THE MELANESIAN MISSION
A fortnight after Bishop Selwyn reached Auckland on his return from
England, the _Southern Cross_, the new mission ship, arrived. She was
first sighted on a very wet day, and as soon as the Bishop was sure it
was her, he called Patteson to come with him to meet her. Patteson
describes the scene:
“I hurried on waterproofs knowing that we were in for some mudlarking.
Off we went, lugged down a borrowed boat to the water. I took one oar,
a Maori another, the Bishop steering. After twenty minutes pull we met
her, jumped on board, and then such a broadside of questions and
answers. Mudlarking very slight on this occasion, but on Tuesday we
had a rich scene. Bishop and I went to the _Duke of Portland_ and
brought off our things ... the custom is for carts to go over the
muddy sand ... in went our cart, with three valuable horses, while the
Bishop and I stood on the edge of the water. Presently one of the
horses lost his footing, and then all at once all three slipped up.
Instanter Bishop and I had our coats off, and in we rushed to the
horses, such a plunging and splashing but they were all got out safe.
‘This is your first lesson in mudlarking, Coley,’ was the Bishop’s
remark.”
Before Selwyn could sail for his first voyage in the _Southern Cross_,
he was called upon by the Governor to go to make peace in a native
quarrel, which threatened to lead to trouble with the settlers. The
disturbance had arisen in the neighbourhood of Taranaki, called by the
colonists New Plymouth. A chief had tried to sell some land, the
ownership of which was disputed, to the English, and another chief,
Katatore, had shot him down in cold blood, unarmed. The settlers fearful
of the disturbance that might follow, asked that some troops should be
sent to protect them, but the Governor, thinking that the presence of
English soldiers would only add to the difficulty, begged the Bishop to
go down to see whether he could bring about a peaceful settlement. The
Bishop started at once accompanied by Dr. Abraham and his faithful Maori
Deacon, Rota. They had a hard fortnight’s walk through difficult country
to the Pah, that is the camp, of William King, a well known native
chief, who had taken the part of Katatore, and here they met with a
friendly reception. The next day the conference began in Katatore’s Pah,
and Abraham thus describes what happened. They found “one hundred men or
so within; all were seated on the ground to hear what the Bishop had to
say. After a few minutes a man dressed like a would-be flash criminal at
Newgate came up to us. It was Katatore, a little cunning, ill-favoured
looking rascal, dressed in a black paletot, moleskin trousers, boots and
a little black hat on the top of an immense bush of hair. He then told
us the story of the murder. When he came to it, the Bishop said: ‘So
then you killed an unarmed man in cold blood for the matter of land?’
‘Yes.’ ‘Then you repeated the act of Cain towards Abel, and in the sight
of God and man you are a murderer.”
“The man started up in great wrath, but the Bishop calmly repeated it.
The man started on his feet and left the ring of people, muttering and
growling; but his own people did not seem disposed to support him on
that point, nor to question the Bishop’s judgment.”
Some days after, the soldiers arrived, and the natives grew very excited
thinking that the Bishop had broken faith with them; but he reassured
them and finally after giving good advice to both sides in the dispute
restored peace. Abraham writes:
“It was very striking to see the men’s delight when he wound up his
speech with their old song, the Maori equivalent for ‘Lady bird, lady
bird, fly away home.’ All the good advice seemed to tell but little,
but this quotation set the whole party on the alert.”
During the days spent in this work of peace-making, Selwyn held many
services with both colonists and natives, and persuaded the colonists to
provide themselves with churches. Whilst waiting for the steamer which
was to take him away, he with his party set to work to mend a road full
of great holes, which he had in vain tried to persuade the people to
mend. They made the road passable in a day and a half’s work; and were
watched by the passers-by with amusement, but unfortunately not with
shame for their own idleness.
The Bishop was violently attacked in the local papers for his conduct in
the Taranaki dispute. In one of them it was said:
“Bishop Selwyn is again lending his blighting influence to New
Zealand, has again taken the murderer by the hand.... It is reserved
for the Bishop of New Zealand to use his undoubted influence to shield
notorious criminals from justice when those criminals appeal to his
sympathies through the medium of a dark skin.”
