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

With the year 1860 a new period, and one far more responsible and

eventful, began. After working for four years under Bishop Selwyn's

superintendence, Coleridge Patteson was gradually passing into a sphere

of more independent action; and, though his loyal allegiance to his

Primate was even more of the heart than of the letter, his time of

training was over; he was left to act more on his own judgment; and

things were ripening for his becoming himself a Bishop. He had nearly

completed his thirty-third year, and was in his fullest strength, mental

and bodily; and, as has been seen, the idea had already through Bishop

Selwyn's letters become familiar to his family, though he himself had

shrunk from entertaining it.

The first great change regarded the locality of the Melanesian school in

New Zealand. Repeated experience had shown that St. John's College was

too bleak for creatures used to basking under a vertical sun, and it

had been decided to remove to the sheltered landing-place at Kohimarama,

where buildings for the purpose had been commenced so as to be habitable

in time for the freight of 1859.

It should be explained, that the current expenses of the Mission had

been defrayed by the Eton and Sydney associations, with chance help

from persons privately interested, together with a grant of £200, and

afterwards £300 per annum from the Society for the Propagation of the

Gospel. The extra expense of this foundation was opportunely met by a

discovery on the part of Sir John Patteson, that his eldest son, living

upon the Merton Fellowship, had cost him £200 a year less than his

younger son, and therefore that, in his opinion, £800 was due to

Coleridge. Moreover, the earlier voyages, and, in especial the

characters of Siapo and Umao, had been so suggestive of incidents

fabricated in the 'Daisy Chain,' that the proceeds of the book were felt

to be the due of the Mission and at this time these had grown to such an

amount as to make up the sum needful for erecting such buildings as were

immediately requisite for the intended College.

These are described in the ensuing letter, which I give entire, because

the form of acknowledgment is the only style suitable to what, however

lightly acquired, was meant as an offering, even though it cost the

giver all too little:

'Kohimarama: Dec. 21, 1859.

'My dear Cousin,--I have received at length from my father a distinct

statement of what you have given to the Melanesian Mission. I had heard

rumours before, and the Bishop of Wellington had spoken to me of your

intentions, but the fact had not been regularly notified to us.

'I think I know you too well to say more than this. May God bless you

for what you have lent to Him, and give us, who are specially connected

with the Mission, grace to use your gift as you intend it to be used, to

His glory in the salvation of souls.

'But you will like to hear how your gift will be appropriated. For three

summers the Melanesian scholars lived at St. John's College, which is

situated on a low hill, from which the ground falls away on every side,

leaving it exposed to every wind that blows across and around the narrow

isthmus.

'Thank God, we had no death traceable to the effect of the climate,

but we had constant anxiety and a considerable amount of illness.

When arrangements were completed for the arrival of a new principal to

succeed the Bishop of Wellington, the college was no longer likely to be

available for the Mission school. Consequently, we determined to build

on the site long ago agreed upon; to put up some substantial buildings,

and to remove some of the wooden buildings at the College which would

not be required there, and set them up again at Kohimarama.

'Just opposite the entrance into the Auckland harbour, between the

island of Eangitoto with its double peak and the easternmost point of

the northern shore of the harbour, lies a very sheltered bay, with its

sea-frontage of rather more than a quarter of a mile, bounded to the

east, south, and west by low hills, which where they meet the sea become

sandy cliffs, fringed with the red-flower-bearing pohutakawa. The whole

of this bay, the seventy acres of flat rich soil included within the

rising ground mentioned, and some seventy acres more as yet lying

uncleared, adjoining the same block of seventy acres, and likely to be

very valuable, as the land is capital--the whole of this was bought by

the Bishop many years ago as the property of the Mission, and is the

only piece of Church land over which he retains the control, every other

bequest or gift to the amount of 14,000 acres, having been handed over

by him to the General Synod. This he retains till the state of the

Melanesian Mission is more definitely settled.

'On the west corner of this bay we determined to build. A small tide

creek runs for a short way about S.S.E. from the extreme end of the

western part of the beach, then turns early eastward, and meets a small

stream coming down from the southern hill at its western extremity. This

creek encloses a space extending along the whole width of the bay of

about eighteen or twenty acres.

'At the east end stand three wooden cottages, occupied by the master,

mate, and a married seaman of the "Southern Cross." At the west end

stands the Melanesian school. Fences divide the whole space into three

portions, whereof the western one forms our garden and orchard; and the

others pasture for cows and working bullocks; small gardens being also

fenced off for the three cottages. The fifty acres of flat land south of

the creek we are now clearing and ploughing.

'The situation here is admirably adapted for our school. Now that we

have a solid wall of the scoria from the volcanic island opposite, we

have a complete shelter from the cold south wind. The cliff and hill to

the west entirely shut off the wind from that quarter, and the north and

east winds are always warm. The soil is very dry, and the beach composed

exclusively of small "pipi" shells--small bivalves. So that by putting

many cart-loads of these under our wooden floors, and around our

buildings, we have so perfect a drainage that after heavy rain the soil

is quite dry again in a few hours. It causes me no anxiety now, when I

am for an hour away from my flock, to be thinking whether they are lying

on the ground, forgetting that the hot sun overhead does not destroy the

bad effect of a damp clay soil such as that at St. John's College.

'The buildings at present form three sides of a quadrangle, but the

south side is only partly filled up. The large schoolroom, eighty feet

long, with three sets of transepts, has been removed from the College,

and put up again so as to form the east side of the quadrangle. This

is of wood; so is the small wooden quadrangle which serves now for

dormitories, and a part of which I occupy; my house consisting of

three little rooms, together measuring seventeen feet by seven. These

dormitories are the southern side of the quadrangle, but do not reach

more than half-way from the east to the west side, room being left for

another set of dormitories of equal size, when we want them and

can afford them. The west side consists of a very nice set of stone

buildings, including a large kitchen, store room, and room for putting

things in daily and immediate use; and the hall, which is the northern

part of the side of the quadrangle, is a really handsome room, with

simple open roof and windows of a familiar collegiate appearance. These

buildings are of the dark grey scoria, almost imperishable I suppose,

and look very well. The hall is just long enough to take seven of us

at the high table (so to speak), and thirty-four at the long table,

stretching from the high table to the end of the room.

'At present this is used for school also, as the carpenters who

are making all our fittings, shelves, &c., are still in the large

schoolroom. We take off the north end of the schoolroom, including one

set of transepts for our temporary chapel. This part will be lined, i.e.

boarded, neatly inside. The rest of the building is very rough, but it

answers its purpose.

'In all the stone buildings, the rough stone is left inside just as

it is outside. It does not look bad at all to my eye, and I doubt if I

would have it lined if we had funds to pay for it.

'I hope eventually that stone buildings will take the place of the

present wooden schoolroom and dormitories; but this ought to last many

years. Here we live most happily and comfortably. The climate almost

tropical in summer. The beautiful scenery of the harbour before our

eyes, the smooth sea and clean dry beach within a stone's throw of my

window. The lads and young men have their fishing, bathing, boating,

and basking in the sun, which all day from sunrise to sunset beats right

upon us; for the west cliff does not project more than a few yards to

the north of us, and the eastern boundary is low and some way off. I see

the little schooner at her moorings whenever I look off my book or my

paper, and with an opera-glass can see the captain caulking the

decks. All is under my eye; and the lads daily say, "College too cold;

Kohimarama very good; all the same Bauro, Mota," as the speaker belongs

to one or other of our fourteen islands represented.... The moment we

heard of your gift, we said simultaneously, "Let it be given to this or

to some specific and definite object." I think you will like to feel

not only that the money came most opportunely, but that within the walls

built with that money, many many hundreds, I trust, of these Melanesian

islanders will be fed and taught, and trained up in the knowledge and

fear of God....

'Your affectionate Cousin,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Before the old year was out came the tidings of the death of good Miss

Neill, the governess whom Patteson had so faithfully loved from early

childhood, and whose years of suffering he had done his best to cheer.

'At rest at last.' In the same letter, in answer to some complaint from

his sister of want of detail in the reports, he says: 'Am I trying to

make my life commonplace? Well, really so it is more or less to me.

Things go on in a kind of routine. Two voyages a year, five months in

New Zealand, though certainly two-thirds of my flock fresh every year. I

suppose it still sounds strange to you sometimes, and to others always,

but they should try to think for themselves about our circumstances.

