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'At 1 A.M. (Monday) I moved from his side to my couch, only three yards off. Of course we were all (I need not say) in the after cabin. He said faintly, "Kiss me. I am very glad that I was doing my duty. Tell my father that I was in the path of duty, and he will be so glad. Poor Santa Cruz people! "Ah! my dear boy, you will do more for their conversion by your death than ever we shall by our lives. And as I lay down almost convulsed with sobs, though not audible, he said (so Mr. Tilly afterwards told me), "Poor Bishop!" How full his heart was of love and peace, and thoughts of heaven. "Oh! what love," he said. The last night when I left him for an hour or two at 1 A.M. only to lie down in my clothes by his side, he said faintly (his body being then rigid as a bar of iron), "Kiss me, Bishop." At 4 A.M. he started as if from a trance; he had been wandering a good deal, but all his words even then were of things pure and holy. His eyes met mine, and I saw the consciousness gradually coming back into them. "They never stop singing there, sir, do they?"—for his thoughts were with the angels in heaven. Then, after a short time, the last terrible struggle, and then he fell asleep. And remember, all this in the midst of that most agonizing, it may be, of all forms of death. At 4 A.M. he was hardly conscious, not fully conscious: there were same fearful spasms: we fanned him and bathed his head and occasionally got a drop or two of weak brandy or wine and water down. Then came the last struggle. Oh! how I thanked God when his head at length fell back, or rather his whole body, for it was without joint, on my arm: long drawn sighs with still sadder contraction of feature succeeded, and while I said the Commendatory Prayer, he passed away.
'The same day we anchored in Port Patteson, and buried him in a quiet spot near the place where the Primate and I first landed years ago. It seems a consecration of the place that the body of that dear child should be resting there.
'Some six years ago, when Mrs. Selwyn stopped at Norfolk Island she singled him out as the boy of special promise. For two or three years he had been with me, and my affection flowed out naturally to him. God had tried him by the two sicknesses at Kohimarama and at Mota, and by his whole family returning to Pitcairn. I saw that he had left all for this work. He had become most useful, and oh! how we shall miss him!
'But about five days after this (August 22) Edwin's jaws began to stiffen. For nine or ten days there was suspense, so hard to bear. Some symptoms were not so bad, it did not assume so acute a form. I thought he ought to be carried through it. He was older, about twenty-one, six feet high, a strong handsome young man, the pride of Norfolk Island, the destined helper and successor (had God so willed) of his father, the present Clergyman. The same faith, the same patience, the same endurance of suffering.
'On Friday, September 2, I administered the Holy Communion to him and Pearce. He could scarce swallow the tiniest crumb. He was often delirious, yet not one word but spoke of things holy and pure, almost continually in prayer. He was in the place where Fisher had died, the best part of the cabin for an invalid. Sunday came: he could take no nourishment, stomach and back in much pain: a succession of violent spasms at about 10.30 A.M., but his body never became quite rigid. The death struggle at 1 A.M. September 5, was very terrible. Three of us could scarcely hold him. Then he sank back on my arm, and his spirit passed away as I commended his soul to God. Then all motionless. After some minutes, I said the first prayer in the Burial Service, then performed the last offices, then had a solemn talk with Pearce, and knelt down, I know not how long.
'We buried him at sea. All this time we were making very slow progress; indeed the voyage has been very remarkable in all respects. Pearce seems to be doing very well, so that I am very hopeful about him. The temperature now is only 72 degrees, and I imagine that his constitution is less liable to that particular disease. Yet punctured wounds are always dangerous on this account.
'Patience and trust in God, the same belief in His goodness and love, that He orders all things for our good, that this is but a proof of His merciful dealing with us: such comforts God has graciously not withheld. I never felt so utterly broken down, when I thought, and think, of the earthly side of it all; never perhaps so much realised the comfort and power of His Presence, when I have had grace to dwell upon the heavenly and abiding side of it. I do with my better part heartily and humbly thank Him, that He has so early taken these dear ones by a straight and short path to their everlasting home. I think of them with blessed saints, our own dear ones, in Paradise, and in the midst of my tears I bless and praise God.
'But, dear Fan, Fisher most of all supplied to me the absence of earthly relations and friends. He was my boy: I loved him as I think I never loved any one else. I don't mean more than you all, but in a different way: not as one loves another of equal age, but as a parent loves a child.
'I can hardly think of my little room at Kohimarama without him. I long for the sight of his dear face, the sound of his voice. It was my delight to teach him, and he was clever and so thoughtful and industrious. I know it is good that my affections should be weaned from all things earthly. I try to be thankful, I think I am thankful really; time too will do much, God's grace much more. I only wonder how I have borne it all. "In the multitude of the sorrows that I had in my heart, Thy comforts have refreshed my soul." Mr. Tilly has been and is full of sympathy, and is indeed a great aid. He too has a heavy loss in these two dear ones. And now I must land at Norfolk Island in the face of the population crowding the little pier. Mr. Nobbs will be there, and the brothers and sisters of Edwin, and the uncles and aunts of Fisher.
'Yet God will comfort them; they have been called to the high privilege of being counted worthy to suffer for their Savior's sake. However much I may reproach myself with want of caution and of prayer for guidance (and this is a bitter thought), they were in the simple discharge of their duty. Their intention and wish were to aid in bringing to those poor people the Gospel of Christ. It has pleased God that in the execution of this great purpose they should have met with their deaths. Surely there is matter for comfort here!
'I can't write all this over again.... I have written at some length to Jem also; put the two letters together, and you will be able to realise it somewhat.
'This is a joint letter to you and Joan. It was begun on your birthday, and it has been written with a heavy, dull weight of sorrow on my heart, yet not unrelieved by the blessed consciousness of being drawn, as I humbly trust, nearer to our most merciful Father in heaven, if only by the very impossibility of finding help elsewhere. It has not been a time without its own peculiar happiness. How much of the Bible seemed endued with new powers of comfort.... How true it is, that they who seek, find. "I sought the Lord, and He heard me." The closing chapters of the Gospels, 2 Corinthians, and how many other parts of the New Testament were blessings indeed! Jeremy Taylor's "Life of Christ," and "Holy Living and Dying," Thomas a Kempis, most of all of course the Prayer-book, and such solemn holy memories of our dear parents and uncles, such blessed hopes of reunion, death brought so near, the longing (if only not unprepared) for the life to come: I could not be unhappy. Yet I could not sustain such a frame of mind long; and then when I sank to the level of earthly thoughts, then came the weary heartache, and the daily routine of work was so distasteful, and I felt sorely tempted to indulge the "luxury of grief." But, thanks be to God, it is not altogether an unhealthy sorrow, and I can rest in the full assurance that all this is working out God's purposes of love and mercy to us all—Melanesians, Pitcairners, and all; and that I needed the discipline I know full well....
'Your loving Brother,
'J. C. P.'
It was not possible to touch at Norfolk Island, each attempt was baffled by the winds; and on September 16 the 'Southern Cross' anchored at Kohimarama, and a sad little note was sent up to the Primate with the announcement of the deaths and losses.
In spite of the comfort which, as this note said, Patteson felt 'in the innocence of their lives, and the constancy of their faith' unto the death, the fate of these two youths, coming at the close of a year of unusual trial, which, as he had already said, had diminished his elasticity, had a lasting effect. It seemed to take away his youthful buoyancy, and marked lines of care on his face that never were effaced. The first letter after his return begins by showing how full his heart was of these his children:—
'Kohimarama: Sunday, September 18, 1864.
'My dearest Fan,—I must try to write without again making my whole letter full of dear Edwin and Fisher. That my heart is full of them you can well believe.
'These last five weeks have taught me that my reading of the Bible was perhaps more intellectual and perhaps more theological than devotional, to a dangerous extent probably; anyhow I craved for it as a revelation not only of truth, but of comfort and support in heavy sorrow. It may be that when the sorrow does not press so heavily, the Bible cannot speak so wonderfully in that particular way of which I am writing, and it is right to read it theologically also.
'But yet it should always be read with a view to some practical result; and so often there is not a special, though many general points which may make our reading at once practical. Then comes the real trial, and then comes the wondrous power of God's Word to help and strengthen.
'Now it helps me to know where I am, to learn how others manage to see where they are.
'All that you say about self-consciousness, &c., can't I understand it! Ah! when I saw the guileless pure spirit of those two dear fellows ever brightening more and more for now two years. I had respected them as much as I loved them. I used to think, "Yes, we must become such as they; we too must seek and pray for the mind of a little child."
'And surely the contemplation of God is the best cure. How admirable Jeremy Taylor is on those points! Oh that he had not overlaid it all with such superabundant ornamentation of style and rhetoric. But it is the manner of the age. Many persons I suppose get over it, perhaps like it; but I long for the same thoughts, the same tenderness and truthfulness, and faithful searching words with a clear, simple, not unimaginative diction. Yet his book is a great heritage.
'Newman has a sermon on Contemplation or Meditation, I forget which; and my copy is on board. But I do hope that by praying for humility, with contemplation of God's majesty and love and our Savior's humility and meekness, some improvement may be mercifully vouchsafed to me.
'To dwell on His humiliation, His patience, that He should seek for heavenly aids, accept the ministration of an angel strengthening Him, how full of mystery and awe! and yet written for us! And yet we are proud and self-justified and vainglorious!
'The Archbishop of York, in "Aids to Faith," on the Death of Christ, has some most solemn and deep remarks on the Lord's Agony. I don't know that it could ever be quite consistent with reverence to speak on what is there suggested. Yet if I could hear Mr. Keble and Dr. Pusey (say) prayerfully talking together on that great mystery, I should feel that it might be very profitable. But he must be a very humble man who should dare to speak on it. Yet read it, Fan, it cannot harm you; it is very awful, it is fully meant that He was sinless, without spot, undefiled through all. It makes the mystery of sin, and of what it cost to redeem our souls, more awful than ever.
