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

'"Southern Cross" Mission Schooner,

'In the Santa Cruz Group, S.W. Pacific: September 19.

'My dear Principal,—You won't remember my name, and it is not likely that you can know anything about me, but I must write you a line and thank you for writing your two books (for I have but two) on "Studies on Poetry and Philosophy," and "Religion and Culture."

'The "Moral Dynamic" and the latter book are indeed the very books I have longed to see; books that one can put with confidence and satisfaction into the hands of men, young and old, in these stirring and dangerous times.

'Then it did me good to be recalled to old scenes and to dream of old faces.

'I was almost a freshman when you came up to keep your M.A. term; and as I knew some of the men you knew, you kindly, as I well remember, gave me the benefit of it. As John Coleridge's cousin and the acquaintance of John Keate, Cumin, Palmer, and dear James Eiddell, I came to know men whom otherwise I could not have known, and of these how many there still are that I have thought of and cared for ever since!

'You must have thought of Riddell, dear James Riddell, when you wrote the words in p. 76 of your book on "Religion and Culture": "We have known such." Yes, there was indeed about him a beauty of character that is very very rare. Sellar is in the north somewhere, I think I have seen Essays by him on Lucretius.

'I think that he is Professor at some University. I am ashamed to know so little about him. Should you see him, pray remember me most kindly to him. As year after year passes on, it is very pleasant to think there are men on the other side of the world that I can with a certainty count upon as friends.

'I find it difficult to read much of what is worth reading nowadays, and I have little taste for magazines, &c., I confess.

'But I know enough of what is working in men's minds in Europe to be heartily thankful for such thoughtful wholesome teaching as yours.

'Indeed, you are doing a good work, and I pray God it may be abundantly blessed.

'I remain, my dear Friend,

'Very sincerely yours,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

This is the last letter apparently finished and signed!

To the Bishop of Lichfield the long journal-letter says:—

'Tenakulu (the volcano) was fine last night, but not so fine as on that night we saw it together. But it was very solemn to look at it, and think how puny all man's works are in comparison with this little volcano. What is all the bombardment of Paris to those masses of fire and hundreds of tons of rock cast out into the sea? "If He do but touch the hills, they shall smoke."

'And now what will the next few days bring forth? It may be God's will that the opening for the Gospel may be given to us now. Sometimes I feel as if I were almost too importunate in my longings for some beginning here; and I try not to be impatient, and to wait His good time, knowing that it will come when it is the fulness of time. Then, again, I am tempted to think, "If not soon, if not now, the trading vessels will make it almost impossible, as men think, to obtain any opening here." But I am on the whole hopeful, though sometimes faint-hearted.

'To day's First Lesson has a good verse: Haggai, ii. 4;l and there is Psalm xci. also.'

Then follows a good deal about further plans, and need of men; ending with the decision that the present 'Southern Cross' ought to be sold, and that a new one could be built at Auckland for £2,000, which the Bishop thought he could obtain in New Zealand and Australia.

'Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work: for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts.'

A much smaller additional vessel would be useful; and he merrily says:—

'You don't know an amiable millionaire, with a nice quick yacht from 70 to 120 tons, to be given away, and sent out to Auckland free of expense, I suppose.

'We must give up all idea of our Chapel for a time, but we can do without it. And a vessel is necessary.'

The last of this letter is on Delitzsch and Biblical criticism, but too much mixed up with other persons' private affairs for quotation.

Reading Hebrew with Mr. Atkin, or studying Isaiah alone, had been the special recreation throughout the voyage.

His scholar Edward Wogale has given a touch of that last morning of the 20th:—

'And as we were going to that island where he died, but were still in the open sea, he schooled us continually upon Luke ii. iii. up to vi., but he left off with us with his death. And he preached to us continually at Prayers in the morning, every day, and every evening on the Acts of the Apostles, and he spoke as far as to the seventh chapter, and then we reached that island. And he had spoken admirably and very strongly indeed to us, about the death of Stephen, and then he went up ashore on that island Nukapu.'

That island Nukapu lay with the blue waves breaking over the circling reef, the white line of coral sand, the trees coming down to it; and in the glowing sun of September 20, the equatorial midsummer eve, four canoes were seen hovering about the reef, as the 'Southern Cross' tried to make for the islet.

Mr. Brooke says that this lingering had seemed to intensify the Bishop's prayer and anxiety for these poor people; and, thinking that the unusual movements of the vessel puzzled the people in the canoes, and that they might be afraid to approach, he desired that at 11.30 A.M. the boat should be lowered, and entered it with Mr. Atkin, Stephen Taroniara, James Minipa, and John Nonono. He sat in the stern sheets, and called back to Mr. Brooke: 'Tell the captain I may have to go ashore.' Then he waited to collect more things as presents to take on shore, and pulled towards the canoes; But they did not come to meet the boat, and seemed undecided whether to pull away or not. The people recognized the Bishop; and when he offered to go on shore they assented, and the boat went on to a part of the reef about two miles from the island, and there met two more canoes, making six in all. The natives were very anxious that they should haul the boat up on the reef, the tide being too low for her to cross it, but, when this was not consented to, two men proposed to take the Bishop into their boat.

It will be remembered that he had always found the entering one of their canoes a sure way of disarming suspicion, and he at once complied. Mr. Atkin afterwards said he thought he caught the word 'Tabu,' as if in warning, and saw a basket with yams and other fruits presented; and those acquainted with the customs of the Polynesians—the race to which these islanders belonged—say that this is sometimes done that an intended victim may unconsciously touch something tabu, and thus may become a lawful subject for a blow, and someone may have tried to warn him.