'And you know, Fan, I can't write for the world at large anecdotes of

missionary life, and swell the number of the "Gems" and other trashy

books. If people who care to know, would think of what their own

intuition tells them of human nature, and history tells them of

heathenism, they can make out some notion of real missionary work.

'The school is the real work. Teaching adults to read a strange tongue

is hard work; I have little doubt but that the Bishop is right in saying

they must be taught English; but it is so very difficult a language, not

spelt a bit as pronounced; and their language is all vocalic and so easy

to put into writing.

'But if you like I will scatter anecdotes about--of how the Bishop and

his chaplain took headers hand in hand off the schooner and roundhouse;

and how the Bishop got knocked over at Leper's Island by a big wave;

and how I borrowed a canoe at Tariko and paddled out yams as fast as the

Bishop brought them to our boat, &c.--but this is rubbish.'

This letter is an instance of the reserve and reticence which Mr.

Patteson felt so strongly with regard to his adventures and pupils.

He could not endure stories of them to become, as it were, stock for

exciting interest at home. There was something in his nature that shrank

from publishing accounts of individual pupils as a breach of confidence,

as much, or perhaps even more, than if they had been English people,

likely to know what had been done. Moreover, instances had come to his

knowledge in which harm had been done to both teachers and taught by

their becoming aware that they were shown off to the public in print.

Such things had happened even where they would have seemed not only

unlikely, but impossible; and this rendered him particularly cautious

in writing of his work, so that his reports were often dry, while he

insisted strongly on his letters to his family being kept private.

The actual undertakings of the Mission did not exceed its resources, so

that there was no need for those urgent appeals which call for sensation

and incident to back them; and thus there sometimes seemed to the

exterior world to be a lack of information about the Mission.

The letters of January 1860 show how the lads were fortified

against weather: 'They wear a long flannel waistcoat, then a kind of

jersey-shaped thing, with short trousers, reaching a little below the

knee, for they dabble about like ducks here, the sea being not a hundred

yards from the building. All the washing, of course, and most of the

clothes-making they can do themselves; I can cut out after a fashion,

and they take quickly to needle and thread; but now the Auckland ladies

have provided divers very nice garments, their Sunday dresses are very

nice indeed.'

The question of the Bishopric began to come forward. On the 18th of

January a letter to Sir John Patteson, after speaking of a playful

allusion which introduced the subject, details how Mrs. Selwyn had

disclosed that a letter had actually been despatched to the Duke of

Newcastle, then Colonial Secretary, asking permission to appoint and

consecrate John Coleridge Patteson as Missionary Bishop of the Western

Pacific Isles.

J.C.P.--'Well, then, I must say what I feel about it. I have known for

some time that this was not unlikely to come some day; but I never spoke

seriously to you or to the Martins when you insinuated these things,

because I thought if I took it up gravely it would come to be considered

a settled thing.'

Mrs. S.--'Well, so it has been, and is----'

J.C.P.--'But has the Bishop seriously thought of this, that he has had

no trial of any other man; that I could give any other man who may

come, perhaps, the full benefit of my knowledge of languages, and of my

acquaintance with the islands and the people, while we may reasonably

expect some one to come out before long far better fitted to organise

and lead men than I am? Has he fairly looked at all the per contra?

Mrs. S.--'I feel sure he has.'

J.C. P.--'I don't deny that my father tells me I must not shrink from

it; that some things seem to point to it as natural; that I must not

venture to think that I can be as complete a judge as the Bishop of what

is good for Melanesia--but what necessity for acting now?'

Here came an interruption, but the conversation was renewed later in

the day with the Bishop himself, when Patteson pleaded for delay on

the score that the isles were as yet in a state in which a missionary

chaplain could do all that was requisite, and that the real management

ought not to be withdrawn from the Bishop; to which the reply was

that at the present time the Bishop could do much to secure such

an appointment as he wished; but, in case of his death, even wishes

expressed in writing might be disregarded. After this, the outpouring to

the father continues:--

'I don't mean to shrink from this. You tell me that I ought not to do

so, and I quite believe it. I know that no one can judge better than you

can as to the general question, and the Bishop is as competent to decide

on the special requirements of the case.

'But, my dear father, you can hardly tell how difficult I find it to

be, amidst all the multiplicity of works, a man of devotional prayerful

habits; how I find from time to time that I wake up to the fact that

while I am doing more than I did in old times, yet that I pray less. How

often I think that "God gives" habitually to the Bishop "all that sail

with him;" that the work is prospering in his hands; but will it prosper

in mine? I know He can use any instrument to His glory: I know that,

and that He will not let my sins and shortcomings hinder His projects of

love and blessing to these Melanesian islanders; but as far as purity

of motive, and a spirit of prayer and self-denial do go for anything in

making up the qualification on the human side for such an office--in so

far, do they exist in me? You will say I am over sensitive and expect

too much. That, I think, very likely may be true. It is useless to wait

till one becomes really fit, for that of course I never shall be.

But while I believe most entirely that grace does now supply all our

deficiencies when we seek it fully, I do feel frightened when I see that

I do not become more prayerful, more real in communion with God. This

is what I must pray for earnestly: to become more prayerful, more

constantly impressed with the necessity of seeking for everything from

Him.

'You all think that absence from relations, living upon yams, want of

the same kind of meat and drink that I had at home, that these things

are proofs of sincerity, &c. I believe that they all mean just nothing

when the practical result does not come to this--that a man is walking

more closely with his God. I dare not say that I can feel humbly and

reverently that my inner life is progressing. I don't think that I am

as earnest in prayer as I was. Whether it be the effect of the amount

of work distracting me; or, sometimes, of physical weariness, or of the

self-indulgence (laugh as you may) which results from my never being

contradicted or interfered with, or much worried, still I do feel this;

and may He strengthen me to pray more for a spirit of prayer.

'I don't know that the actual time for my being consecrated, if I live,

is nearer by reason of this letter: I think it most probable that it may

take place when the General Synod meets, and, consequently, five bishops

will be present, in 1862, at Nelson. But I suppose it is more fixed than

it has been hitherto, and if the Bishop writes to you, as he may do,

even more plainly than he speaks to me, you will know what especially to

ask for me from God, and all you dear ones will recollect daily how I do

inwardly tremble at the thoughts of what is to come. Do you remember how

strangely I was upset before leaving home for my ordination as a deacon;

and now it is coming to this--a church to be planted, organised, edified

among the wild heathen inhabitants of Melanesia; and what hope can there

be for me if there is to be no growth of a fervent, thankful, humble

spirit of prayer and love and adoration? Not that, as I feel to my great

comfort, God's work is dependent upon the individual growth in grace

even of those who are entrusted with any given work; but it is in some

way connected with it.

'And yet, the upshot of it all is that I shall do (D.V.) what the Bishop

tells me is right. I hope he won't press on the matter, but I am content

now to leave it with him, knowing what you have said, and being so

thankful to leave it with you and him.'

There is a letter to his sister Fanny of the same date, beginning

merrily about the family expostulation on receiving a box of reports

where curiosities had been expected:--

'Fancy not thinking your worthy brother's important publications the

most satisfactory treasures that any box could contain! The author's

feelings are seriously injured! What are Melanesian shells to Melanesian

statistics, and Lifu spears to a dissertation on the treatment of Lifu

diseases? Great is the ingratitude of the houses of Feniton and Dawlish!

'Well, it must have been rather a "sell," as at Eton it is called, to

have seen the long-desired and highly-paid-for box disgorge nought but

Melanesian reports! all thanks to Mrs. Martin, who packed it after I was

off to the Islands.

'I cannot send you anything yet, but I will bear in mind the fact that

reports by themselves are not considered satisfactory. Does anybody read

them, after all? for they really cost me some days' trouble, which I

can't find time for again. This year's report (for I suppose there must

be one) is not begun, and I don't know what to put in it. I have but

little news beyond what I have written once for all to Father.

'The decisive letter from the Bishop of New Zealand to the Duke of

Newcastle is in the Governor's hands, and all discussion of the question

is at an end. May God bring out of it all that may conduce to His glory;

but how I dread what is to come, you, who remember my leaving home first

for my deacon's ordination, can well imagine.