'And then, surely to the contemplation of God and the necessary contrast of our own weakness and misery, we add the thought of our approaching death, we anticipate the hours, the days, it may be the weeks and months, even the years of weariness, pain, sleeplessness, thirst, distaste for food, murmuring thoughts, evil spirits haunting us, impatient longings after rest for which we are not yet prepared, the thousand trials, discomforts, sadnesses of sickness—yes, it must come in some shape; and is it to come as a friend or an enemy to snatch us from what we love and enjoy, or to open the gates of Paradise?
'I humbly thank God that, while I dare not be sure that I am not mistaken, and suppose that if ready to go I should be taken, the thought of death at a distance is the thought of rest and peace, of more blessed communion with God's saints, holy angels and the Lord. Yet I dare not feel that if death was close at hand, it might not be far otherwise. How often the "Christian Year," and all true divinity helps up here! Why indulge in such speculations? Seek to prepare for death by dying daily. Oh! that blessed text: Be not distracted, worry not yourselves about the morrow, for the morrow shall, &c. How it does carry one through the day! Bear everything as sent from God for your good, by way of chastisement or of proving you. Pusey's sermon on Patience, Newman's on a Particular Providence, guarding so wisely against abuse as against neglect of the doctrine. How much to comfort and guide one! and then, most of all, the continual use of the Prayer-book. Do you often use the Prayer at the end of the Evening Service for Charles the Martyr? Leave out from "great deep...teach us to number"— and substitute "pride" for "splendour." Leave out "according to... blessed martyr." In the Primate's case, it is a prayer full of meaning, and it may have a meaning for us all.
'Once more, the love of approbation is right and good, but then it must be the love of the approbation of God and of good men. Here, as everywhere, we abuse His gift; and it is a false teaching which bids us suppress the human instinct which God implanted in us, but a true leading, which bids us direct and use it to its appointed and legitimate use. On this general subject, read if you have not read them, and you can't read them too often, Butler's Sermons; you know, the great Butler. I think you will easily get an analysis of them, such as Mill's "Analysis of Pearson on the Creed," which will help you, if you want it. Analyse them for yourself, if you like, and send me out your analysis to look at. There is any amount of fundamental teaching there and the imprimatur of thousands of good men to assure us of it.
'I think, as I have written to Joan, that if I were with you, after the first few days my chiefest delight would be in reading and talking over our reading of good books. Edwin and Fisher were beginning to understand thoughtful books; and how I did delight in reading with them, interspersing a little Pitcairn remark here and there! Ah! never more! never more! But they don't want books now. All is clear now: they live where there is no night, in the Glory of God and of the Lamb, resting in Paradise, anticipating the full consummation of the Life of the Resurrection. Thanks be to God, and it may not be long—but I must not indulge such thoughts.
'I feel better, but at times this sad affliction weighs me down much, and business of all kinds seems almost to multiply. Yet there are many many comforts, and kindest sympathy.
'Your loving Brother,
'J. C. P.'
Just at this time heavy sorrow fell upon Bishop Hobhouse of Nelson; and the little council of friends at Auckland decided that Bishop Patteson should go at once to do his best to assist and comfort him, and bring him back to Auckland. There was a quiet time of wholesome rest at Nelson; and the effects appeared in numerous letters, and in the thinking out of many matters on paper to his sisters.
'Oh! how I think with such ever-increasing love of dear Fisher and Edwin! How I praised God for them on All Saints' Day. But I don't expect to recover spring and elasticity yet awhile. I don't think I shall ever feel so young again. Really it is curious that the number of white hairs is notably increased in these few weeks (though it is silly to talk about it. Don't mention it!), and I feel very tired and indolent. No wonder I seem to "go softly." But I am unusually happy down in the depths, only the surface troubled. I hope that it is not fancy only that makes the shortness and uncertainty of this life a ground of comfort and joy. Perhaps it is, indeed I think it is, very much a mere cowardly indolent shirking of work.
'Did I say I thought I might some day write a book? It will be some day indeed. It seems funny enough to think of such a thing. The fact is, it is much easier to me to speak than to write. I think I could learn with a good deal of leisure and trouble to write intelligibly, but not without it. I am so diffusive and wanting in close condensed habits of thought. How often I go off in a multitude of words, and really say nothing worthy to be remembered.
'How I should enjoy, indeed, a day or two at Hursley with Mr. and Mrs. Keble. A line from him now and then, if he can find time, would be a great delight to me; but I know that he thinks and prays, and that is indeed a great happiness.
'Oh, the blessing of such thoughts as All Saints' Day brings!—and now more dear than ever, every day brings!—"Patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and every spirit made perfect in the faith of Christ," as an old Liturgy says. And the Collects in the Burial Service! How full, how simple and soothing, how full of calm, holy, tender, blessed hopes and anticipations!
'So you think the large Adelaide photograph very sad. I really don't remember it; I fancy I thought it a very fair likeness. But you know that I have a heavy lumpy dull look, except when talking—indeed, then too for aught I know—and this may be mistaken for a sad look when it is only a dull stupid one. You can't get a nice picture out of an ugly face, so it's no use trying, but you are not looking for that kind of thing. You want to see how far the face is any index of the character and life and work.
I don't think it odd that I should look careworn. I have enough to make me so! And yet if I were with you now, brightened up by being with you, you would say, "How well he looks!" And you would think I had any amount of work in me, as you saw me riding or walking or holding services. And then I had to a very considerable extent got over that silly shyness, which was a great trial and drawback to me of old, and sadly prevented me from enjoying the society of people (at Oxford especially) which would have done me much good. But without all these bodily defects, I should have been even more vain, and so I can see the blessing and mercy now, though how many times I have indulged murmuring rebellious thoughts!
'Perhaps I shall live ten or twenty years, and look back and say, "I recollect how in '64 I really almost thought I should not last long." But don't fancy that I am morbidly cherishing such fancies. Only I like you all to know me as I am changing in feeling from time to time. There is quite enough to account for it all.'
A few days later he returned to Auckland, and thence wrote to me a letter on the pros and cons of a move from New Zealand. The sight of ships and the town he had ceased to think of great importance, and older scholars had ceased to care for it, and there was much at that time to recommend Curtis Island to his mind. The want of bread-fruit was the chief disadvantage he then saw in it, but he still looked to keeping up Kohimarama for a good many years to come. I cannot describe how tender and considerate he was of feelings he thought I might possibly have of disappointment that St. Andrew's was not a successful experiment as far as health was concerned, evidently fearing that I had set my hopes on that individual venture, and that my feelings might be hurt if it had to be deserted.
The next letters are a good deal occupied with the troubles incident to the judgment upon 'Essays and Reviews.' He took a view, as has been seen, such as might be expected of the delicate refining metaphysical mind, thinking out points for itself, and weighing the possible value of every word, and differed from those who were in the midst of the contest, and felt some form of resistance and protest needful. He was strongly averse to agitation on the subject, and at the same time grieved to find himself for the first time, to his own knowledge, not accepting the policy of those whom he so much respected; though the only difference in his mind from theirs was as to the manner of the maintenance of the truth, and the immediate danger of error going uncondemned—a point on which his remote life perhaps hardly enabled him to judge.
All these long letters and more, which were either in the same tone, or too domestic to be published, prove the leisure caused by having an unusually small collection of pupils, and happily all in fair health; but with Christmas came a new idea, or rather an old one renewed. Instead of only going to Norfolk Island, on sufferance from the Pitcairn Committee, and by commission from the Bishop of Tasmania, a regular request was made, by Sir John Young, the Governor of Australia, that the Pitcairners might be taken under his supervision, so that, as far as Government was concerned, the opposition was withdrawn which had hindered his original establishment there, though still Curtis Island remained in the ascendency in the schemes of this summer. The ensuing is a reply to Sir John Coleridge's letter, written after hearing of the attack at Santa Cruz:—
'Kohimarama: March 3, 1865.
'My dearest Uncle,—Many many thanks for your letter, so full of comfort and advice. I need not tell you that the last budget of letters revived again most vividly not only the actual scene at Santa Cruz, but all the searchings of heart that followed it. I believe that we are all agreed on the main point. Enough ground has been opened for the present. Codrington was right in saying that the object of late has been to fill up gaps. But some of the most hazardous places to visit lie nearest to the south, e.g. some of the New Hebrides, &c., south of the Banks Islands. My notion is, that I ought to be content even to pass by (alas!) some places where I had some hold when I had reason to feel great distrust of the generally kind intentions of the people (that is a dark sentence, but you know my meaning). In short, there are very few places where I can feel, humanly speaking, secure against this kind of thing. It is always in the power of even one mischievous fellow to do mischief. And if the feeling of the majority might be in my favour, yet there being no way of expressing public opinion, no one cares to take an active part in preventing mischief. It is not worth his while to get into a squabble and risk his own life.
'But I shall be (D.V.) very cautious. I dare say I was becoming presumptuous: one among the many faults that are so discernible. It is, dear Uncle, hard to see a wild heathen party on the beach, and not try to get at them. It seems so sad to leave them. But I know that I ought to be prudent, even for my own sake (for I quite suppose that, humanly speaking, my life is of consequence for a few years more), and I can hardly bear the thought of bringing the boat's crew, dear good volunteers, into danger. Young Atkin, the only son of my neighbour, behaved admirably at Santa Cruz, and is very staunch. But his parents have but him and one daughter, and I am bound to be careful indeed. But don't think me careless, if we get into another scrape. There is scarcely one island where I can fully depend upon immunity from all risk. There was no need to talk so much about it all before.