He was accused of preventing the sale of land to the settlers in New
Plymouth. Thinking that some members of the Church might have been
offended by the reports they had heard of his opinion and conduct, he
felt it to be a religious duty to explain his opinions in a pastoral
letter to them. In this he stated what he considered to be the cause of
the hostility between the Maoris and the settlers. He said that land had
been acquired too hastily without sufficient investigation of the
titles, and went on:
“My advice to the natives in all parts of New Zealand has always been
to sell all the land which they are not able to occupy or cultivate. I
had two reasons for this: first to avoid continual jealousies between
the races; and secondly to bring the native population within narrower
limits, in order that religion, law, education and civilization might
be brought to bear more effectually upon them.”
He referred to the strong feeling amongst the Maoris for their land, and
to their accurate knowledge with regard to its ownership, saying: “No
menaces of military interference are likely to have any effect upon men
who from their childhood, have been accustomed to regard it as a point
of honour to shed their last drop of blood for the inheritance of their
tribe.” He expressed his conviction “that the lives and property of our
fellow settlers, scattered as they are, can only be preserved by the
greatest forbearance and the strictest justice in our dealings with the
native people.”
On Bishop Selwyn’s return to Auckland, he ordained a second Maori
Deacon, Levi, a man of 38, whose character had had long testing, and
whose final preparation for ordination he had begun immediately on his
return from England. He was now free to set off on his first voyage with
Patteson in the _Southern Cross_. This was to be a visitation tour to
the Chatham Islands and to the Southern settlements in New Zealand.
Selwyn was able to leave the vessel in charge of Patteson and to make
some long journeys on foot. He had planned a journey of one thousand
miles and fixed the exact time which it should take. A week before the
appointed end he wrote to Mr. Abraham asking him to meet him at a
certain place at 1 o’clock on the day fixed. Mr. Abraham writes:
“As my watch pointed to the hour I looked up and saw him emerge from a
bush looking well, wiry and bushy. He had walked five hundred and
fifty-miles and ridden four hundred and fifty in the course of the
last three months, having examined and confirmed one thousand, five
hundred people. He was alone nearly all the way and had great
difficulty getting the horses he did, so engaged are the people in
their cultivations, etc., that they could not spare time to go with
him.... He gave an amusing account of the way in which he shamed them
sometimes into giving him a horse to ride. He would go to a village
and ask for a horse and guide. There were none was the answer. He
would point to a herd of thirty or forty not far off—no one knew to
whom they belonged. He would then put down his pack and begin to throw
out the most useless articles, and pack it up again and begin to strap
it on. ‘What are you about?’ ‘Lightening my burden for a walk.’ This
touched some woman’s heart, who would either herself fetch, or urge
her husband to get a horse. One morning at dawn, as he was just
starting on his lonely march he found a woman standing with a horse
ready for him.... The last month’s journey was the worst, perhaps, as
he was obliged to leave his blankets behind to lighten his shoulders,
and had to sleep under his tent with nothing but a thin maude these
cold autumnal evenings.”
The thought that soon there would be another Bishop to care for these
scattered southern settlements must often have cheered Selwyn during his
lonely wanderings.
His thoughts were now turning to the Pacific Islands which he hoped
would be the sphere of Patteson’s future work. On Ascension Day, 1855,
he left Auckland in the _Southern Cross_ again. Ascension Day was his
favourite day for starting, for he felt the charge ringing in his ears:
“Go ye and teach all nations.” He went first with Mrs. Selwyn and
Patteson to Sydney. He wished to get permission to set up his school for
the young Melanesians in Norfolk Island. He had become convinced that it
was impossible to go on bringing the young islanders to school at
Auckland, and then on account of the climate, to have to take them back
after a few months to their own homes. This was much too expensive and
wasteful a method to be continued, and he wished to find a suitable
island where a school and a centre for the mission might be set up.