'It is true I have seen this coming for a year or two, and have seen

no way of preventing its coming upon me--no one else has come out; the

Bishop feels he cannot work his present diocese and Melanesia: he is

satisfied that he ought to take New Zealand rather than the islands;

that the time is come for settling the matter while he is able to settle

it; and I had nothing to say, for all personal objections he overruled.

So then, if I live, it is settled; and that, at all events, is a

comfort.... Many of my Melanesians have heavy coughs--some twelve, but I

don't think any of them seriously ill, only needing to be watched. I

am very well, only I want some more exercise (which, by the bye, it is

always in my power to take), and am quite as much disposed as ever to

wish for a good game at tennis or fives to take it out of me.

'Your loving Brother,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

The birthday letter of February 11 is a happy one, though chiefly taken

up with the business matters respecting the money required for the

Mission, of which Sir John was one trustee. Life was pleasant then, for

Patteson says:--

'I do feel sometimes that the living alone has its temptations, and

those great ones; I mean that I can arrange everything--my work, my

hours, my whole life--after my own pleasure a great deal more than

probably is good for me; and it is very easy to become, in a manner,

very self-indulgent. I think that most likely, as our work (D.V.)

progresses, one or two men may be living with me, and that will supply a

check upon me of some kind. At present I am too much without it. Here

I am in my cosy little room, after my delicious breakfast of perfect

coffee, made in Jem's contrivance, hot milk and plenty of it, dry

toast and potato. Missionary hardships! On the grass between me and the

beach--a distance of some seventy yards--lie the boys' canvas beds and

blankets and rugs, having a good airing. The schooner lies at anchor

beyond; and, three or four miles beyond the schooner, lies Eangitoto,

the great natural breakwater to the harbour. With my Dollond's

opera-glass that you gave me, I can see the master and mate at their

work refitting. Everything is under my eye. Our long boat and whale boat

(so-called from their shapes) lie on the beach, covered with old sails

to protect them from the sun. The lads are washing clothes, or

scrubbing their rooms, and all the rooms--kitchen, hall, store-room,

and school-room. There is a good south-western breeze stirring--our cold

wind; but it is shut off here, and scarcely reaches us, and the sun has

great power.

'I have the jolliest little fellows this time--about seven of

them--fellows scarcely too big to take on my knee, and talk to about

God, and Heaven, and Jesus Christ; and I feel almost as if I had a kind

of instinct of love towards them, as they look up wonderingly with their

deep deep eyes, and smooth and glossy skins, and warm soft cheeks, and

ask their simple questions. I wish you could have seen the twenty Banks

Islanders as I told them that most excellent of all tales--the story

of Joseph. How their eyes glistened! and they pushed out their heads to

hear the sequel of his making himself known to his brethren, and asking

once more about "the old man of whom ye spake, is he yet alive?"

'I can never read it with a steady voice, nor tell it either.'

Sir John had thus replied to the tirade against English conventional

luxury:--

'The conventional notions in this old country are not always suited to

your country, and I quite agree that even here they are carried too far.

Yet there are other people than the needy whose souls are entrusted to

the clergy here, and in order to fulfil that trust they must mix on some

degree of equality with the gentry, and with the middle classes who are

well-to-do. Then again, consider both as to clergy and laity here. If

they were all to lower themselves a peg or two, and give up many not

only luxuries, but comforts, numbers of tradesmen, and others working

under them, aye, even merchants, manufacturers, and commercial men of

all sorts, would be to some extent thrown out of employ. The artificial

and even luxurious state of society here does really prevent many

persons from falling into the class of the needy. All this should

be regulated in its due proportion. Every man ought so to limit his

expenses as to have a good margin for charitable purposes of all sorts,

but I cannot think that he is doing good by living himself like a pauper

in order to assist paupers. If all men did so, labour of all kinds would

be overstocked with hands, and more paupers created. True it is, that

we all are too apt as means increase, some to set our hearts upon them,

which is wickedness; some to indulge in over much luxury, which is

wicked also; there should be moderation in all things. I believe that

more money is given in private charities of various kinds in helping

those who are struggling with small means, and yet not apparently in

the class of the needy, than the world is aware of; and those who do the

most are precisely those who are never heard of. But do not mistake me.

I am no advocate for luxury and idle expenditure. Yet I think you carry

your argument a little farther than is just. The impositions that are

practised, or attempted to be practised, upon charitable people are

beyond all conception.' The following is the answer:--

'April 23, 1860.

'My dearest Father,--Thank you for writing your views about luxuries,

extravagant expenditure, and the like. I see at once the truth of what

you say.

'What I really mean is something of this kind. A high degree of

civilisation seems to generate (perhaps necessarily) a state of society

wherein the natural desires of people to gratify their inclinations

in all directions, conjoined with the power of paying highly for the

gratification of such inclinations, tends to call forth the ingenuity of

the working class in meeting such inclinations in all agreeable ways. So

springs up a complicated mechanism, by which a habit of life altogether

unnecessary for health and security of life and property is introduced

and becomes naturalised among a people.

If this is the necessary consequence of the distinction between rich and

poor, and the course of civilisation must result in luxury and poverty

among the two classes respectively (and this seems to be so), it is,

of course, still more evident that the state of society being once

established gradually, through a long course of years, no change can

subsequently be introduced excepting in one way. It is still in the

power of individuals to act upon the community by their example--e.g.,

the early Christians, though only for a short time, showed the result

of the practical acceptance of the Lord's teaching in its effect upon

society. Rich and poor, comparatively speaking, met each other half way.

The rich man sold his possessions, and equal distribution was made to

the poor.

'All that I contend for is that, seeing the fearful deterioration, and

no less fearful extravagance, of a civilised country, the evil is one

which calls loudly for careful investigation. Thousands of artisans

and labourers who contribute nothing to the substantial wealth of the

country, and nothing towards the production of its means of subsistence,

would be thrown out of employment, and therefore that plan would be

wrong. Jewellers, &c., &c., all kinds of fellows who simply manufacture

vanities, are just as honest and good men as others, and it is not their

fault, but the fault (if it be one at all) of civilisation that

they exist. But I don't see why, the evil being recognised, some

comprehensive scheme of colonisation might not be adopted by the rulers

of a Christian land, to empty our poor-houses, and draft off the surplus

population, giving to the utterly destitute the prospect of health,

and renewed hopes of success in another thinly-inhabited country, and

securing for those who remain behind a more liberal remuneration for

their work by the comparative absence of competition.

'I hardly know what to write to you, my dear Father, about this new

symptom of illness. I suppose, from what you say, that at your time

of life the disease being so mild in its form now, will hardly prove

dangerous to you, especially as you submit at once to a strictness of

diet which must be pretty hard to follow out--just the habit of a whole

life to be given up; and I know that to forego anything that I like, in

matters of eating and drinking, wants an effort that I feel ashamed of

being obliged to make. I don't, therefore, make myself unnecessarily

anxious, though I can't help feeling that such a discipline must be

hard. You say that in other respects you are much the same; but that

means that you are in almost constant pain, and that you cannot obtain

entire relief from it, except in bed.

'Still, my dear Father, as you do bear it all, how can we wish that God

should spare you one trial or infirmity, which, we know, are, in His

providence, making you daily riper and riper for Heaven? I ought not

to write to you like this, but somehow the idea of our ever meeting

anywhere else has so entirely passed from my mind, that I try to view

things with reference to His ultimate purpose and work.

'Your loving and dutiful Son,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

The most present trouble of this summer was the sickness of Simeona. The

account of him on Ash Wednesday is: 'He is dying of consumption slowly,

and may go back with us two months hence, but I doubt it. Poor fellow,

he makes the worst of his case, and is often discontented and thinks

himself aggrieved because we cannot derange the whole plan of the school

economy for him. I have everything which is good for him, every little

dainty, and everyone is most kind; but when it comes to a complaint

because one pupil-teacher is not set apart to sit with him all day, and

another to catch him fish, of course I tell him that it would be wrong

to grant what is so unreasonable. Some one or other of the most stupid

of the boys catches his fish just as well as a pupil-teacher, and he is

quite able to sit up and read for two or three hours a day, and would

only be injured by having another lad in the room on purpose to be the

receptacle of all his moans and complaints, yet I know, poor fellow! it

is much owing to the disease upon him.'