'As to Curtis Island, I need not say that I have no wish indeed to take Australian work in hand. I made it most clear, as I thought, that the object of a site on Curtis Island was the Melanesian and not the Australian Mission. I offered only to incorporate Australian blacks, if proper specimens could be obtained, into our school, regarding in fact East Australia as another Melanesian island. This would only have involved the learning a language or two, and might have been of some use. I did not make any pledge. But I confess that I think some such plan as this one only feasible one. I don't see that the attempts at mission work are made on the most hopeful plan. But I have written to the Brisbane authorities, urging them to appropriate large reserves for the natives. I tell them that it is useless for them to give me a few acres and think they are doing a mission work, if they civilize the native races off their own lands. In short, I almost despair of doing anything for blacks living on the same land with whites. Even here in New Zealand, the distrust now shown to us all, to our religion even, is the result in very great measure of the insolent, covetous behaviour exhibited by the great majority of the white people to the Maori. Who stops in Australia to think whether the land which he wants for his sheep is the hunting ground of native people or not?
'I confess that while I can't bear to despair and leave these poor souls uncared for, I can't propose any scheme but one, and who will work that? If, indeed, one or two men could be found to go and live with a tribe, moving as they move and really identifying himself with their interests! But where are such men, and where is a tribe not already exasperated by injurious treatment?
'It was the statement for our mode of action which commended itself so much to people in Australia, that they urged me to try and do something. But I answered as I have now written; and when at one meeting in Sydney I was asked whether I would take Australians into my school, I said, "Yes, if I can get the genuine wild man, uncontaminated by contact with the white man." I can't, in justice to our Melanesian scholars, take the poor wretched black whose intercourse with white men has rendered him a far more hopeless subject to deal with than the downright ferocious yet not ungenerous savage. "If," was the answer, "you can get them, I will pay for them."
'Indeed, dear Uncle, I don't want more but less work on my hands: yet as I look around, I see (as far as I can judge) so great a want of that prudence and knowledge and calm foresight that the Primate has shown so remarkably, that I declare I do think his plan is almost the only reasonable one for dealing with black races. Alas! you can't put hearty love for strangers into men's hearts by paying them salaries.
'I think that in two or three years I may, if I live, have some preparatory branch school at Curtis Island. If it should clearly succeed, then I think in time the migration from New Zealand might take place. I do not think two schools in two different countries would answer. We want the old scholars to help us in working the school; we can't do without them, and the old scholars can't be trained without the younger ones, the material on whom their teaching, and training faculties must be exercised.
'You all know how deeply I feel about dear Mr. Keble!
'Thank God, we have as yet no dysentery. I baptized last week a lad dying of consumption. There are many blessings, as all clergymen know, in having death scenes so constantly about one; and the having to do everything for these dear fellows makes one love them so....
'Your affectionate and dutiful Nephew,
'J. C. P.'
The above sentence refers to the paralytic attack Mr. Keble had on November 30, 1864. Nevertheless, almost at that very time, he was writing thus:—
'Penzance: March 7, 1865.
'My dear and more than dear Bishop,—It would be vain for me to write to you, if I pretended to do more than just express my heart's wish that I could say something of the doings and sufferings which now for years past we of course associate with your name, so as to encourage and support you in your present manifold distress. But (especially for reasons known only to myself) I must leave that altogether to Him who helps His own to do and suffer. One thing only I would say, that to us at our great distance it looks as if the sanguis martyrum were being to you as the semen Ecclesiae, and you know how such things were hailed in the time of St. Cyprian. May it please God before long to give you some visible earnest of this sure blessing! but I suppose that if it tarry, it may be the greater when it comes. Our troubles as a Church, though of a different kind, are not small. The great point with me is, lest, if in our anxiety to keep things together, we should be sinfully conniving at what is done against the faith, and so bringing a judgment upon ourselves. I do not for a moment think that by anything which has yet been done or permitted our being as a Church is compromised (though things look alarmingly as if it might be before long), but I fear that her well-being is more and more being damaged by our entire and conscious surrender of the disciplinary part of our trust, and that if we are apathetic in such things we may forfeit our charter. There is no doubt, I fear, that personal unbelief is spreading; but I trust that a deeper faith is spreading also; it is (at Oxford, e.g.) Pusey and Moberly, &c., against the Rationalists and other tempters. As to the question of the Bible being (not only containing) the Word, I had no scruples in signing that Declaration. One thought which helped me was, the use made in the New Testament of the Old, which is such as to show that we are not competent judges as to what passages convey deep moral or religious meanings or no. Another, that in every instance where one had the means of ascertaining, so far as I have known, the Bible difficulty has come right: therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that so it would be in all the rest, if we knew the right reading and the right interpretation of the words. And as to what are called the Divine and Human Elements, I have seemed to help myself with the thought that the Divine adoption (if so be) of the human words warrants their truthfulness, as a man's signature makes a letter his own; but whether this is relevant, I doubt. My wife and I are both on the sick list, and I must now only add that we never forget you.
'Ever yours,
'J. K.
Nothing has hitherto been said of this term at St. Andrew's: so here is an extract from a letter to one of the cousinhood, who had proposed a plan which has since been carried out extensively and with good effect:—
'The difficulty about scholars appropriated to certain places or parishes is this: I cannot be sure of the same persons remaining with me. Some sickness in an island, some panic, some death of a relative, some war, or some inability on my part from bad weather or accident to visit an island, may at any time lose me a scholar. Perhaps he may be the very one that has been appropriated to some one, and what am I to say then?
'This year we have but thirty-eight Melanesians, we ought to have sixty. But after dear Edwin and Fisher's wounds, I could not delay, but hurried southwards, passing by islands with old scholars ready to come away. This was sad work, but what could I do?
'I will gladly assign, to the best of my power, scholars whom I think likely to remain with me to various places or persons; but pray make them understand that their scholar may not always be forthcoming. Anyhow, their alms would go to the support of some Melanesian, who would be their scholar as it were for the time being.
'You would perhaps feel interested in knowing that the Gospel of St. Luke has been printed in the Mota language, to a great extent by our scholars, and that George Sarawia is printing now the Acts, composing it, and doing press-work and all. Young Wogale (about thirteen) prints very fairly, and sent off 250 copies of a prayer, which the Bishop of Nelson wanted for distribution, of which everything was done by him entirely. They both began to learn about last November.
'When morning school is over at 10 A.M., all hands, "dons" and all, are expected to give their time to the Mission till 12.45. Mr. Pritt is general overlooker (which does not mean doing nothing himself) of domestic work: kitchen, garden, farm, dairy, &c. You know that we have no servants. Mr. Palmer prints and teaches printing. Atkin works at whatever may be going on, and has a large share of work to get ready for me, and to read with me: Greek Testament, 12 to 12.45, Greek and Latin from 2 to 3. So all the lads are busy at out-door work from 10 to 12.45; and I assure you, under Mr. Pritt's management, we begin to achieve considerable results in our farm and garden work. We are already economising our expenditure greatly by keeping our own cows, for which we grow food (a good deal artificial), and baking our own bread. We sell some of our butter, and have a grand supply of milk for our scholars, perhaps the very best kind of food for them.
'If we can manage to carry on a winter's school here with some ten or twelve of the lads left under Mr. Pritt's charge, while I go off with the rest, I really think that the industrial department may become something considerable. It is an essential part of the system, for we must begin with teaching habits of order, punctuality, &c:, in respect of those things with which they have already some acquaintance. No Melanesian can understand why he is to sit spelling away at a black board; and he is not like a child of four or five years old, he must be taught through his power of reasoning, and perceiving the meaning of things. Secondly, we can gradually invest the more advanced scholars with responsible duties. There are the head cooks in the various weeks, the heads of departments in garden work, &c., &c. As these lads and men are being trained (we hope) to teach others, and as we want them to teach industry, decency, cleanliness, punctuality, to be, and to teach others to be honest, and careful, and thoughtful, so we find all these lessons are learnt more in the industrial work than in the mere book work, though that is not neglected. Indeed school, in the restricted sense of the word, is going on for four or four and a half hours a day.
'The main difficulty remains, of retaining our hold upon boys. Oh that I could live permanently in twenty islands at once! But I can't do so even in one; and all the letter-writing and accounts, and, worst of all, the necessity for being trustee for matters not a bit connected with Melanesia, because there is no one else, interferes sadly with my time. I think I could work away with the languages, &c., and really do something with these fellows, but I never get a chance. I never have two days together which I can spend exclusively at Melanesian work. And I ought to have nothing whatever to distract me. Twenty languages calling for arrangement and comparison causes confusion enough!'
These interruptions made the Kohimarama life trying. 'As for correspondence,' says the birthday despatch to Fanny, 'why this mail my letters to Victoria alone are twelve, let alone Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Tasmania, New Zealand, and England. Then three sermons a week, occasional services, reading up for a most difficult session of General Synod, with really innumerable interruptions from persons of all kinds. Sometimes I do feel tempted to long for Curtis Island merely to get away from New Zealand! I feel as if I should never do anything here. Everything is in arrears. I turn out of a morning and really don't know what to take up first. Then, just as I am in the middle of a letter (as yesterday) down comes some donkey to take up a quarter of an hour (lucky if not an hour) with idle nonsense; then in the afternoon an invasion of visitors, which is worst of all. That fatal invention of "calling"! However, I never call on anyone, and it is understood now, and people don't expect it. I have not even been to Government House for more than a year!
'There, a good explosion does one good! But why must idle people interfere with busy men? I used to make it up by sitting up and getting up very early indeed; but somehow I feel fit for nothing but sleeping and eating now.'