Norfolk Island struck him as eminently suited for the purpose. It had
been used as a convict settlement, but this had now been given up.
Selwyn had visited the island with Sir George Grey, who approved of his
idea, and wrote to the home government asking that the disused prison
and a portion of the land should be granted to the Bishop for his
school. Objections were made in some quarters because of another
proposal for using Norfolk Island. There had been discovered in a
Pacific Island named Pitcairn, an English population who proved to be
the descendants of a certain John Adams, the leader of a mutiny in a
Government vessel called the _Bounty_. Adams had brought up the children
of the mutineers who survived and their descendants with great care,
during the years in which they had lived unknown and separated from the
outer world. Now that they had been discovered in their lonely home, it
was considered that they were too many to go on living on the little
island of Pitcairn, and the English Government intended to transport
them to Norfolk Island. Objections were made in England to the idea of
bringing native islanders from the Pacific to live alongside with the
Pitcairners, lest they should corrupt these interesting descendants of
English mutineers, who, it was asserted, had grown up in a state of
primitive innocence under a patriarchal system. Bishop Selwyn, however,
urged that it would be good for the Pitcairners to help in the work of
training the natives and of navigating the Mission vessel. But the
Governor of New South Wales would not agree to his proposal. The Bishop
was much interested in the Pitcairners and waited to see them on their
arrival at Norfolk Island before he started for the Pacific. He was
warmly welcomed by them. The careful provision of John Adams had seen to
it that they were brought up as Christians, but naturally none of them
had been confirmed. It was decided therefore to leave Mrs. Selwyn on the
Island to teach and prepare the girls and women for confirmation, whilst
Selwyn and Patteson went for their cruise to visit the northern Pacific
Islands.
Before leaving Sydney, a crowded meeting was held by the Australian
Board of Missions to hear Bishop Selwyn speak on the Melanesian Mission,
and at this meeting Patteson was introduced by the Bishop as his dear
friend, one for whose companionship he ought to thank God. After this
they took Mrs. Selwyn to Norfolk Island and sailed for the Pacific. They
went first to the Presbyterian mission at Anaiteum, and deposited goods
and letters that they had brought for the missionaries, Mr. and Mrs.
Ingles. Patteson much admired their schools and wrote of their work as
full of hope and encouragement. After this many islands new to the
Bishop were visited. Near one of them they came across a brig with a
sandal wood trader who was notorious for “dark deeds of revenge and
unscrupulous retaliation upon the natives.” In the past the Bishop had
been one of those who had helped to bring him to justice, but he had
remained friends with him and had baptised his only son. Now he
introduced Patteson to him, saying, “Mr. Patteson is come from England
on purpose to look after these islands.” He was convinced that the
knowledge that there were those who watched their doings would have a
restraining effect upon the traders.
Patteson was able to learn from the behaviour of the Bishop how to be on
the look out for signs of danger. Selwyn’s quick eye was always on the
watch and without any apparent suspicion of fear, he was ever on the
alert to detect any slight intimation of possible danger. On one
occasion whilst they were happily bartering fish hooks for cocoanuts,
the Bishop, to Patteson’s surprise, made a sudden sign to come away.
When they were in their boat he said: “I saw some young men running
through the bushes with bows and arrows, and these young gentry have not
the sense to behave well like their parents.”
The Bishop’s method in his work among the islands has been described by
one who watched it as follows:
“On first invading the land he tries to make a favourable impression
on the people’s minds by presents, and by letting them see that he is
not come to trade. This he does by leaving his boat ten or twenty
yards from the reef, where some hundred people are standing and
shouting; he then plunges into the water arranging no end of presents
on his back, which he has been showing to their astounded eyes out of
the boat. He probably has learnt from some stray canoe or a
neighbouring island the name of the chief. He calls out his name; he
steps forward; the Bishop hands him a tomahawk, and holds out his hand
for the chief’s bow and arrows. The old chief with innate courtesy
sends the tomahawk to the rear, to show that he is safe and may place
confidence in him. The Bishop pats the children on the head, gives
them fishhooks and red tape, for there is an enormous demand for red
tape in these islands. Probably then the Bishop has some ‘tame
elephant’ with him—a black boy from some other island—and he has
clothed him, and taught him to read or the like; and he brings forward
this specimen and sample, and tries to make them understand that he
wants some of their boys to treat in like manner. The Bishop gets as
many names written down as he can and picks up as many words as he
can; establishes a friendly relation, and after a while swims off to
his boats. Next year he will go and call out the names of his old
friends, get two or three on board, induce them to take a trip with
him while he goes to the neighbouring islands. So he learns their
language enough to tell them what he has come for.”