There was a delay of about twenty minutes; and then two canoes went with the one containing the Bishop, the two chiefs, Moto and Taula, who had before been so friendly to him, being in them. The tide was so low that it was necessary to wade over the reef, and drag the canoes across to the deeper lagoon within. The boat's crew could not follow; but they could see the Bishop land on the beach, and there lost sight of him.

The boat had been about half-an-hour drifting about in company with the canoes, and there had been some attempt at talk, when suddenly, at about ten yards off, without any warning, a man stood up in one of them, and calling out, 'Have you anything like this?' shot off one of the yard-long arrows, and his companions in the other two canoes began shooting as quickly as possible, calling out, as they aimed, 'This for New Zealand man! This for Bauro man! This for Mota man!' The boat was pulled back rapidly, and was soon out of range, but not before three out of the four had been struck; James only escaped by throwing himself back on the seat, while an arrow had nailed John's cap to his head, Mr. Atkin had one in his left shoulder, and poor Stephen lay in the bottom of the boat, 'trussed,' as Mr. Brooke described it, with six arrows in the chest and shoulders.

It was about two hours since they had left the ship when they reached it again: and Mr. Atkin said, 'We are all hurt? as they were helped on board; but no sooner had the arrow-head, formed of human bone, and acutely sharp, been extracted, than he insisted on going back to find his Bishop. He alone knew the way by which the reef could be crossed in the now rising tide, so that his presence was necessary. Meantime Mr. Brooke extracted as best he might the arrows from poor Stephen.

'We two Bisope,' said the poor fellow, meaning that he shared the same fate as the Bishop.

As Joseph Wate, a lad of fifteen, Mr. Atkin's Malanta godson and pupil, wrote afterwards, 'Joe said to me and Sapi, "We are going to look for the Bishop, are you two afraid?"

'"No, why should I be afraid?"

'"Very well, you two go and get food for yourselves, and bring a beaker full of water for us all, for we shall have to lie on our oars a long time to-day."'

The others who pulled the boat were Charles Sapinamba, a sailor, and Mr. Bongarde, the mate, who carried a pistol, for the first time in the records of the 'Southern Cross.'

They had long to wait till the tide was high enough to carry them across the reef, and they could see people on shore, at whom they gazed anxiously with a glass.

About half-past four it became possible to cross the reef, and then two canoes rowed towards them: one cast off the other and went back; the other, with a heap in the middle, drifted towards them, and they rowed towards it.

'But' (says Wate), 'when we came near we two were afraid, and I said to Joe, "If there is a man inside to attack us, when he rises up, we shall see him."'

Then the mate took up his pistol, but the sailor said, 'Those are the Bishop's shoes.'

As they came up with it, and lifted the bundle wrapped in matting into the boat, a shout or yell arose from the shore. Wate says four canoes put off in pursuit; but the others think their only object was to secure the now empty canoe as it drifted away. The boat came alongside, and two words passed, 'The body!' Then it was lifted up, and laid across the skylight, rolled in the native mat, which was secured at the head and feet. The placid smile was still on the face; there was a palm leaf fastened over the breast, and when the mat was opened there were five wounds, no more.

The strange mysterious beauty, as it may be called, of these circumstances almost makes one feel as if this were the legend of a martyr of the Primitive Church; but the fact is literally true, and can be interpreted, though probably no account will ever be obtained from the actors in the scene.

The wounds were, one evidently given with a club, which had shattered the right side of the skull at the back, and probably was the first, and had destroyed life instantly, and almost painlessly; another stroke of some sharp weapon had cloven the top of the head; the body was also pierced in one place; and there were two arrow wounds in the legs, but apparently not shot at the living man, but stuck in after his fall, and after he had been stripped, for the clothing was gone, all but the boots and socks. In the front of the cocoa-nut palm, there were five knots made in the long leaflets. All this is an almost certain indication that his death was the vengeance for five of the natives. 'Blood for blood' is a sacred law, almost of nature, wherever Christianity has not prevailed, and a whole tribe is held responsible for the crime of one. Five men in Fiji are known to have been stolen from Nukapu; and probably their families believed them to have been killed, and believed themselves to be performing a sacred duty when they dipped their weapons in the blood of the Bisope, whom they did not know well enough to understand that he was their protector. Nay, it is likely that there had been some such discussion as had saved him before at Mai from suffering for Petere's death; and, indeed, one party seem to have wished to keep him from landing, and to have thus solemnly and reverently treated his body.

Even when the tidings came in the brief uncircumstantial telegram, there were none of those who loved and revered him who did not feel that such was the death he always looked for, and that he had willingly given his life. There was peace in the thought even while hearts trembled with dread of hearing of accompanying horrors; and when the full story arrived, showing how far more painless his death had been than had he lived on to suffer from his broken health, and how wonderfully the unconscious heathen had marked him with emblems so sacred in our eyes, there was thankfulness and joy even to the bereaved at home.

The sweet calm smile preached peace to the mourners who had lost his guiding spirit, but they could not look on it long. The next morning, St. Matthew's Day, the body of John Coleridge Patteson was committed to the waters of the Pacific, his 'son after the faith,' Joseph Atkin, reading the Burial Service.

Mr. Atkin afterwards wrote to his mother. He had written to his father the day before; but the substance of his letter has been given in the narrative:—

'September 21, 1871.