After an absence of three weeks at the General Synod at Christchurch, the Bishop took up such of his party as were to return, and sailed home, leaving those whom he thought able to brave the winter with Mr. and Mrs. Pritt, on one of the first days of June. The first visit was one to the bereaved family at Norfolk Island, whence a brief note to his brother on the 9th begins:—
'Nothing can be more comforting to me than the loving patient spirit of these dear people. Poor Mr. and Mrs. Nobbs and all the brothers and sisters so good and so full of kindness to me. It was very trying when I first met them yesterday. They came and kissed me, and then, poor things, fairly gave way, and then I began to talk quietly about Edwin and Fisher, and they became calm, and we knelt and prayed together.'
After landing the Bishop at Mota, the others crossed to Port Patteson where they found Fisher Young's grave carefully tended, kept clear of weeds, and with a fence round it. After establishing Mr. Palmer at the station at Mota, the Bishop re-embarked for Santa Maria, where, at the north-east—Cock Sparrow Point, as some one had appropriately called it—the boat was always shot at; but at a village called Lakona, the people were friendly, and five scholars had come from thence, so the Bishop ventured on landing for the night, and a very unpleasant night it, was—the barrack hut was thronged with natives, and when the heat was insufferable and he tried to leave it, two of his former scholars advised him strongly to remain within.
It was bad weather too, and there was some difficulty in fetching him off, and he was thankful that the wet had hindered more than 300 or 400 natives from collecting; there was no possibility of speaking to them quietly, for the sight of the boat suggested trading, and they flocked round as he was fetched off, half a dozen swimming out and begging to go to New Zealand. He took three old scholars and one new one, and sent the others off with fish-hooks, telling them that if they would not behave at Lakona as he liked, he would not do as they liked. However, no arrows were shot.
Then while the 'Southern Cross,' with Mr. Tilly and Mr. Atkin, went on to land the Solomon Island scholars, the work at Mota was resumed in full force. It seems well worth while to dwell on the successive steps in the conversion of this place, and the following letter shows the state of things in the season of 1865:—
'Mota: July 4, 1865.
'My dearest Sisters and Brother,—I must write a joint letter for all, with little notes if I have anything more special for anyone of you. I wish you could see this place. The old hut is queer enough certainly, quite open on one side, and nearly so on another, but it is weather-tight in the middle, with forms to sit on and a table or two like a kitchen table, on which I read and write by day, and sleep by night. Last night we killed five lizards; they get on the roof and drop down and bite pretty severely, so seeing these running all about, we made a raid upon them, poor things. The great banyan tree is as grand as ever, a magnificent tree, a forest in itself, and the view of the sea under its great branches, and of the islands of Matlavo and Valua, is beautiful.
'At daylight I turn off my table and dress, not elaborately—a flannel shirt, old trousers and shoes; then a yam or two is roasted on the embers, and the coffee made, and (fancy the luxury here in Mota!) delicious goat's milk with it. Then the morning passes in reading, writing, and somewhat desultory talking with people, but you can't expect punctuality and great attention. Then at one, a bit of biscuit and cheese (as long as the latter lasts). Mr. Palmer made some bread yesterday. Then generally a walk to meet people at different villages, and talk to them, trying to get them to ask me questions, and I try to question them. Then at 6 P.M., a tea-ation, viz., yam and coffee, and perhaps a crab or two, or a bit of bacon, or some good thing or other. But I forgot! this morning we ate a bit of our first full-grown and fully ripe Mota pine-apple (I brought some two years ago) as large and fine as any specimens I remember in hot-houses. If you mention all these luxuries, we shall have no more subscriptions, but you may add that there is as yet no other pine- apple, though our oranges, lemons, citrons, guavas, &c., are coming on. Anyone living here permanently might make a beautiful place indeed, but it becomes sadly overgrown in our absence, and many things we plant are destroyed by pigs, &c.
'Then after tea—a large party always witnessing that ceremony—there is an hour or so spent in speaking again to the people, and then I read a little with Wadrokala and Carry. Then Mr. Palmer and I read a chapter of Vaughan on the Revelation, then prayers, and so to bed. It seems as if little was done—certain talks with people, sometimes many, sometimes few; yet, on the whole, I hope an increased acquaintance with our teaching. You can well understand that the consciousness of sin and the need of a Redeemer may be talked about, but cannot be stated so as to make one feel that one has stated it in the most judicious and attractive manner. Of course it is the work of God's Spirit to work this conviction in the heart. But it is very hard so to speak of it as to give (if you can understand me) the heathen man a fair chance of accepting what you say. Forgetfulness of God; ingratitude to the Giver of life, health, food; ignorance of the Creator and the world to come, of the Resurrection and Life Everlasting, are all so many proofs to us of a fallen and depraved state. But the heathen man recognises some outward acts as more or less wrong; there he stops. "Yes, we don't fight now, nor quarrel, nor steal so much as we used to do. We are all right now."
'"Are you? I never taught you to think so. You tell me that you believe that the Son of God came down from heaven. What did He come for? What is the meaning of what you say that He died for us?"
'It is the continual prayer and effort of the Christian minister everywhere, that God would deepen in his own heart the sense of sin, and create it in the mind of the heathen. And then the imperfect medium of a language very far from thoroughly known! It is by continual prayer, the intercession of Christ, the power of the Spirit (we well know) that the work must be carried on. How one does understand it! The darkness seems so thick, the present visible world so wholly engrosses the thoughts, and yet, you see, there are many signs of progress even here, in changed habits to some extent, in the case of our scholars, real grounds of hope for the future. One seems to be doing nothing, yet surely if no change be wrought, what right have we to expect it. It is not that I looked for results, but that I seek to be taught how to teach better. The Collect for the first Sunday after Epiphany is wonderful.
'It requires a considerable effort to continually try to present to oneself the state of the heathen mind, to select illustrations, &c., suitable to his case. And then his language has never been used by him to set forth these new ideas; there are no words which convey the ideas of repentance, sin, heartfelt confession, faith, &c. How can there be, when these ideas don't exist? Yet somehow the language by degrees is made the exponent of such ideas, just as all religious ideas are expressed in English by words now used in their second intention, which once meant very different and less elevated ideas.
'I find everywhere the greatest willingness to listen. Everywhere I take my pick of boys, and now for any length of time. That is the result of eleven scholars remaining now in New Zealand. Everyone seems to wish to come. I think I shall take away five or six young girls to be taught at Kohimarama, to become by and by wives for scholars. Else the Christian lad will have to live with a heathen girl. But all this, if carried out properly, would need a large number of scholars from only one island. At Curtis Island, indeed (should it answer and supply plenty of food), we might hope to have a school some day of 300 or 400, and then thirty or forty from each island could be educated at once; but it can't be so in New Zealand. And a good school on an island before a certain number are trained to teach could not, I think, be managed successfully. I feel that I must concentrate more than hitherto. I must ascertain—I have to some extent ascertained—the central spots upon which I must chiefly work. This is not an easy thing, nevertheless, to find out, and it has taken years. Then using them as centres, I must also find out how far already the dialect of that spot may extend, how far the people of the place have connections, visiting acquaintances, &c. elsewhere, and to use the influence of that place to its fullest extent. Many islands would thus fall under one centre, and thus I think we may work. My mind is so continually, day and night, I may say, working on these points, that I dare say I fill up my letters with nothing else. But writing on these points helps me to see my way.'
On July 7, an expedition to Aroa seems to have overtired Bishop Patteson, and a slight attack of fever and ague came on. One of his aunts had provided him with a cork bed, where, after he had exerted himself to talk to his many visitors, he lay 'not uncomfortably.' He was not equal to going to a feast where he hoped to have met a large concourse, and after a day of illness, was taken back to Mota in the bottom of the boat; but in another week more revived, and went on with his journal, moralising on the books he had been reading while laid up.
'I looked quite through Bishop Mackenzie's life. What a beautiful story it is! what a truthful, simple, earnest character, and that persuasiveness that only real humility and self-forgetfulness and thoughtfulness can give. Then his early desire to be useful, his Cambridge life, the clear way in which he was being led on all through. It is very beautiful as an illustration of the best kind of help that God bestows on His children. Here was one so evidently moulded and fashioned by Him, and that willingly, for so it must be, and his life was just as it should be, almost as perfect perhaps as a life can be. What if his work failed on the Shire? First, his work has not failed to begin with, for aught we know; and secondly his example is stimulating work everywhere. I shall indeed value his Thomas a Kempis. [A copy sent home from the Zambesi stained with the water of the Shire, and sent to the Bishop by Miss Mackenzie].
The ship returned with tidings that the more important scholars would be ready to come back after a short holiday with their friends, and the Bishop embarked again on the 29th. At Mai he landed, and slept ashore, when little Petere, the son of the young man whose death had so nearly been revenged on the Bishop, a boy of eight years old, did the honours as became a young chief, and announced, 'I am going to New Zealand with you.' No one made any attempt to prevent him; but the old scholars did not show themselves helpful, and only one of them, besides three more new ones, came away. The natives were personally friendly, but there was no sign of fighting being lessened among them.
At Whitsuntide there was a brisk trade in yams, but no scholars were brought away; the parents would not part with any young enough to be likely to be satisfactory pupils, nor would the one last year's scholar come. Here intelligence was received that a two-masted ship had been at Leper's Island, a quarrel had taken place and some natives had been shot. It was therefore decided that it would not be safe to land, but as the vessel sailed along the coast, numerous canoes came out, bringing boars' tusks for sale. Three boys who had been taken on a cruise of six weeks the year before, eagerly came on board, and thirty or forty more. All the parents were averse to letting them go, and only two ended by being brought away: Itole, a young gentleman of fourteen or so, slim and slight, with a waist like a wasp, owing to a cincture worn night and day, and his hair in ringlets, white with coral-lime; his friend a little older, a tall, neat-limbed fellow, not dark and with little of the negro in his features.
A letter to me was written during this cruise, from which I give an extract:—
'It was a great delight to me to receive a letter from Mr. Keble, by the February mail from England. How kind of him to write to me; and his words are such a help and encouragement.