During this trip with Patteson, he landed on sixty islands, and they
brought back thirty-three scholars, who were looked upon as Patteson’s
boys. They stopped at Norfolk Island to hold what Selwyn described as
“one of the most remarkable confirmations in the history of the Church.
The whole adult population of the Pitcairn Islanders, except those who
were too feeble to attend, presented themselves to me in nine classes to
be examined and confirmed.” The eldest of the candidates, a woman over
seventy, was a daughter of John Adams. The service was held in the old
convict chapel, which opened on to the prison yard, “in every corner
heaps of rusty fetters and cast-off garments.” The Confirmation was
followed by a Celebration of Holy Communion.
This time the boys from the Islands had again to be taken to Auckland as
no other place was ready for them. Selwyn wrote from there to Judge
Patteson expressing his delight in the help given him by his son:
“I do indeed most thankfully acknowledge the goodness of God in giving
me timely aid when I was pledged to a great work without any steady
force to carry it on. Coley is the right man in the right place
physically and mentally.... You know in what direction my wishes tend,
viz., that Coley, when he has come to suitable age, and has developed
as I have no doubt he will, a fitness for the work, should be the
first island Bishop.”
Some years would have to pass before these wishes could be fulfilled,
but already in 1856, Selwyn had the joy of welcoming Dr. Harper,
appointed Bishop of Christchurch, who came out with all his family,
immediately after his consecration in Lambeth Chapel. Selwyn went to
Christchurch to meet him in the _Southern Cross_ and wrote in his diary:
“Went on board at 8 took off the Bishop and his whole family in our
two boats; carried them to the _Southern Cross_; whole Harper family
seated round our cabin, fourteen or fifteen happy faces. Went on
shore, borrowed trucks, pulled baggage up bridle path; three cheers on
the top.”
Bishop Harper was installed at once and Selwyn wrote:
“This day fifteen years I left England, and this morning I woke up
with a thankful feeling that my load was at length lightened by the
transfer to the Bishop of Christchurch of one-third of New Zealand.”
Both he and the colonists in the other provinces were impatient that the
remaining dioceses which had been fixed upon should be speedily
completed. Selwyn wrote:
“The number of persons to be confirmed is not the labour, but the
distance to be gone in search of them. My average is about one
candidate for confirmation for every mile of travelling. In all other
respects of organising institutions and giving a tone to a new
society, it is absolutely necessary that a bishop should be early in
the field and have a field within the compass of his powers.”