In spite of his fretfulness and exactions, the young man, meeting not

with spoiling, but with true kindness, responded to the touch. Lady

Martin tells us: 'I shall never forget dear Mr. Patteson's thankfulness

when, after a long season of reserve, he opened his heart to him, and

told him how, step by step, this sinfulness of sin had been brought home

to him. He knew he had done wrong in his heathen boyhood, but had put

away such deeds when he was baptized, and had almost forgotten the past,

or looked on it as part of heathenism. But in his illness, tended daily

and hourly by our dear friend, his conscience had become very tender. He

died in great peace.'

His death is mentioned in the following letter to Sir John Coleridge:--

'March 26, 1860. '(This day 5 years I left home. It was a Black Monday

indeed.)

'My dear Uncle,--At three this morning died one of my old scholars,

by name George Selwyn Simeona, from Nengone. He was here for his third

time; for two years a regular communicant, having received a good deal

of teaching before I knew him. He was baptized three years ago. I did

not wish to bring him this time, for it was evident that he could not

live long when we met last at Nengone, and I told him that he had better

not come with us; but he said, "Heaven was no farther from New Zealand

than from Nengone;" and when we had pulled some little way from shore,

he ran down the beach, and made us return to take him in. Gradual

decline and chronic bronchitis wore him to a skeleton. On Thursday the

Bishop and I administered the Holy Eucharist to him; and he died at 3

A.M. to-day, with his hand in mine, as I was in the act of commending

his soul to God. His wife, a sweet good girl, one of Mrs. Selwyn's

pupils from Nengone in old times, died last year. They leave one boy of

three years, whom I hope to get hold of entirely, and as it were adopt

him.

'The clear bright moon was right over my head as after a while, and

after prayer with his friends, I left his room; the quiet splash of

the tiny waves on our sheltered shore, and the little schooner at

her anchorage: and I thanked God that one more spirit from among the

Melanesian islanders was gone to dwell, we trust, with JESUS CHRIST in

Paradise.

'He will not be much missed in the Melanesian school work, for, for

months, he could not make one of us....

'I find Trench's Notes on the Authorised Version of the New Testament

very useful, chiefly as helping one to acquire a habit of accurate

criticism for oneself, and when we come (D.V.) to translate any portion

of the Scriptures, of course such books are very valuable.'

'Last mail brought me but a very few letters. The account of my dear

Father's being obliged to submit to discipline did not alarm me, though

I know the nature of the disease, and that his father died of it. It

seems in his case likely to be kept under, but (as I have said before) I

cannot feel uneasy and anxious about him, be the accounts what they may.

It is partly selfish, for I am spared the sight of his suffering, but

then I do long for a look at his dear face and for the sound of his

voice. Five years of absence has of course made so much change in my

mind in this respect, that I do not now find myself dreaming of home,

constantly thinking of it; the first freshness of my loss is not felt

now. But I think I love them all and you all better than ever; and I

trust that I am looking inward on the whole to the blessedness of our

meeting hereafter.

'But this work has its peculiar dangers. A man may become so

familiarised with the habits of the heathen that insensibly his

conscience becomes less sensitive.

'There is a danger in living in the midst of utter lawlessness and

violence; and though the blessings and privileges far excel the

disadvantages, yet it is not in every way calculated to help one

forward, as I think I have in some ways found by experience.

'Well, this is all dull and dry. But our life is somewhat monotonous on

shore, varied only by the details of incidents occurring in school,

and witnessing to the growth of the minds of my flock. They are a very

intelligent set this year, and there are many hopeful ones among them.

We have worked them hard at English, and all can read a little; and some

eight or ten really read nicely, but then they do not understand nearly

all they read without an explanation, just like an English boy

beginning his knowledge of letters with Latin (or French, a still spoken

language).

'In about a month we shall (D.V.) start to take them back; but the

vessel will be absent but a short time, as I shall keep the Solomon

Islanders with me in the Banks Archipelago for the winter, and so avoid

the necessity of the schooner running 200 or 300 miles to leeward and

having to make it up again. I have slept ashore twice in the Banks

Islands, but no other white man has done so, and that makes our course

very clear, as they have none of the injuries usually committed by

traders, &c., to revenge.

'Good-bye once more, my dearest Uncle,

'Your affectionate and grateful Nephew,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

The calmness of mind respecting his father which is here spoken of was

not perpetual, and his grief broke out at times in talks with his young

friend and companion, Mr. Dudley, as appears by this extract:--

'I remember his talking to me more than once on the subject of his

father, and especially his remarking on one occasion that his friends

were pressing him to come out there oftener, and suggesting, when

he seemed out of health and spirits, that he was not taking care of

himself; but that it was the anguish he endured, as night after night he

lay awake thinking of his father gradually sinking and craving for him,

and cheerfully resigning him, that really told upon him. I know that I

obtained then a glimpse of an affection and a depth of sorrow such as

perfectly awed me, and I do not think I have witnessed anything like it

at all, either before or since. It was then that he seemed to enter into

the full meaning of those words of our Lord, in St. Mark x. 29-30, i.e.,

into all that the "leaving" there spoken of involved.'

Yet in spite of this anxiety there was no flinching from the three

months' residence at Mota, entirely out of reach of letters. A frame

house, with planks for the floor, was prepared at Auckland to be taken

out, and a stock of wine, provisions, and medicines laid in. The Rev.

B. Y. Ashwell, a New Zealand clergyman, joined the Mission party as a

guest, with two Maori youths, one the son of a deacon; and, besides Mr.

Dudley, another pupil, Mr. Thomas Kerr, was beginning his training for

service in the Mission. Sailing on one of the last days of April, there

was a long passage to Nengone, where the party went ashore, and found

everything in trouble, the French constantly expected, and the chiefs

entreating for a missionary from the Bishop, and no possibility of

supplying them. Lifu was rendered inaccessible by foul winds.

'Much to my sorrow,' writes Mr. Patteson, 'I could not land my two

pupil-teachers, who, of course, wished to see their friends, and who

made me more desirous to give them a run on shore, by saying at once:

"Don't think of us, it is not safe to go." But I thought of what my

feelings would be if it were the Devonshire coast, somewhere about

Sidmouth, and no landing!' However, they, as well as the three

Nengonese, Wadrokala, Harper Malo, and Martin Tahia, went on

contentedly.

'Off Mai, May 19th.--Mr. Kerr has been busy taking bearings, &c., for

the purpose of improving our MS. chart, and constructing a new one.

Commodore Loring wanted me to tell him all about Port Patteson, and

asked me if I wished a man-of-war to be sent down this winter to see me,

supposing the New Zealand troubles to be all over. I gave him all the

information he wanted, told him that I did not want a vessel to come

with the idea of any protection being required, but that a man-of-war

coming with the intention of supporting the Mission, and giving help,

and not coming to treat the natives in an off-hand manner, might do

good. I did not speak coldly; but really I fear what mischief even a

few wildish fellows might do on shore among such people as those of the

Banks Islands!

'A fore-and-aft schooner in sight! Probably some trader. May be a

schooner which I heard the French had brought for missionary purposes.

What if we find a priest or two at Port Patteson! However, my course is

clear any way: work straight on.

'May 21st.--Schooner a false alarm. We had a very interesting visit on

Saturday afternoon at Mai. We could not land till 4 P.M.; walked at once

to the village, a mile and a half inland. After some excitement caused

by our appearance, the people rushing to welcome us, we got them to be

quiet, and to sit down. I stood up, and gave them a sermonette, then

made Dudley, who speaks good Mai, say something. Then we knelt down, and

I said the second Good Friday Collect, inserted a few petitions which

you can imagine anyone would do at such a time, then a simple prayer in

their language, the Lord's Prayer in English, and the Grace.'

On Friday Mota was reached, and the people showed great delight when

the frame of the house was landed at the site purchased for a number

of hatchets and other goods, so that it is the absolute property of

the Mission. Saturday was spent in a visit to Port Patteson, where the

people thronged, while the water-casks were being filled, and bamboos

cut down, with entreaties that the station might be there; and the

mosquitoes thronged too--Mr. Patteson had fifty-eight bites on one foot.

On Whit Sunday, after Holy Communion on board, the party went on shore,

and prayed for, 'I cannot say with the people of Vanua Lava.'