'I dare say I shall see Merivale's Lectures soon. Nothing can well be so wonderful, as a proof of God's hand controlling and arranging all the course of history to those who need it, as a subject for adoration and praise, to those who need not such proof, than the vast preparation made for the coming of Christ and the spreading of the Gospel. To popularise this the right way, and bring it home to the thought of many who have not time nor inclination for much reading, must be a good work. I suppose that all good Church histories deal with that part of the subject; it is natural for the mere philosopher to do so.
'And think how the early Alexandrian teachers used the religious yearnings of the East to draw men to the recognition of their wants, supplied and satisfied only in Christianity. Often it is the point d'appui that the Missionary must seek for. There is an element of faith in superstition; we must fasten on that, and not rudely destroy the superstition, lest with it we destroy the principle of faith in things and beings unseen. I often think, that to shake a man's faith in his old belief, however wrong it may be, before one can substitute something true and right, is, to say the least, a dangerous experiment. But positive truth wins its way without controversy, while error has no positive existence, and there is a craving for truth deep down in the heathen heart.
'Do you remember that grand passage of Hooker, where he says that he cannot stand to oppose all the sophisms of Romanism, only that he will place against it a structure of truth, before which, as Dagon before the Ark, error will be dashed in fragments?
'In our work (and so I suppose in a Sunday school) one must think out each step, anticipate each probable result, before one states anything. It is of course full of the highest interest. Can't you fancy a party of twenty or thirty dark naked fellows, when (having learnt to talk freely to them) I question them about their breakfast and cocoa-nut trees, their yams and taro and bananas, &c., "Who gave them to you? Can you make them grow? Why, you like me and thank me because I give you a few hatchets, and you have never thought of thanking Him all these long years."
'"It is true, but we didn't think."
'"But will you think if I tell you about Him?"
'"He gave them rain from heaven and fruitful seasons."
'How it takes one back to the old thoughts, the true philosophy of religion. Sometimes I lie awake and think "if Jowett and others could see these things!"
'And yet, if it is not presumptuous in me to say so, I do think that this work needs men who can think out principle and supply any thoughtful scholar or enquirer with some good reason for urging this or that change in the manners and observances of the people. Often as I think of it, I feel how greatly the Church needs schools for missionaries, to be prepared not only in Greek and Latin and manual work, but in the mode of regarding heathenism. It is not a moment's work to habitually ask oneself, "Why feel indignant? How can he or she know better?" It is not always easy to be patient and to remember the position which the heathen man occupies and the point of view from which he must needs regard everything brought before him.
'Thank you for Maclear's book. It is a clear statement of the leading facts that one wishes to know, a valuable addition to our library. You know, no doubt, a book which I like much, Neander's "Light in Dark Places."
'I shall remember about Miss Mackenzie's memoir of that good Mrs. Robertson. I wonder that men are not found to help Mr. Robertson. Here, as you know, the climate (as in Central Africa) is our difficulty. I think sometimes I make too much of it, but really I don't see how a man is to stand many months of it. But I can't help thinking and hoping that if that difficulty did not exist I could see my way to saying, "Now, a missionary is wanted for these four or five or six islands, one for each, and a younger man as fellow-helper to that missionary," and they would be forthcoming.
'Yet doubtless I don't estimate fairly the difficulties and hardships as they appear to the man who has never left England, and is not used to knocking about. I should have felt the same years ago but for the thought of being with the Primate, at least I suppose so.
'Well, I have written a very dull letter, but the place from which it comes will give it some interest. I really think that not Mota only, but the Banks Islands are in a hopeful state.
'Next year (D.V.) Mr. Palmer will try the experiment of stopping here for eight or ten months. I almost dare to hope that a few years may make great changes. Yet it seems as if nothing were done in comparison with what remains to be done.
'Sarah, Sarawia's wife, pronounced that as she was always ill at home, she would risk the New Zealand winter; two more married pairs came, and four little maidens to be bred up under Mrs. Pritt, girls from twelve to eight years old, of whom Sarah was quite able to take charge.'
There was the usual proportion of lads from various islands; but the most troublesome member of the community seems to have been Wadrokala's three years old daughter. 'I have daily to get Wadrokala and Carry to prevent their child from being a nuisance to everybody.' But this might have been a difficulty had she been white.
This large party had to be taken to the Solomon Isles to complete the party, sailing in company with the 'Curacoa,' the Commodore's ship, when the local knowledge and accurate surveying done by Mr. Tilly and Mr. Kerr proved very valuable, and Sir William Wiseman gave most kind and willing assistance.
Since his short interview with the Bishop off Norfolk Island, he had been cruising in the New Hebrides. There some of the frequent outrages of the traders had made the people savage and suspicious, and one of the Missionaries of the London Missionary Society living at Tanna had been threatened, driven away across the island, and his property destroyed. He had appealed for protection as a British subject, and Sir William Wiseman had no choice but to comply; so after warning had been sent to the tribe chiefly concerned to quit their village, it was shelled and burnt. No one seems to have been hurt, and it was hoped that this would teach the natives to respect their minister—whether to love his instruction was another question.
This would not have been worth mentioning had not a letter from on board the 'Curacoa' spoken of chastising a village for attacking a Missionary. It went the round of the English papers, and some at once concluded that the Missionary could be no other than the Bishop. Articles were published with the usual disgusting allusions to the temptation presented by a plump missionary; and also observing with more justice that British subjects had no right to run into extraordinary peril and appeal to their flag for protection.
Every friend or relative of Bishop Patteson knew how preposterous the supposition was, and his brother took pains to contradict the rumour. As a matter of fact, as his letters soon proved, he was not only not in company with the 'Curacoa' at the time, but had no knowledge either of the outrage or the chastisement, till Sir William Wiseman mentioned it to him when they were together at Sydney.
At Ysabel or Mahya, the party was made up to sixty, seven married couples and seven unmarried girls among them. The female population was stowed away at night in the after cabins, with 'arrangements quite satisfactory to them, as they were quite consistent with propriety, but which would somewhat startle unaccustomed folk.'
The 'Curapoa' stood in the offing while Sta. Cruz was visited, or rather while the 'Southern Cross' approached, for the Bishop thought it better not to risk landing; but numerous canoes came off, and all the curiosities were bought which were offered in hopes of reestablishing a friendly relation. There was reason to think the people of this group more than usually attached to the soil, and very shy and distrustful, owing perhaps to the memories left by the Spaniards.
Thence the 'Southern Cross' sailed across for an inspection of Curtis Island, and again with a favourable impression; but the Brisbane Parliament had just been prorogued, everyone was taking holiday, and the Bishop therefore gave up his visit to that place, and sent the vessel straight home to Auckland with her cargo of souls, while he returned to Sydney to carry on the same work as in the former year. Here one great delight and refreshment to him was a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Mort at their beautiful home at Greenoaks. What a delight it must have been to find himself in a church built by his host himself! 'one of the most beautiful things I have seen, holds about 500 people; stained glass, carved stalls, stone work, &c.,—perfect.' And the house, 'full of first-rate works of art, bronzes, carvings, &c.,' was pleasant to the eyes that had been so enthusiastic in Italy and Germany, and had so long fasted from all beauty but that of Nature, in one special type. The friends there were such as to give life and spirit to all these external charms, and this was a very pleasant resting place in his life. To Sir John Coleridge he writes:—
'I am having a real holiday. This place, Greenoaks, the really magnificent place of my good friends Mr. and Mrs. Mort, is lovely. The view of the harbour, with its land-locked bays, multitude of vessels, wooded heights, &c., is not to be surpassed; and somehow I don't disrelish handsome rooms and furniture and pictures and statues and endless real works of art in really good taste.
'One slips into these ways very readily. I must take care I am not spoilt. Everyone, from the governor downwards, lays himself out to make my visit pleasant. They work me hard on Sundays and week days, but it is a continual round of, I don't deny, to me, pleasurable occupation. Kindly people asked to meet me, and the conversation always turned to pleasant and useful subjects: Church government, principles of Mission work, &c. These colonies, unfortunate in many ways, are fortunate in having governors and others in high position who are good men, and the class of people among whom my time is spent might (me judice) hold its position among the best English society.
'I am very intimate with some few families, drop in and set the young ladies down to play Beethoven and Mendelssohn, and it is a nice change, and refreshes me.'
From Sydney the Bishop went to Adelaide and Melbourne, and these five weeks in Australia obtained about 800 pounds for the Mission; the Bishop of Sydney had hoped to raise more, but there had been two years of terrible drought and destruction of cattle, and money was not abundant. The plan of sending Australian blacks to be educated with the Melanesians was still entertained; but he had not much hope of this being useful to the tribes, though it might be to the individuals, and none of them ever were sent to him.
But what had a more important effect on the Mission was a conference between Sir William Wiseman and Sir John Young, the Governor of New South Wales, resulting in an offer from the latter of a grant of land on Norfolk Island for the Mission, for the sake of the benefit to the Pitcairners; at the same time the Commodore offered him a passage in the 'Curacoa' back to Auckland, touching at Norfolk Island by the way. The plan was carried out, and brought him home in time for Christmas, to find all and prosperous under Mr. Pritt at St. Andrew's. His mind was nearly made up on the expedience of a change to a place which was likely to suit both English and tropical constitutions alike, and he hoped to make the experiment the ensuing winter with Mr. Palmer and a small body of scholars.
CHAPTER X. THE EPISCOPATE AT KOHIMARAMA. 1866.
The removal of his much-loved correspondent did not long withhold the outpouring of Bishop Patteson's heart to his family; while his work was going on at the College, according to his own definition of education which was given about this time in a speech at St. John's: 'Education consists in teaching people to bear responsibilities, and laying the responsibilities on them as they are able to bear them.'