Selwyn’s care for the interests and needs of the colonists in New
Zealand never distracted him from the wider mission field amongst the
heathen, which was ever so dear to his heart. The arrival of Bishop
Harper was followed in a few months by the meeting of the Conference at
Auckland, which finally settled the constitution of the New Zealand
Church as described in the last chapter. Whilst Selwyn was busy with it,
Patteson made a voyage alone to take back the boys from the Islands, as
the New Zealand winter was coming on. The Conference over, Selwyn
started with Patteson for a long cruise in the Pacific, first leaving
Mrs. Selwyn at Norfolk Island to carry on her work amongst the
Pitcairners. A long and prosperous voyage followed during which many
islands were visited. In three there were urgent demands that they
should be given a teacher, but the Bishop had none to give. All that
could be done was, wherever possible, to persuade boys to come back with
him to be taught. Finally after a cruise of four months they returned to
Auckland bringing with them thirty-three Melanesians, gathered from nine
islands and speaking eight languages. They had visited sixty-six islands
and landed eighty-one times, wading and swimming; they had visited
amongst others, some islands where the London Missionary Society had
been at work, and where the native teachers had been left for a long
while without any English missionary. They now gladly turned to Bishop
Selwyn for advice and help. But nearly all the islands they visited were
still untouched by any missionary work. A second voyage was made that
year, and on that occasion, the _Southern Cross_ ran aground, in the
lagoon at New Caledonia. After many exertions she was got off the ledge
on which she had stuck, but it was impossible to be certain that her
bottom was uninjured. There were no divers to be got, but as one who was
present described the scene: “the Bishop was equal to the occasion. He
caused the ship to be heeled over as far as was safe; and then, having
stripped himself to his tweed trousers and jersey, in the presence of
the captain of the _Bayonnais_ (a French warship that was in the
harbour) and some of his officers, and amid their exclamations of
admiration, made a succession of dives, during which he felt over the
whole of the keel and forward part of the vessel, much to the detriment
of his hands, which were cut to pieces by the jagged copper; and
ascertained the exact condition of her bottom and the nature of the
injuries sustained. No wonder that the next day, after dining on board
the Frenchman, he was sent away with a salute of eleven guns.”
When this accident happened, the Bishop was on his way to call for
Patteson who had been left on the Island of Lifu with his scholars. Now
the _Southern Cross_ had to be taken to Auckland to be repaired and
contrary to his usual punctual habits, he was a month late in reaching
Lifu. There followed a rapid voyage back, picking up scholars by the way
till forty-seven were collected, amongst them three young married women
and two babies; with the crew there were sixty-three persons in the
little ship. Patteson writes:
“As you may suppose the little _Southern Cross_ is cram full, but the
Bishop’s excellent arrangements in the construction of the vessel for
securing ventilation, preserve us from harm by God’s blessing. Every
day a thorough cleaning and sweeping goes on and frequent washing, and
as all beds turn up like the flap of a table, and some thirty lads
sleep on the floor on mats and blankets, by 7 a.m. all traces of the
night’s arrangements have vanished. The cabin looks and feels airy;
meals go on regularly.... A vessel of this size unless arranged with
special reference to such objects, could not carry safely so large a
party, but we have nothing on board to create, conceal or accumulate
dirt.”
School and prayers were held regularly every day. Part of the Bishop’s
own cabin was screened off for the three women and two babies; and he
himself looked after them, washing the babies and tending the women when
sick.
Selwyn was grateful indeed that it was now possible happily to leave all
these new scholars at Auckland under Patteson’s care, for plenty of work
awaited him. He had to start off at once on a confirmation tour of one
thousand miles and then be at Wellington early in the coming year for
the meeting of the first Synod. The year, 1858, that was drawing to a
close, he described as “a year of many blessings. Two prosperous voyages
to the Islands, one prosperous voyage to the Southern Settlements,
one-third of the Visitation Tour by land accomplished, the consecration
of the Bishops of Wellington and Nelson.” These two, both consecrated in
England were old friends; his fellow worker, Archdeacon Abraham, had
been appointed Bishop of Wellington, and Rev. E. Hobhouse, Bishop of
Nelson.
In 1859, after the Synod was over, Selwyn made his last voyage to
Melanesia again in company with Patteson. They touched at Lifu where
they had before visited the native teachers belonging to the mission of
the London Missionary Society. These men, as they had not had an English
missionary among them for a long while, implored to be connected with
the Anglican Mission. But they were told that two missionaries from
L.M.S. were on their way from Sydney to Lifu, and that it would do harm
to have two rival systems on the island. Patteson writes:
“They acquiesced but not heartily, and it was a sad affair altogether,
all parties unhappy and dissatisfied and yet unable to solve the
difficulty.”
They called at Lifu again on their way back and found that the two
missionaries had arrived, but learned also that there were two French
Roman Catholic priests in the north of the island who were attracting
many to them. So again possibilities of true comity disappeared, and the
simple islanders were disturbed by the unhappy differences between
Christians.