And on Whit Monday the house was set up 'in a most lovely spot,' says

Mr. Dudley, 'beneath the shade of a gigantic banyan tree, the trunk and

one long horizontal branch of which formed two sides of as beautiful

a picture as you would wish to look upon; the sloping bank, with

its cocoa-nut, bread-fruit, and other trees, forming the base of the

picture; and the coral beach, the deep, clear, blue tropical ocean, with

others of the Banks Islands, Valua, Matlavo, and Uvaparapara, in the

distance, forming the picture itself.'

At least a hundred natives came to help, pulling down materials from

their own houses to make the roof, and delighted to obtain a bit of

iron, or still better of broken glass, to shave with. In the afternoon,

the master of the said house, using a box for a desk, wrote: 'Our little

house will, I think, be finished to-night; anyhow we can sleep in it,

if the walls are but half ready; they are merely bamboo canes tied

together. We sleep on the floor boarded and well raised on poles, two

feet and more from the ground--beds are superfluous here.'

Here then was the first stake of the Church's tabernacle planted in all

Melanesia!

The boards of the floor had been brought from New Zealand, the heavy

posts on which the plates were laid were cut in Vanua Lava, and the

thatch was of cocoa-nut leaves, the leaflets ingeniously bound together,

native fashion, and quite waterproof; but a mat or piece of canvas had

to be nailed within the bamboo walls to keep out the rain.

On Wednesday a short service was held, the first ever known in Mota;

and then Mr. Ashwell and Mr. Kerr embarked, leaving Mr. Patteson and Mr.

Dudley with their twelve pupils in possession. Mr. Dudley had skill to

turn their resources to advantage. Space was gained below by making a

frame, to which knapsacks, bags, &c., could be hung up, and the floor

was only occupied by the four boxes, which did the further part of

tables, desks, and chairs in turn. As to beds, was not the whole floor

before them? and, observes the Journal: 'Now I see the advantage of

having brought planks from New Zealand to make a floor. We all had

something level to lie on at night, and when you are tired enough, a

good smooth plank or a box does just as well as a mattress.'

Fresh water was half a mile off, and had to be fetched in bamboos; but

this was a great improvement upon Lifu, where there was none at all; and

a store of it was always kept in four twenty-gallon casks, three on the

beach, and one close to the house.

The place was regularly purchased:--

'June 8th.--I have just bought for the Mission this small clearing of

half an acre, and the two acres (say) leading to the sea, with twenty or

more bread-fruits on it. There was a long talk with the people, and some

difficulty in finding out the real proprietors, but I think we arranged

matters really well at last. You would have been amused at the solemnity

with which I conducted the proceeding: making a great show of writing

down their names, and bringing each one of the owners up in their turn

to see his name put down, and making him touch my pen as I put a cross

against his name. Having spent about an hour in enquiring whether any

other person had any claim on the land or trees, I then said, "Now this

all belongs to me," and they assented. I entered it in my books--"On

behalf of the Melanesian Mission," but they could only understand that

the land belonged to the Bishop and me, because we wanted a place where

some people might live, who should be placed by the Bishop to teach

them. Of course the proceeding has no real validity, but I think they

will observe the contract: not quite the same thing as the transfer of

land in the old country! Here about 120 men, quite naked, represented

the interests of the late owners, and Dudley and I represented the

Mission.'

The days were thus laid out--Morning school in the village, first with

the regular scholars, then with any one who liked to come in; and then,

when the weather permitted, a visit to some village, sometimes walking

all round, a circuit of ten miles, but generally each of the two taking

a separate village, talking to the people, teaching them from cards, and

encouraging interrogatories. Mr. Patteson always had such an attraction

for them that they would throng round him eagerly wherever he went.

The Mota people had a certain faith of their own; they believed in

a supreme god called Ikpat, who had many brothers, one of whom was

something like Loki, in the Northern mythology, always tricking him.

Ikpat had disappeared in a ship, taking the best of everything with him.

It was also believed that the spirits of the dead survived and ranged

about at night, maddening all who chanced to meet them; and, like many

other darkly coloured people, the Motans had begun by supposing their

white visitors to be the ghosts of their deceased friends come to

revisit them.

There were a good many other superstitions besides; and a ceremony

connected with one of them was going on the second week of the residence

at Mota--apparently a sort of freemasonry, into which all boys of a

certain age were to be initiated.

The Journal says:--

'There is some strange superstitious ceremony going on at this village.

A space had been enclosed by a high hedge, and some eighteen or nineteen

youths are spending a month or more inside the fence, in a house where

they lie wrapped up in mats, abundantly supplied with food by the

people, who, from time to time, assemble to sing or perform divers

rites. I had a good deal of trouble with the father of our second year's

pupil Tagalana, who insisted upon sending his son thither. I warned

him against the consequences of hindering his son, who wished to follow

Christ. He yielded, because he was evidently afraid of me, but not

convinced, as I have no right to expect he should be.

'The next morning comes an old fellow, and plants a red-flowering branch

in our small clearing, whereupon our Mota boys go away, not wishing to

go, but not daring to stay. No people came near us, but by-and-by comes

the man who had planted it, with whom I had much talk, which ended in

his pulling up and throwing away the branch, and in the return of our

boys.

'In the evening many people came, to whom I spoke very plainly about the

necessity of abandoning these customs if they were in earnest in saying

they wished to embrace the Word of God. On Sunday they gave up their

singing at the enclosure, or only attempted it in a very small way.

'June 6th.--I am just returned from a village a mile and a half off,

called Tasmate, where one of their religious ceremonies took place this

morning. The village contains upwards of twenty houses, built at

the edge of the bush, which consists here almost exclusively of

fruit-bearing trees--cocoa-nut trees, bananas, bread-fruit, and large

almond trefts are everywhere the most conspicuous. The sea view looking

south is very beautiful.

'I walked thither alone, having heard that a feast was to be held there.

As I came close to the spot, I heard the hum of many voices, and the

dull, booming sound of the native drum, which is nothing but a large

hollow tree, of circular shape, struck by wooden mallets. Some few

people ran off as I appeared, but many of them had seen me before. The

women, about thirty in number, were sitting on the ground together, in

front of one of the houses, which enclosed an open air circular space;

in front of another house were many children and young people. In the

long narrow house which forms the general cooking and lounging room of

the men of each village, and the sleeping room of the bachelors, were

many people preparing large messes of grated yam and cocoa-nut in flat

wooden dishes. At the long oblong-shaped drum sat the performers, two

young men, each with two short sticks to perform the kettledrum part

of the business, and an older man in the centre, whose art consisted in

bringing out deep, hollow tones from his wooden instrument. Around them

stood some thirty men, two of whom I noticed especially, decked out with

red leaves, and feathers in their hair. Near this party, and close to

the long, narrow house in the end of which I stood, was a newly raised

platform of earth, supported on stones. On the corner stone were laid

six or eight pigs' jaws, with the large curling tusks left in them. This

was a sacred stone. In front of the platform were three poles, covered

with flowers, red leaves, &c.

'For about an hour and a half the men at or around the drum kept up an

almost incessant shouting, screaming and whistling, moving their legs

and arms in time, not with any wild gesticulations, but occasionally

with some little violence, the drum all the time being struck

incessantly. About the middle of the ceremony, an old, tall, thin man,

with a red handkerchief, our gift at some time, round his waist, began

ambling round the space in the middle of the houses, carrying a boar's

skull in his hand. This performance he repeated three times. Then a

man jumped up upon the platform, and, moving quickly about on it and

gesticulating wildly, delivered a short speech, after which the drum was

beat louder than ever; then came another speech from the same man; and

then the rain evidently hastening matters to a conclusion to the

whole thing, without any ceremony of consecrating the stone, as I had

expected.

'In the long room afterwards I had the opportunity of saying quietly

what I had said to those about me during the ceremony: the same story of

the love of God, especially manifested in JESUS CHRIST, to turn men from

darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. With what

power that verse speaks to one while witnessing such an exhibition of

ignorance, or fear, or superstition as I have seen to-day! And through

it all I was constantly thinking upon the earnestness with which these

poor souls follow out a mistaken notion of religion. Such rain as fell

this morning would have kept a whole English congregation from going to

church, but they never sought shelter nor desisted from their work

in hand; and the physical effect was really great, the perspiration

streamed down their bodies, and the learning by heart all the songs

and the complicated parts of the ceremony implied a good deal of pains.