Meanwhile, he wrote as follows to Miss Mackenzie, on receiving the book she had promised to send him as a relic of her brother:—
'January 1, 1866.
'My dear Miss Mackenzie,—I have this evening received your brother's Thomas a Kempis, and your letter. I valued the letter much, as a true faithful record of one whom may God grant that I may know hereafter, if, indeed, I may be enabled to follow him as he followed Christ. And as for the former, what can I say but I hope that the thought of your dear brother may help me to read that holy book in something of the spirit in which he read and meditated on it.
'It seems to bring me very near to him in thought. Send me one of his autographs to paste into it. I don't like to cut out the one I have in the long letter to the Scottish Episcopal Church, which you kindly sent me.
'I found, too, in one of Mr. Codrington's boxes, a small sextant for me, which, being packed with the Thomas a Kempis, I think may have been your brother's. Do you really mean this for me too? If so, I shall value it scarcely less than the book. Indeed, I think that, divided as I am from all relations and home influences and affections, I cling all the more to such means as I may still enjoy of keeping up associations. I like to have my father's watch-chain in use, and to write on his old desk. I remember my inkstand in our drawing-room in London. So I value much these memorials of the first Missionary Bishop of the Church of England, in modern days at all events, and night by night as I read a few lines in his book, and think of him, it brings me, I hope, nearer in spirit to him and to others, who, like him, have done their duty well and now rest in Christ.
'We are pretty well now (Jan. 20), but one very promising lad sank last week in low fever; a good truthful lad he was, and as I baptized him at midnight shortly before he died, I felt the great blessing of being able with a very clear conscience to minister to him that holy sacrament; and so he passed away, to dwell, I trust, with his Lord.
'What a revelation to that spirit in its escape from the body! But I must not write on. With many thanks once again for these highly- valued memorials of your brother,
'I remain, my dear Miss Mackenzie,
'Very truly yours,
'J. C. PATTESON.'
The sandal-wood referred to in the following letter was the brother's gift to a church, All Saints, Babbicombe, in which his sisters were deeply interested, and of which their little nephew laid the first stone:—
'St. Matthias' Day.
'My dearest Sisters,—You are thinking of me to-day, I know, but you hardly know that in an hour or two I hope the Primate will ride down and baptize nine of our Melanesian scholars.
'The last few weeks have been a happy, though of course an anxious time, and now to-day the great event of their lives is to take place. May God grant that the rest of their lives may be like this beginning!
'We avoid all fuss. I don't like anyone being here but the Primate and Mrs. Selwyn, yet I think some dozen more may come, though I don't like it. I need not say that making a scene on such occasions is to my mind very objectionable. I could much prefer being quite alone. I have translated some appropriate Psalms, but the 2nd and 57th they hardly know as yet quite well; so our service will be Psalms 96, 97, 114; 1st lesson 2 Kings, v. 9—15, Magnificat; 2nd lesson Acts viii. 5-12, and the Baptismal Service. Henry Tagalana reads the first, and George Sarawia the second lesson. Then will come my quiet evening, as, I trust, a close of an eventful day. I have your English letters of December, with the news of Johnny laying the stone. I am thankful that that good work is begun. Sir John Young writes to me that I can have a gift of 100 acres at Norfolk Island, with permission to buy more. I think that, all being well, I shall certainly try it with a small party next summer, the main body of scholars being still brought to Kohimarama.
'The sandal-wood is not yet gone! But, my dear Joan, the altar of sandal-wood! If it is to be solid and not veneered, why, 50 would not buy it at Erromango. It sells in Sydney for about 70 a ton, and it is very heavy wood. However, I will send some of the largest planks I ever saw of the wood, and it is now well seasoned. It cost me 14 merely to work it into a very simple lectern, so hard is the grain.
'What has become of the old Eton stamp of men? Have you any in England? I must not run the risk of the Mission being swamped, by well-intentioned, but untaught men. We must have gentlemen of white colour, or else I must rely wholly, as I always meant to do chiefly, on my black gentlemen; and many of them are thorough gentlemen in feeling and conduct, albeit they don't wear shoes.
'It was a most impressive service. The dear Primate looking worn and somewhat aged, very full of feeling; the two most advanced, George and Henry, in their surplices, reading the Lessons; the nine candidates looking so reverent and grave, yet not without self- possession.
'As he signed each one with the sign of the Cross, his left hand resting on the head of each, the history of the Mission rushed into my mind, the fruit of the little seed be sowed when, eight years ago, he thought it wisest not to go ashore at Mota, and now more than twenty Christians of the Banks Islands serve God with prayers night and day.
'What would you have thought, if you could have been there? Our little chapel looked nice with the red hangings and sandal-wood lectern.
'Then we had a quiet cup of tea, and the old and new baptized party had a quiet talk with me till 8.30, when I sent them away.
'And then after an hour I was alone. That I should have been already five years a Bishop, and how much to think of and grieve over, something too to be thankful for. Perhaps after all, dear Edwin and Fisher stand out most clearly from all the many scenes and circumstances.
'And now what is to come? This move to Norfolk Island? Or what?" Something," you say; "perhaps in time showing the Governor that the Melanesians are not so very wild." But it is another Governor; and so far from the Melanesians being wild, it is expressly on the ground that the example of the school will be beneficial that I am asked to go!
'Tell all who may care to know it about our St. Matthias' Day, I must give myself the pleasure of writing one line to Mr. Keble. I won't write many lest I weary him, dear good man. I like to look at his picture, and have stuck the photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Keble which Charlotte Yonge sent me into the side of it. How I value his prayers and thoughts for us all!
'Your loving brother,
'J. C. P.
'P.S.—No terms of full communion between the Home and the Colonial Church can be matter of Parliamentary legislation. It is the "One Faith, One Lord," that binds us together; and as for regulating the question of colonially ordained clergy ministering in English dioceses, you had better equalise your own Church law first for dealing with an Incumbent and a Curate.'
'Auckland: Tuesday in Holy Week.
'My dear Uncle,—I have long owed you a letter, but I have not written because I have had an unusual time of distraction. Now, all my things being on board the " Southern Cross," I am detained by a foul wind. We can do nothing till it changes; and I am not sorry to have a few quiet hours, though the thought of a more than usually serious separation from the dear Primate and Mrs. Selwyn, Sir William and Lady Martin, hangs over my head rather gloomily. Still I am convinced, as far as I can be of such matters, that this move to Norfolk Island is good for the Mission on the whole. It has its drawbacks, as all plans have, but the balance is decidedly in favour of Norfolk Island as against New Zealand. I have given reasons at length for this opinion in letters to Joan and Fan, and also, I think, to Charlotte Yonge, who certainly deserves to know all my thoughts about it.
'But I may shortly state some of them, in case you may not have heard them, because I should like this step to approve itself to your mind:—
'1. Norfolk Island is 600 miles hearer to Melanesian islands than Auckland, and not only nearer in actual distance, but the 600 miles from Norfolk Island to Auckland are the cold and boisterous miles that must be passed at the extremities of the voyages with no intervening lands to call at and obtain a change for our large party on board.
'2. The difficulty usually is to get westward when sailing from New Zealand, by the North Cape of New Zealand, because the prevalent winds are from the west. So that usually the passage to Norfolk Island is a long-one.
'3. New Zealand is much to the east of Norfolk Island, and to go from the Loyalty, New Hebrides, Banks, and Santa Cruz groups to New Zealand, it is necessary to make a long stretch out to the N.E. (the trades blowing from about S.E. by E.), standing down to S. on the other tack. But Norfolk Island is almost due S. of other those groups.
'4. I cannot come back from the islands during my winter voyage to New Zealand, it is too distant; the coast is dangerous in the winter season and the cold too great for a party of scholars first coming from the tropics. But I can go backwards and forwards through the islands and Norfolk Island during the five winter months. It is not wise to sail about in the summer, hurricanes being prevalent then.
'5. As I can only make one return from the islands to New Zealand in the year, I can only have a school consisting of (say) sixty Melanesians brought in the very crowded vessel + (say) thirty left in New Zealand for the winter; and I dare not attempt to leave many, for so much care is needed in the cold season. But in Norfolk Island I can have a school of any number, because I can make separate voyages thither from the Banks and Solomon Islands, &c., each time bringing a party of sixty, if I think fit.
'6. The productions of Norfolk Island include the yam, taro (Caladium esculentum), sweet potato, sugar-cane, banana, almond, orange, pine-apple, coffee, maize. Only cocoa-nut and bread-fruit are wanting, that natives of Melanesia care much about.
'7. There is no necessity for so violent a contrast as there must be in New Zealand between the life with us and in their homes in respect of dress, food, and houses.
'Light clothing and an improved style of native house and more cleanly way of eating their food—not of cooking it, for they are cleanly already in that—may be adopted, and more easily perpetuated in their own homes than the heavy clothing necessary here, and the different style of houses and more English food.
'This is very important, because with any abrupt change of the outer man, there is sometimes a more, very more natural abandonment of the inner thoughts and disposition and character. Just as men so often lose self-respect when they take to the bush life; or children who pray by their own little bedside alone, leave off praying in "long chamber," the outward circumstances being altered.
'I have for years thought that we seek in our Missions a great deal too much to make English Christians of our converts. We consciously and unanimously assume English Christianity (as something distinct I mean from the doctrines of the Church of England), to be necessary; much as so many people assume the relation of Church and State in England to be the typical and normal condition of the Church, which should be everywhere reproduced. Evidently the heathen man is not treated fairly if we encumber our message with unnecessary requirements.
'The ancient Church had its "selection of fundamentals"—a kind of simple and limited expansion of the Apostles' Creed for doctrine and Apostolic practice for discipline.
'Notoriously the Eastern and Western mind misunderstood one another. The speculative East and the practical West could not be made to think after the same fashion. The Church of Christ has room for both.
