people who have, on their showing, a past tense, use a clumsy contrivance of turning a future tense into a past, and vice versa?

'If people had remembered that language is not a trick invented and contrived by scholars at their desks, but a natural gift, simple at first, and elaborated by degrees, they could not have made such a mess.

'The truth is, I think, that such a contrivance was devised to make Hebrew do what European scholars decided it must do, these very men being ignorant of languages in a simple uncivilised form.

'But, my dear Uncle, what a prose! Only, as I think a good deal about it, you will excuse it, I know.

'Well, it is time for the weddings! The Chapel looks so pretty, and (you can't believe it) so do the girls, Emma, Eliza, and Minnie, to be married to Edwin, Mulewasawasa, Thomas. The native name is a baptismal one, nevertheless, and a good fellow he is, my head nurse in my illness.

'I can't write about politics. Then comes the astounding news of this fearful war. What am I to say to my Melanesians about it? Do these nations believe in the Gospel of peace and goodwill? Is the Sermon on the Mount a reality or not? Is such conduct a repudiation of Christianity or not? Are nations less responsible than individuals? What possible justification is there for this war? It is fearful, fearful on every ground. Oh, this mighty belauded nineteenth-century civilisation!

'Yet society has improved in some ways. Even war is not without its accompaniment of religion. And it brings out kindly sympathy and stimulates works of charity. But what a fearful responsibility lies upon the cause of the war. It is hard to acquit Louis Napoleon of being really the cause.

'There would be great pleasure in seeing all the younger ones, not equal of course to that of seeing you all; but as I get older in my ways and habits, I think that my mind goes back more to the young ones. True, I have a large family about me, 145 Melanesians here now. Yet there is the want of community of thought on some subjects, and the difficulty of perfectly easy communication with them. No Melanesian tongue is like English to me.

'I wrote a first sheet, but filled it up with mere stupid thoughts about questions of the day, not worth sending. And this long letter, badly written, too, will weary your eyes.

'I must end. My kindest love to Aunt, Mary, and all. Always, my dearest Uncle,

'Your loving and grateful Nephew,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Two letters of December 12 follow; the first to Bishop Abraham.

Mrs. Palmer's picture of the brides, at the last of the weddings the Bishop so enjoyed, may be acceptable. It went to Mrs. Abraham by the same opportunity:—

'Three were married a short time before Christmas; they, with five others, were baptized on Advent Sunday. They had been here about thirteen months, and had got on very well during that time, improved in every way. I think some of them are loveable girls, and it is pleasant to see them so happy and at home here.

'They were a queer-looking set when they first came, or I suppose I thought them so.

'I got some of the older girls to give them a good wash all over in warm water, and then gave them the new clothes. They looked at me in such a curious way. They had heard of me, "Palmer's wife," from the others, but had not seen an Englishwoman before. A few days after they came, I ran into their room with my hair down, and they exclaimed with wonder "We ura ras" ("very good"), almost shouting, and then I told them to feel it, and some kissed it with gentle reverence, as though it were something very extraordinary.

'They are very kind and obliging in doing anything I want. They have to be looked after a good bit, but are very obedient. I did not imagine they would give so little trouble. They are great chatterboxes, and very noisy, but all in an innocent way. They seldom quarrel among themselves. I don't think their feelings are so strong as those of the Maoris, either of love or hate.

'I wish you could have been present at the baptism. They looked so solemn, and spoke out very distinctly. They wore white calico jackets, and the Font was prettily decorated. The whole service was impressive, and not less so our good Bishop's voice and manner. They looked very nice, and it was amusing to see how they took it. Only one could I get to look in the glass; and she said the flowers were too large: the other two only submitted to being beautified.'

I return to the Bishop's correspondence:—

'Norfolk Island: Fourth Sunday in Advent, 1870.

'My dearest Joan,—I am choosing—a strange moment to write in. It is 8.30 A.M., and in an hour I am going to the New Church, built by the Pitcairners, to ordain Mr. C. Bice, Priest. I was up as usual early this morning, and I am not well, and feeling queer, and having already read and had Morning Chapel Service, I take now this means of quieting myself. You see it is nearly three miles to the "town;" the service will be nearly three hours; I don't quite know how I shall get through it. I thought of having the service here; but our little Chapel won't hold even our Melanesian party (80 out of 145) who attend public prayers, and of course the islanders want to see, and it is good for them to see an ordination.

'This is my first expedition to the town since I came from the islands, I shall have a horse in case I am very tired, but I would rather walk all the way if I can.

'Just now I am headachy, and seedy too; but I think it is all coming right again. I hope to have a bright happy Christmas.

'After this day's Ordination we shall number one Bishop, six Priests, and one Deacon. There are three or four Melanesians who ought soon to be ordained; and if it is possible for me to spend two or three months this next winter at Mota, I must read with George, and perhaps ordain him Priest. It troubles me much that during all these summer months there can be no administration of the Holy Communion, though there are six communicants, besides George, now living for good at Mota. There will be four or five next year taking up their abode at the neighbouring island of Aroa.

'Dear Joan! At such times as these, when one is engaged in a specially solemn work, there is much heart-searching, and I can't tell you how my conscience accuses me of such systematic selfishness during many long years. I do see it now, though only in part. I mean, I see how I was all along making self the centre, and neglecting all kinds of duties, social and others, in consequence.

'I think that self-consciousness, a terrible malady, is one's misfortune as well as one's fault. But the want of any earnest effort at correcting a fault is worse perhaps than the fault itself. And I feel such great, such very great need for amendment here. This great fault brings its punishment in part even now. I mean, there is a want of brightness, cheerfulness, elasticity of mind about the conscious man or woman. He is prone to have gloomy, narrow, sullen thoughts, to brood over fancied troubles and difficulties; because, making everything refer to and depend on self, he naturally can get none of that comfort which they enjoy whose minds naturally turn upwards for help and light.