Christians do not always take so much pains to fulfil scrupulously their

duties as sometimes these heathens do. And, indeed, their bondage is

a hard one, constant suspicion and fear whenever they think at all.

Everything that is not connected with the animal part of our nature

seems to be the prey of dark and gloomy superstitions; the spiritual

part is altogether inactive as an instrument of comfort, joy, peace

and hope. You can imagine that I prayed earnestly for these poor souls,

actually performing before me their strange mysteries, and that I spoke

earnestly and strongly afterwards.

'The argument with those who would listen was: What good comes of all

this? What has the spirit you call Ikpat ever done for you? Has he

taught you to clothe yourselves, build houses, &c.? Does he offer to

make you happy? Can you tell me what single good thing has come from

these customs? But if you ask me what good thing has come to us from the

Word of God, first you had better let me tell you what has happened in

England of old, in New Zealand, Nengone, or Lifu, then I will tell you

what the Word of God teaches;--and these with the great outline of the

Faith.'

Every village in the island had the platforms, poles, and flowers; and

the next day, at a turn in the path near a village, the Mission party

suddenly came upon four sticks planted in a row, two of them bearing

things like one-eyed masks; two others, like mitres, painted red, black,

and white. As far as could be made out, they were placed there as a

sort of defiance to the inhabitants; but Mr. Patteson took down one,

and declared his intention of buying them for fish-hooks, to take to New

Zealand, that the people might see their dark and foolish customs!

Some effect had already been produced, the people declared that there

had been much less of fighting since the missionaries had spoken to them

eighteen months back, and they had given up some of the charms by which

they used to destroy each other; but there was still much carrying of

bows; and on the way home from this expedition, Mr. Patteson suddenly

came on six men with bows bent and arrows pointed in his direction. He

at once recognised a man from Veverao, the next village to the station,

and called out 'All right!' It proved that a report had come of his

being attacked or killed on the other side of the island, and that they

had set out to defend or avenge him.

He received his champions with reproof:--'This is the very thing I told

you not to do. It is all your foolish jealousy and suspicion of them.

There is not a man on the island who is not friendly to me! And if they

were not friendly, what business have you with your bows and arrows? I

tell you once more, if I see you take your bows again, though you may

do it as you think with a good intention towards me, I will not stay at

your village. If you want to help me, receive the Word of God, abandon

your senseless ceremonies. That will be helping me indeed!'

'Cannot you live at peace in this little bit of an island?' was the

constant theme of these lectures; and when Wompas, his old scholar,

appeared with bow and arrows, saying, I am sent to defend you,' the

answer was, 'Don't talk such nonsense! Give me the bow!' This was done,

and Patteson was putting it across his knee to break it, when the youth

declared it was not his. 'If I see these things again, you know what

will become of them!'

The mitres and masks were gone; but the Veverao people were desperately

jealous of the next village, Auta, alleging that the inhabitants were

unfriendly, and by every means trying to keep the guest entirely to

themselves; while he resolutely forced on their reluctant ears, 'If

you are sincere in saying that you wish to know God, you must love your

brother. God will not dwell in a divided heart, nor teach you His truth

while you wilfully continue to hate your brother!'

The St. Barnabas Day on which most of this was written was a notable

one, for it was marked by the first administration of both the

Sacraments in Mota. In the morning one English and four Nengonese

communicants knelt round their pastor; and, in the evening, after a

walk to Auta, and much of this preaching of peace and goodwill, then a

dinner, which was made festive with preserved meat and wine, there came

a message from one Ivepapeu, a leading man, whose child was sick. It was

evidently dying, and Mr. Patteson, in the midst of the people, told them

that--

'The Son of God had commanded us to teach and baptize all nations; that

they did not understand the meaning of what he was about to do, but that

the word of JESUS the Son of God was plain, and that he must obey it;

that this was not a mere form, but a real gift from heaven, not for the

body but the soul; that the child would be as likely to die as before,

but that its spirit would be taken to God, and if it should recover, it

must be set apart for God, not taken to any heathen rites, but given

to himself to be trained up as a child of God.' The parents consented:

'Then,' he continues, 'we knelt, and in the middle of the village, the

naked group around me, the dying child in its mother's lap, I prayed to

God and Christ in their language to bless the child according to His

own promise, to receive it for His own child, and to convey to it the

fulness of the blessing of His holy Sacrament. Then while all were

silent, I poured the water on its head, pronouncing the form of words

in English, and calling the child John, the first Christian child in the

Banks Islands. Then I knelt down again and praised God for His goodness,

and prayed that the child might live, if it were His good pleasure, and

be educated to His glory; and then I prayed for those around me and for

the people of the island, that God would reveal to them His Holy Name

and Word and Will; and so, with a few words to the parents and people,

left them, as darkness settled down on the village and the bright stars

came out overhead.'

The innocent first-fruits of Mota died three days later, and Mr.

Patteson found a great howling and wailing going on over its little

grave under a long low house. This was hushed when he came up, and spoke

of the Resurrection, and described the babe's soul dwelling in peace in

the Kingdom of the Father, where those would join it who would believe

and repent, cast away their evil practices, and be baptized to live

as children of God. Kneeling down, he prayed over it, thanking God

for having taken it to Himself, and interceding for all around. They

listened and seemed touched; no opposition was ever offered to him,

but he found that there was much fighting and quarrelling, many of the

villages at war with each other, and a great deal too much use of the

bow and arrow, though the whole race was free from cannibalism. They

seemed to want to halt between two opinions: to keep up their orgies on

the one hand, and to make much of the white teacher on the other; and

when we recollect that two unarmed Englishmen, and twelve blacks

from other islands, were perfectly isolated in the midst of a heathen

population, having refused protection from a British man-of-war, it

gives a grandeur to the following narrative:--

'June 7th.--One of their chief men has just been with two bread-fruit as

a present. I detected him as a leader of one of their chief ceremonies

yesterday, and I have just told him plainly that I cannot accept

anything from him, neither can I suffer him to be coming to my place

while it is notorious that he is teaching the children the very things

they ought not to learn, and that he is strongly supporting the old

false system, while he professes to be listening attentively to the Word

of God. I made him take up his two bread-fruit and carry them away; and

I suppose it will be the story all over the village that I have driven

him away.

'"By-and-by we will listen to the Word of God, when we have finished

these ceremonies."

'"Yes, you hearken first to the voice of the evil spirit; you choose him

firsthand then you will care to hear about God.'"

The ceremony was to last twenty days, and only affected the lads, who

were blackened all over with soot, and apparently presented pigs to the

old priest, and were afterwards admitted to the privileges of eating and

sleeping in the separate building, which formed a kind of club-house for

the men of each village, and on which Mr. Patteson could always reckon

as both a lecture room and sleeping place.

The people kept on saying that 'by-and-by' they would make an end of

their wild ritual, and throw down their enclosures, and at the same time

they thronged to talk to him at the Mission station, and built a shed to

serve for a school at Auta.

Meantime the little estate was brought into order. A pleasant day of

landscape-gardening was devoted to clearing gaps to let in the lovely

views from the station; and a piece of ground was dug and planted with

pine-apples, vines, oranges, and cotton, also a choicer species of

banana than the indigenous one. Bread-fruit was so plentiful that

breakfast was provided by sending a boy up a tree to bring down four or

five fruits, which were laid in the ashes, and cooked at once; and as to

banana leaves 'we think nothing of cutting one down, four feet long and

twenty inches wide, of a bright pale green, just to wrap up a cooked yam

or two.'

The first week in July, with Wadrokala, Mark, and two Malanta men,

Mr. Patteson set forth in the boat that had been left with him, for an

expedition among the other islands, beginning with Saddle Island, or

Valua, which was the proper name.

The day after leaving Eowa, the weather changed; and as on these

perilous coasts there was no possibility of landing, two days and the

intervening night had to be spent in the open four-oared boat, riding to

a grapnel!

Very glad they were to get into Port Patteson, and to land in the wet,

'as it can rain in the tropics.' The nearest village, however, was

empty, everybody being gone to the burial wake of the wife of a chief,

and there was no fire to cook the yams, everything dreary and deserted,

but a short walk brought the wet and tired party to the next village,

where they were made welcome to the common house; and after, supping

on yams and chocolate, spent a good night, and found the sea smooth the

next day for a return to head-quarters.