'Now any one can see what mistakes we have made in India. Few men think themselves into the state of the Eastern mind, feel the difficulties of the Asiatic, and divine the way in which Christianity should be presented to him.
'We seek to denationalise these races, as far as I can see; whereas we ought surely to change as little as possible—only what is clearly incompatible with the simplest form of Christian teaching and practice.
'I don't mean that we are to compromise truth, but to study the native character, and not present the truth in an unnecessarily unattractive form.
'Don't we overlay it a good deal with human traditions, and still more often take it for granted that what suits us must be necessary for them, and vice versa.
'So many of our missionaries are not accustomed, not taught to think of these things. They grow up with certain modes of thought, hereditary notions, and they seek to reproduce these, no respect being had to the utterly dissimilar character and circumstances of the heathen.
'I think much about all this. Sir William Martin and I have much talk about it; and the strong practical mind of the Primate, I hope, would keep me straight if I was disposed to theorise, which I don't think is the case.
'But Christianity is the religion for humanity at large. It takes in all shades and diversities of character, race, &c.
'The substratum of it is, so to say, inordinate and coextensive with the substratum of humanity—all men must receive that. Each set of men must also receive many thing of secondary, yet of very great importance for them; but in this class there will be differences according to the characteristic differences of men throughout the world.
'I can't explain myself fully; but, dear Uncle, I think there is something in what I am trying to say.
'I want to see more discrimination, more sense of the due proportion, the relative importance of the various parts which make up the sum of extra teaching.
'There is so great want of order in the methods so often adopted, want of arrangement, and proper sequence, and subordination of one to another.
'The heathen man will assume some arbitrary dictate of a missionary to be of equal authority and importance with a moral command of God, unless you take care. Of course the missionary ought not to attempt to impose any arbitrary rule at all; but many missionaries do, and usually justify such conduct on the ground of their "exceptional position."
'But one must go much further. If I tell a man just beginning to listen, two or three points of Christian faith, or two or three rules of Christian life, without any orderly connection, I shall but puzzle him.
'Take, e.g., our English Sunday, I am far from wishing to change the greater part of the method of observing it in England.
'I hope the Melanesian Christians may learn to keep holy the Lord's Day. But am I to begin my teaching of a wild Solomon Islander at that end; when he has not learned the evil of breaking habitually the sixth, seventh, and eighth Commandments?
'I notice continually the tendency of the teaching of the very men who denounce "forms" to produce formation.
'It is nearest to the native mind; it generates hypocrisy and mere outward observance of certain rules, which, during the few years that the people remain docile on their first acceptance of the new teaching, they are content to submit to.
'I see the great difficulty of making out all this. It necessitates the leaving so very much to the discretion of the pioneer. Ergo the missionary must not be the man who is not good enough for ordinary work in England, but the men whom England even does not produce in large numbers with some power of dealing with these questions.
'It is much better and safer to have a regular well-known rule to act by; but I don't see how you can give me, e.g., precise directions. It seems to me that you must use great care in selecting your man, and then trust him fully.
'I hope it is not an excess of self-conceit and self-reliance which makes me pass by, rather lightly, I confess, some of the advice that very well-intentioned people occasionally volunteer to missionaries. I have had (D.Gr.) the Primate and Sir William Martin's men, who know what heathenism is, and the latter of whom has deeply studied the character of the various races of the world.
'I mean that when some one said, "Do you really mean to place those savage Melanesians among the immaculate Pitcairners?" the natural answer seemed to me to be, "I am not aware that you ever saw either a Pitcairner or a Melanesian." I thought it rather impertinent. The truth is, that the great proportion of our Melanesian scholars in our school, i.e., not standing alone, but helped by the discipline of the school, are quite competent to set an example to the average Pitcairners. But this I mark only as an illustration of my meaning. Occasionally I hear of some book or sermon or speech in which sound views (as I venture to call them) are propounded on these points.
'Always your loving and grateful Nephew,
'J. C. PATTESON.'
The next letter was called forth by my sorrowful communication of the shattered state of both my dear friends; of whom, one, at the very time that my Cousin wrote, was already gone to his rest, having been mercifully spared the loneliness and grief we had feared for him.
'St. Andrew's: April 24, 1866.
'My dear Cousin,—I write a line at once in reply to a letter of January 29, for I see that a great sorrow is hanging over you, is perhaps already fallen on you, and I would fain say my word of sympathy, possibly of comfort.
'One, perhaps, of the great blessings that a person in my position enjoys is that he must perforce see through the present gloom occasioned by loss of present companionship on to the joy beyond. I hear of the death of dear Uncle, and friends, and even of that loving and holy Father of mine, and somehow it seems all peace, and calmness, and joy. It would not be so were I in England, to actually experience the sense of loss, to see the vacant seat, and miss the well-known voice; but it is (as I see) a great and most blessed alleviation to the loss of their society here below. You feel that when those loving hearts at Hursley can no longer be a stay and comfort to you here, you will have a sense almost of desolation pressing on you. You must, we all have, many trials and some sorrows, and I suppose Hursley has always been to you a city of refuge and house of rest.
'But I think the anticipation is harder than the reality. For him, but how can I speak of such as he is? Why should we feel anxiety? Surely he is just the man upon whom we should expect some special suffering, which is but some special mark of love and (may we not say in such a case?) of approbation. Some special aid to a very close conformity to the mind and character of Christ, to be sent in special love and mercy.
'I always seem to think that in the case of good men the suffering is the sure earnest of special nearness to God. It surely—if one may dare so to speak, and the case of Job warrants it, and the great passage "Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you" (all)—is true that God is glorified in the endurance of sufferings which He lays upon the saints. And if dear Mr. Keble must suffer this last blow, as all through his life he has felt the care of the Churches pressing sorely on him, and has even had to comfort the weary, and guide the wayward, and to endure disappointment, and to restrain the over zealotish, and reprove the thoughtless, and bear in his bosom the infirmities of many people—why must we be unhappy about him, and why mourn for ourselves? God forbid! It is only one mark of the cross stamped upon him, only one more draught of the cup of the lacking measures of the afflictions of Christ. But you must, more than I, know and feel all this; and it is only in attempting to put before your eyes your own thoughts, that I have written this. For, indeed, I do sympathise with you, and I think how to me, who knew him so little yet yield to no one in deep reverence and love for him, his departure would be almost what the passing away of one of those who had seen the Lord must have been to those of old time; yet our time is not so very long now, and may be short, and we have had this blessed example for a long time, and there is on all accounts far more cause for joy than for sorrow.
'You must not think me unkind to Miss Mackenzie, because I have written to Fan to say that my letters and anecdotes are not to be fishes to swim in her "Net." It may be unwise in me to write all that kind of thing, but it does such an infinity of harm by its reflex action upon us who are engaged in this work. And I can write brotherly letters, if they are to be treated as public property. I could not trust my own brother to make extracts from my letters. No one in England can be a judge of the mischief that the letters occasion printed contrary to my wish by friends. We in the Mission think them so infinitely absurd, one-sided, exaggerated, &c., though we don't mean to make them so when we write them.
'We are all well, thank God, except a good fellow called Walter Hotaswol, from Matlavo (Saddle Island), who is in a decline. He has had two bad haemorrhages; but he is patient, simple-minded, quite content to die, and not doubting at all his Father's love, and his Saviour's merits, so I cannot grieve for him, though he was the one, humanly speaking, to have led the way in his home.
'You know that I sympathise with all your anxieties about Church matters. Parliamentary legislation would be the greatest evil of all. All your troubles only show that synodical action, and I believe with the laity in the Synod, is the only cure for these troubles.
'God bless you, my dear Cousin,
'Your affectionate Cousin,
'J. C. PATTESON.'
To the sisters he wrote at the same time:—
'I hear from Miss Yonge that Mrs. Keble is very ill—dying. But, as I wrote to her, why should such things grieve us? He will soon rejoin her, and so it is all peace and comfort. He was seventy-five, I think, last St. Mark's Day, and I began a letter to him, but it was not fair to him to give him the trouble of reading it, and I tore it up. He knows without it how I do love and revere him, and I cannot pluck up courage to ask for some little book which he has used, that there may be a sort of odour of sanctity about it, just as Bishop Mackenzie's Thomas a Kempis, with him on the Zambesi, is on my table now.'
Before going forth with this 'lonely watcher' upon his voyage, the description of this season's work with his scholars must be given from a Report which he brought himself to write for the Eton Association. After saying how his efforts were directed to the forming a number of native clergy in time to work among their own people, he continues:—'When uncivilised races come into contact with civilised men, they must either be condemned to a hopeless position of inferiority, or they must be raised out of their state of ignorance and vice by appealing to those powers within them which God intended them to use, and the use of which will place them by His blessing in the possession of whatever good things may be denoted by the words Religion and Civilisation.
'Either we may say to our Melanesian scholars, "You can't expect to be like us: you must not suppose that you can ever cease to be dependent on us, you must be content always to do as you are told by us, to be like children, as in malice so in knowledge; you can never be missionaries, you may become assistant teachers to English missionaries whom you must implicitly obey, you must do work which it would not be our place to do, you must occupy all the lower and meaner offices of our society;"—or, if we do not say this (and, indeed, no one would be likely to say it), yet we may show by our treatment of our scholars that we think and mean it.
'Or we may say what was, e.g., said to a class of nineteen scholars who were reading Acts ix.
'"Did our Lord tell Saul all that he was to do?"
'"No."
'"What! not even when He appeared to him in that wonderful way from Heaven?"
'"No."
'"What did the Lord say to him?"
'"That he was to go into Damascus, and there it would be told him what he was to do."
'"What means did the Lord use to tell Saul what he was to do?"
'"He sent a man to tell him."
'"Who was he?"
'"Ananias."
'"Do we know much about him?"