After this voyage, Bishop Selwyn left to Patteson the whole guidance of
the Melanesian mission. He had served his apprenticeship under the
Bishop and gained a full knowledge of the nature of the work, and had
shown that he possessed the gifts necessary to carry it on, so that he
could be given full responsibility for what had been to Selwyn one of
the most delightful parts of his great work.
To Patteson it had meant much to begin his work in close association
with one whom he loved and admired as he did Bishop Selwyn. He still
looked constantly to him for help and support. He wrote to his father:
“Of course no treat is so great to me as the occasional talks with the
Bishop. Oh! the memory of those days and evenings on board the
_Southern Cross_. Well, it was so happy a life that it was not good
for me, I suppose, that it should last.”
It was not yet possible to move the school for the Melanesian boys to
Norfolk Island, but a more sheltered spot was found for it temporarily,
opposite to the entrance of Auckland harbour. St. John’s College was
reserved entirely for the sons of colonists. A new master, Rev. B.
Blackburn, had been found in England by Abraham who, as Archdeacon, had
been its head till he was appointed Bishop of Wellington. When Mr.
Blackburn was offered the post he accepted saying with what intense
pleasure he would work under as great a man as Bishop Selwyn. To which
Abraham answered: “he is a great man and would appear so to his valet if
he had one.” Blackburn was not disappointed when he first saw Selwyn on
arriving at Auckland. He described him as “a king every inch of him; he
would rule by a look, but stoop to perform the most menial office
without the slightest loss of dignity.” After helping to carry the
newcomer’s luggage from the ship, the Bishop suggested that they should
go to the chapel to give thanks for their safe voyage, and after a
little service of prayers and psalms laid his hands on each, down to the
baby in arms, giving them his blessing. Mr. Blackburn writes further:
“Bishop Selwyn had a love of work, and great power of endurance. I
have heard of his taking eight services in one day. When 10,000
soldiers were landed in New Zealand with only one chaplain (and he a
Roman Catholic) the Bishop felt it was his duty to provide for them:
he started a number of services and held Bible classes with the men.
The soldiers were enthusiastic about him. He knew exactly how to adapt
his language to them. It was amusing to hear the officers speak of
him. They not only admired him as a bishop, but they discovered in him
great power for taking in the details of military life. They used to
say that it was a shame he was not a general. The naval men were
equally enthusiastic about his seamen-like qualities. They all agreed
that he would have made a first rate admiral.”
In 1861, Patteson was consecrated first Bishop of Melanesia. Lady Martin
describes the consecration: “It was altogether a wonderful scene: the
three consecrating Bishops, all such noble-looking men, the goodly
company of clergy and Hohua’s fine intelligent brown face among them,
and the long line of island boys and of native teachers and their wives
were living testimonies of mission work.” To Selwyn, Patteson was like a
son, and in the sermon preached at his consecration he said, as he gazed
on one so dearly loved: “May Christ be with you when you go forth in His
name and for His sake to those poor and needy people.” The consecration
marked the final achievement of independence by the New Zealand Church.
So far no bishop had been appointed in the Church overseas except under
letters patent or under mandate from the Crown. If this necessity for
constant reference to government authority in England had continued, the
progress of the Church would have been subject to needless limitations.
Selwyn, always marked by wisdom and caution as well as by his zeal for
the development of the independent Church, after much anxious
consideration, suggested to the Colonial Secretary that the difficulty
about the appointment of a bishop would be got over if the New Zealand
bishops were allowed to exercise the powers inherent in their office, as
bishops of a distinct province of the Church, without any mandate from
the Crown. This was allowed, and henceforth the Church overseas was free
to develop on its own lines, without interference from the Colonial
Office and its legal advisers. Thus after nineteen years of work, the
Bishop who had been given the sole charge of New Zealand, and who had
started the mission to Melanesia, saw himself surrounded by five brother
bishops, with the missionary obligation of the Church to the Pacific
islands fully recognized, and entrusted to a man whom he loved as a son,
and who was specially gifted for this work.