These first weeks at Mota were very happy, but after that the strain

began to tell. Mr. Patteson had been worn with anxiety for his father,

and no doubt with awe in the contemplation of his coming Episcopate,

and was not in a strong state of health when he left Kohimarama, and the

lack of animal food, the too sparing supply of wine, and the bare board

bed told upon him. On the 24th of July he wrote in a letter to his Uncle

Edward:--

'I have lost six days: a small tumour formed inside the ear about two

inches from the outer ear, and the pain has been very considerable,

and the annoyance great. Last night I slept for the first time for five

nights, and I have been so weary with sleeplessness that I have been

quite idle. The mischief is passing away now. That ear is quite deaf;

it made me think so of dear Father and Joan with their constant trial. I

don't see any results from our residence here; and why should I look for

them? It is enough that the people are hearing, some of them talking,

and a few thinking about what they hear. All in God's own time!'

Mr. Dudley adds: 'His chief trouble at this time was with one of his

ears. The swelling far in not only made him deaf while it lasted, but

gave him intense and protracted agony. More than once he had to spend

the whole night in walking up and down the room. But only on one

occasion during the whole time do I remember his losing his patience,

and that was when we had been subjected to an unusually protracted

visitation from the "loafers" of the village, who would stretch

themselves at full length on the floor and table, if we would let

them, and altogether conduct themselves in such a manner as to call for

summary treatment, very different from the more promising section. The

half jocular but very decided manner in which he cleared the house on

this occasion, and made them understand that they were to respect our

privacy sometimes, and not make the Mission station an idling place, was

very satisfactory. It was no small aggravation of the pain to feel that

this might be the beginning of permanent deafness, such as would

be fatal to his usefulness in a work in which accuracy of ear was

essential.'

However, this gradually improved; and another boat voyage was made,

but again was frustrated by the torrents of rain. In fact, it was an

unusually wet and unwholesome season, which told upon everyone. Mark

Chakham, the Nengonese, was brought very near the grave by a severe

attack of dysentery. All the stores of coffee, chocolate, wine and

biscuit were used up. The 'Southern Cross' had been due full a month,

and nothing was heard of her through the whole of September.

Teaching and conversation went on all this time, trying as it was;

and the people still came to hear, though no one actually undertook to

forsake his idols.

'I am still hopeful about these people,' is the entry on September 18,

'though all their old customs and superstitions go on just as before.

But (1) they know that a better teaching has been presented to them. (2)

They do not pursue their old habits with the same unthinking-security.

(3) There are signs of a certain uneasiness of mind, as if a struggle

was beginning in them. (4) They have a vague consciousness, some of

them, that the power is passing away from their witchcrafts, sorceries,

&c., by which unquestionably they did and still do work strange effects

on the credulous people, like 'Pharaoh's magicians of old.'

This was ground gained; and one or two voyages to Vanua Lava and

the other isles were preparatory steps, and much experience had been

acquired, and resulted in this:--

'The feasibility of the Bishop's old scheme is more and more apparent

to me. Only I think that in taking away natives to the summer school, it

must be understood that some (and they few) are taken from new islands

merely to teach us some of their languages and to frank us, so that we

may have access in safety to their islands. Should any of them turn out

well, so much the better; but it will not be well to take them with the

expectation of their becoming teachers to their people. But the other

section of the school will consist of young men whose behaviour we have

watched during the winter in their own homes, whose professions we have

had an opportunity of testing--they may be treated as young men on the

way to become teachers eventually to their countrymen. One learns much

from living among a heathen people, and only by living in our pupils'

homes shall we ever know their real characters. Poor fellows! they

are adepts in all kinds of deceitfulness at a very early age, and so

completely in our power on board the schooner and at Kohimarama, that we

know nothing of them as they are.'

The very paper this is copied from shows how the stores were failing,

for the full quarto sheets have all failed, and the journal is continued

on note paper.

Not till October 1 was Mr. Patteson's watch by a poor dying woman

interrupted by tidings that a ship was in sight. And soon it was too

plain that she was not the 'Southern Cross,' though, happily, neither

trader nor French Mission ship. In a short time there came ashore

satisfactory letters from home, but with them the tidings that the

little 'Southern Cross' lay in many fathoms water on the New Zealand

coast!

On her return, on the night of the 17th of June, just as New Zealand

itself was reached, there was a heavy gale from the north-east. A

dangerous shoal of rocks, called the Hen and Chickens, stands out from

the head of Ngunguru Bay; and, in the darkness and mist, it was supposed

that these were safely passed, when the ship struck on the eastern

Chicken, happily on a spot somewhat sheltered from the violence of the

breakers. The two passengers and the crew took refuge in the rigging all

night; and in the morning contrived to get a line to land, on which

all were safely drawn through the surf, and were kindly received by the

nearest English settlers.

So, after five years' good service, ended the career of the good

'Southern Cross' the first. She had gone down upon sand, and much of

the wreck might have been recovered and made useful again had labour not

been scarce at that time in New Zealand that the Bishop could find no

one to undertake the work, and all he could do was to charter another

vessel to be despatched to bring home the party from Mota. Nor

were vessels fit for the purpose easy to find, and the schooner

'Zillah'--welcome as was the sight of her--proved a miserable substitute

even in mere nautical capabilities, and her internal arrangements were

of course entirely inappropriate to the peculiar wants of the Mission.

This was the more unfortunate because the very day after her arrival Mr.

Dudley was prostrated by something of a sunstroke. Martin Tehele was

ill already, and rapidly became worse; and Wadrokala and Harper Malo

sickened immediately, nor was the former patient recovered. Mr. Dudley,

Wadrokala and Harper were for many days in imminent danger, and

were scarcely dragged through by the help of six bottles of wine,

providentially sent by the Bishop. Mr. Dudley says:--

'During the voyage Mr. Patteson's powers of nursing were severely tried.

Poor Martin passed away before we arrived at Nengone, and was committed

to the deep. Before he died he was completely softened by Mr. Patteson's

loving care, and asked pardon for all the trouble he had given and the

fretfulness he had shown. Poor fellow! I well remember how he gasped out

the Lord's Prayer after Mr. Patteson a few minutes before he died. We

all who had crawled up round his bed joining in with them.

'Oh, what a long dreary time that was! Light baffling winds continually,

and we in a vessel as different from the "Southern Cross" as possible,

absolutely guiltless, I should think, of having ever made two miles an

hour to windward "in a wind." The one thing that stands out as having

relieved its dreariness is the presence of Mr. Patteson, the visits he

used to pay to us, and the exquisite pathos of his voice as, from the

corner of the hold where we lay, we could hear him reading the Morning

and Evening Prayers of the Church and leading the hymn. These prevented

these long weary wakeful days and nights from being absolutely

insupportable.'

At last Nengone was reached, and Wadrokala and Harper were there set

ashore, better, but very weak. Here the tidings were known that in Lifu

John Cho had lost his wife Margaret, and had married the widow of

a Karotongan teacher, a very suitable match, but too speedy to be

according to European ideas; and on November 26 the 'Zillah' was off the

Three Kings, New Zealand.

'Monday: Nov. 26, 1860. '"Zillah" Schooner, off the Three Kings, N. of

New Zealand.

'You know pretty well that Kohimarama is a small bay, about one-third

of a mile along the sea frontage, two-and-a-half miles due east of

Auckland, and just opposite the entrance into the harbour, between the

North Head and Eangitoto. The beach is composed entirely of the shells

of "pipi" (small cockles); always, therefore, dry and pleasant to walk

upon. A fence runs along the whole length of it. At the eastern end

of it, a short distance inside this N. (= sea) fence, are the three

cottages of the master and mate and Fletcher. Sam Fletcher is a

man-of-war's man, age about thirty-eight, who has been with us some four

years and a half. He has all the habits of order and cleanliness that

his life as coxswain of the captain's gig taught him; he is a very

valuable fellow. He is our extra man at sea.

'Each of these cottages has its garden, and all three men are married,

but only the master (Grange) has any family, one married daughter.

'Then going westward comes a nine-acre paddock, and then a dividing

fence, inside (i.e. to W.) of which stand our buildings.

'Now our life here is hard to represent. It is not like the life of an

ordinary schoolmaster, still less like that of an ordinary clergyman.