'"No, only that he was sent with a message to Saul to tell him the Lord's will concerning him and to baptize him."
'"What means did the Lord employ to make His will known to Saul?"
'"He sent a disciple to tell him." '"Did He tell him Himself immediately?"
'"No, He sent a man to tell him."
'"Mention another instance of God's working in the same way, recorded in the Acts."
'"The case of Cornelius, who was told by the angel to send for Peter."
'"The angel then was not sent to tell Cornelius the way of salvation?"
'"No, God sent Peter to do that."
'"Jesus Christ began to do the same thing when He was on earth, did He not, even while He was Himself teaching and working miracles?"
'"Yes; He sent the twelve Apostles and the seventy disciples."
'"But what is the greatest instance of all, the greatest proof to us that God chooses to declare His will through man to man? "
'"God sent His own Son to become man."
'"Could He not have converted the whole world in a moment to the obedience of faith by some other way?"
'"Yes."
'"But what did He in His wisdom choose to do?"
'"He sent His Son to be born of the Virgin Mary, to become man, and to walk on this earth as a real man, and to teach men, and to die for men."
'"What does Jesus Christ call us men?"
'"His brethren." '"Who is our Mediator?"
'"The Man Christ Jesus."
'"What means does God employ to make His will known to us?"
'"He uses men to teach men.'
'"Can they do this by themselves?"
'"No, but God makes them able."
'"How have you heard the Gospel?"
'"Because God sent you to us."
'"And now, listen. How are all your people still in ignorance to hear it? What have I often told you about that?"
'Whereupon the scholars looked shy, and some said softly, "We must teach them."
'"Yes, indeed you must!"
'And so the lesson ended with questioning them on the great duty and privilege of prayer for God's Holy Spirit to give them both the will and the power to do the work to which God is calling them.
'So we constantly tell them "God has already been very merciful to you, in that He has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light. He has enabled you to receive the knowledge of His will, and to understand your relations to Him. He has taught you to believe in Him, to pray to Him, to hope for salvation through the merits of His Son's death and resurrection. He has made you feel something of the power of His love, and has taught you the duty of loving Him and serving your brother. He calls upon you now to rouse yourself to a sense of your true position, to use the gifts which He has given you to His glory and the good of your brethren. Don't suppose that you are unable to do this. You are unable to do it, as you were unable to believe and love Him by yourselves, but He gives you strength for this very purpose that you may be able to do it. You can do it through Christ, who strengtheneth you. Our fathers were not more able to teach their people once than you to teach your people now!"
'We make no distinction whatever between English and Melanesian members of the Mission as such. No Melanesian is excluded from any office of trust. No classification is made of higher and lower kinds of work, of work befitting a white man and work befitting a black man. English and Melanesian scholars or teachers work together in the school, printing-office, dairy, kitchen, farm. The senior clergyman of the Mission labours most of all with his own hands at the work which is sometimes described as menial work; and it is contrary to the fundamental principle of the Mission that anyone should connect with the idea of white man the right to fag a black boy.
'Young men and lads come to us and say, "Let me do that. I can't write the languages, or do many things you or Mr. Pritt or Mr. Palmer do, so let me scrub your floor, or brush your shoes, or fetch some water." And of course we let them do so, for the doing it is accompanied by no feeling of degradation in their minds; they have seen us always doing these things, and not requiring them to do them as if it were the natural work for them, because they are black, and not proper for us, because we are white.
'Last night, a young man, sitting by the fire, said to the Bishop, "They want you to stop with them in my land."
'"I wish with all my heart I could."
'"Yes, I know, you must go to so many places."
'"But they are different in your land now."
'"Oh! yes, they don't fight now as they used to do; they don't go about armed now."
'"Well, that is a thing to be thankful for. What is the reason of it, do you think? "
"Why they know about you, and see you now and then, and Henry Tagalana talked to them, and I talked a little to them, and they asked me about our ways here, and they want to learn."
'"Well, there are now five of you from your island, and you must try hard to learn, that you may teach them, for remember you must do it, if God spares your life."'
'During the year 1865 a great advance was made in the industrial department of our work. About seventeen acres of land were taken in hand and worked by Mr. Pritt, with the Melanesian lads. We have our own dairy of thirteen cows, and, besides supplying the whole Mission party, numbering in all seventy-seven persons, with abundance of milk, we sell considerable quantities of butter. We grow, of course, our own potatoes and vegetables, and maize, &c., for our cows. The farm and dairy work affords another opportunity for teaching our young people to acquire habits of industry.'
Cooking, farm, gardening, dairy-work, setting out the table, &c., were all honourable occupations, and of great importance in teaching punctuality and regularity, and the various arts and decencies of life to the youths, who were in time to implant good habits in their native homes. Their natural docility made them peculiarly easy to manage and train while in hand; the real difficulty was that their life was so entirely different from their home, that there was no guessing how deep the training went, and, on every voyage, some fishes slipped through the meshes of the net, though some returned again, and others never dropped from their Bishop's hands. But he was becoming anxious to spare some of his scholars the trial of a return to native life; and, as the season had been healthy, he ventured on leaving twenty-seven pupils at St. Andrew's with Mr. and Mrs. Pritt, among them George and Sarah Sarawia.
After Trinity Sunday, May 27, the 'Southern Cross' sailed, and the outward voyage gave leisure for the following letter to Prof. Max Muller, explaining why he could not make his knowledge of languages of more benefit to philology while thus absorbed in practical work:—
'"Southern Cross," off Norfolk Ireland: June 6, 1866.
'My dear Friend,—I am about to tire your patience heavily. For I must find you some reasons for doing so little in making known these Melanesian dialects, and that will be wearisome for you to read; and, secondly, I cannot put down clearly and consecutively what I want to say. I have so very little time for thinking out, and working at any one subject continuously, that my whole habit of mind becomes, I fear, inaccurate and desultory. I have so very many and so very different occupations, and so much anxiety and so many interruptions, as the "friction" that attends the working, of a new and somewhat untried machine.'
'You know that we are few in number; indeed (Codrington being absent) I have but two clergymen with me, and two young men who may be ordained by-and-by. Besides, had I the twenty troublesome men, whom you wish to banish into these regions, what use would they or any men be until they had learnt their work? And it must fall to me to teach them, and that takes again much of my time; so that, as a matter of fact, there are many things that I must do, even when all is going on smoothly; and should sickness come, then, of course, my days and nights are spent in nursing poor lads, to whom no one else can talk, cheering up poor fellows seized with sudden nervous terror, giving food to those who will take it from no one else, &c.
'Then the whole management of the Mission must fall upon me; though I am most thankful to say that for some time Mr. Pritt has relieved me from the charge of all domestic and industrial works. He does everything of that kind, and does it admirably, so that our institution really is a well-ordered industrial school, in which kitchen work, dairy work, farm work, printing, clothes making and mending, &c., are all carried on, without the necessity of having any foreign importation of servants, who would be sure to do harm, both by their ideas as to perquisites (= stealing in the minds of our Melanesians), and by introducing the idea of paid labour; whereas now we all work together, and no one counts any work degrading, and still less does any one qua white consider himself entitled to fag a Melanesian.
'Mr. Tilly, R.N., has also quite relieved me from my duties as skipper, and I have no trouble about marine stores, shipping seamen, navigating the vessel now. I cannot be too thankful for this; it, saves me time, anxiety, and worry; yet much remains that I must do, which is not connected with peculiar work directly.
'I can't refuse the Bishop of New Zealand when he presses me (for want of a better man) to be trustee of properties, and to engage in managing the few educational institutions we have. I can't refuse to take some share in English clerical work while on shore; indeed, in 1865, my good friend Archdeacon Lloyd being ill, I took his parish (one and a half hour distant from Kohimarama), the most important parish in Auckland, for some three months; not slacking my Melanesian work, though I could only avoid going back by hard application, and could make no progress. Then I must attend our General Synod; and all these questions concerning the colonial churches take some time to master, and yet I must know what is going on.
'Then I must carry on all the correspondence of the Mission. I am always writing letters. Every 5 from any part of New Zealand or Australia I must acknowledge; and everyone wants information, anecdotes, &c., which it vexes my soul to have to supply, but who else can do it? Then I keep all the accounts, very complicated, as you would say if you saw my big ledger. And I don't like to be altogether behindhand in the knowledge of theological questions, and people sometimes write to me, and their letters need to be answered carefully. Besides, take my actual time spent in teaching. Shall I give you a day at Kohimarama?
'I get in the full summer months an hour for reading by being dressed at 5.30 A.M. At 5.30 I see the lads washing, &c., 7 A.M. breakfast all together, in hall, 7.30 chapel, 8-9.30 school, 9.30-12.30 industrial work. During this time I have generally half an hour with Mr. Pritt about business matters, and proof sheets are brought me, yet I get a little time for preparing lessons. 12.45 short service in chapel, 1 dinner, 2-3 Greek Testament with English young men, 3-4 classics with ditto, 5 tea, 6.30 evening chapel, 7-8.30 evening school with divers classes in rotation or with candidates for Baptism or Confirmation, 8.30-9 special instruction to more advanced scholars, only a few. 9-10 school with two other English lay assistants. Add to all this, visitors interrupting me from 4-5, correspondence, accounts, trustee business, sermons, nursing sick boys, and all the many daily unexpected little troubles that must be smoothed down, and questions inquired into, and boys' conduct investigated, and what becomes of linguistics? So much for my excuse for my small progress in languages! Don't think all this egotistical; it is necessary to make you understand my position.
'If I had spare time, leisure for working at any special work, perhaps eleven years of this kind of life have unfitted me for steady sustained thought. And you know well I bring but slender natural qualifications to the task. A tolerably true ear and good memory for words, and now something of the instinctive insight into new tongues, but that is chiefly from continual practice. |
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