Much of the domestic and cooking department I may manage, of course,

to superintend. I would much rather do this than have the nuisance of a

paid servant.

'So at 5 A.M., say, I turn out; I at once go to the kitchen, and set the

two cooks of the week to work, light fire, put on yams or potatoes, then

back to dress, read, &c.; in and out all the time, of the kitchen till

breakfast time: say 8 or 8.30. You would be surprised to see how very

soon the lads will do it all by themselves, and leave me or Mr. Kerr to

give all our attention to school and other matters.

'So you can fancy, Joan, now, the manner of life. My little room with my

books is my snuggery during the middle of the day, and at night I have

also a large working table at one end of the big school-room, covered

with books, papers, &c., and here I sit a good deal, my room being

too small to hold the number of books that I require to have open for

comparison of languages, and for working out grammatical puzzles. Then

I am in and out of the kitchen and store-room, and boys' rooms, seeing

that all things, clothes, blankets, floors, &c., are washed and kept

clean, and doing much what is done in every house.'

Snuggery no doubt it looked compared with the 'Zillah;' but what would

the 'Eton fellow' of fifteen years back have thought of the bare,

scantily furnished room, with nothing but the books, prints, and

photographs around to recall the tastes of old, and generally a sick

Melanesian on the floor? However, he was glad enough to return thither,

though with only sixteen scholars from ten places. Among them was

Taroniara from Bauro, who was to be his follower, faithful to death. The

following addition was made to the letter to Mr. Edward Coleridge, begun

in Banks Islands:--

'Kohimarama: Dec. 1, 1860.

'One line, my dear tutor, before I finish off my pile of hastily written

letters for this mail.

'Alas! alas! for the little schooner, that dear little vessel, our home

for so many months of each year, so admirably qualified for her work.

Whether she may be got off her sandy bed, no one can say. Great expense

would certainly be incurred, and the risk of success great also.

'I have not yet had time to talk to the Bishop, I only reached New

Zealand on November 28. We cannot, however, well do our work in

chartered vessels [then follows a full detail of the imperfections of

the 'Zillah' and all other Australian merchant craft; then--But, dear

old tutor, even the "Southern Cross" (though what would I give to

see her now at her usual anchorage from the window at which I am now

sitting!) for a time retires into the distance, as I think of what is to

take place (D.V.) in January next.

'I hoped that I had persuaded the Bishop that the meeting of the General

Synod in February 1862 would be a fit time. I do not see that the Duke's

despatch makes any difference in the choice of the time. But all was

settled in my absence; and now at the Feast of the Epiphany or of

the Conversion of St. Paul (as suits the convenience of the Southern

Bishops) the Consecration is to take place. I am heartily glad that the

principle of consecrating Missionary Bishops will be thus affirmed and

acted upon; but oh! if some one else was to be the Bishop!

'And yet I must not distrust God's grace, and the gift of the Holy

Spirit to enable me for this work. I try and pray to be calm and

resigned, and I am happy and cheerful.

'And it is a blessed thing that now three of your old dear friends, once

called Selwyn, Abraham, Hobhouse should be consecrating your own nephew

and pupil, gathered by God's providence into the same part of God's

field at the ends of the earth.'

Still with his heart full of the never-forgotten influence of his

mother, he thus begins his home letter of the same date:--

'Kohimarama: Dec. 1.

'My dearest Father,--I could not write on November 28, but the memory of

that day in 1842 was with me from morning to night. We anchored on that

day at 1 A.M., and I was very busy till late at night. I had no idea

till I came back from the Islands that there was any change in the

arrangements for the consecration in February 1862. But now the Bishops

of Wellington and Nelson have been summoned for the Feast of the

Epiphany, or of the conversion of St. Paul, and all was done in

my absence. I see, too, that you in England have assumed that the

consecration will take place soon after the reception of the Duke's

despatch.

'I must not now shrink from it, I know. I have full confidence in

your judgment, and in that of the Bishop; and I suppose that if I was

speaking of another, I should say that I saw reasons for it. But depend

upon it, my dear Father, that a man cannot communicate to another the

whole of the grounds upon which he feels reluctant to accept an office.

I believe that I ought to accept this in deference to you all, and I do

so cheerfully, but I don't, say that my judgment agrees wholly with you

all.

'And yet there is no one else; and if the separation of New Zealand and

Melanesia is necessary, I see that this must be the consequence. So I

regard it now as a certainty. I pray God to strengthen and enable me: I

look forward, thanks to Him, hopefully and cheerfully. I have the love

and the prayers of many, many friends, and soon the whole Church of

England will recognise me as one who stands in special need of grace and

strength from above.

'Oh! the awful power of heathenism! the antagonism, not of evil only,

but of the Evil One, rather, I mean the reality felt of all evil

emanating from a person, as St. Paul writes, and as our Lord spoke of

him. I do indeed at times feel overwhelmed, as if I was in a dream. Then

comes some blessed word or thought of comfort, and promised strength and

grace.

'But enough of this.

'The "Southern Cross" cannot, I think, be got off without great certain

expense and probable risk. I think we shall have to buy another vessel,

and I dare say she may be built at home, but I don't know what is the

Bishop's mind about it....

'I shall write to Merton, I don't know why I should needs vacate my

fellowship. I have no change of outward circumstances brought upon me

by my change presently from the name of Presbyter to Bishop, and we want

all the money.

'What you say about a Missionary Bishop being for five months of the

year within the diocese of another Bishop, I will talk over with the

Bishop of New Zealand. I think our Synodical system will make that

all right; and as for my work, it will be precisely the same in all

respects, my external life altered only to the extent of my wearing a

broader brimmed and lower crowned hat. Dear Joan is investing moneys in

cutaway coats, buckles without end, and no doubt knee-breeches and what

she calls "gambroons" (whereof I have no cognizance), none of which will

be worn more than (say) four or five times in the year. Gambroons and

aprons and lawn sleeves won't go a-voyaging, depend upon it. Just when

I preach in some Auckland church I shall appear in full costume; but the

buckles will grow very rusty indeed!

'How kind and good of her to take all the trouble, I don't laugh

at that, and at her dear love for me and anxiety that I should have

everything; but I could not help having a joke about gambroons, whatever

they are....

'Good-bye once more, my dearest Father. You will, I trust, receive

this budget about the time of your birthday. How I think of you day and

night, and how I thank you for all your love, and perhaps most of all,

not only letting me come to Melanesia, but for your great love in never

calling me away from my work even to see your face once more on earth.

'Your loving and dutiful son,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

Remark upon a high-minded letter is generally an impertinence both to

the writer and the reader, but I cannot help pausing upon the foregoing,

to note the force of the expression that thanks the father for the love

that did not recall the son. What a different notion these two men had

of love from that which merely seeks self-gratification! Observe,

too, how the old self-contemplative, self-tormenting spirit, that was

unhappiness in those days of growth and heart-searching at the first

entrance into the ministry, had passed into humble obedience and trust.

Looking back to the correspondence of ten years ago, volumes of progress

are implied in the quiet 'Enough of this.'

There were, however, some delays in bringing the three together, and on

the New Year's Day of 1861, the designate writes to Bishop Abraham:

'I dare say the want of any positive certainty as to the time of the

Consecration is a good discipline for me. I think I feel calm now; but

I know I must not trust feelings, and when I think of those islands and

the practical difficulty of getting at them, and the need of so many of

those qualities which are so wonderfully united in our dear Primate,

I need strength from above indeed to keep my heart from sinking. But I

think that I do long and desire to work on by God's grace, and not to

look to results at all.'

A 'supplementary mail' made possible a birthday letter (the last)

written at 6 A.M. on the 11th of February: 'I wanted of course to write

to you to-day. Many happy returns of it I wish you indeed, for it may

yet please God to prolong your life; but in any case you know well how

I am thinking and praying for you that every blessing and comfort may

be given you. Oh I how I do think of you night and day. When Mrs. Selwyn

said "Good-bye," and spoke of you, I could not stand it. I feel that

anything else (as I fancy) I can speak of with composure; but the verses

in the Bible, such as the passage which I read yesterday in St. Mark x.,

almost unnerve me, and I can't wish it to be otherwise. But I feel that

my place is here, and that I must look to the blessed hope of meeting

again hereafter....

'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. But I feel it now that the sense of

responsibility is deepening on me, and I must go out to work without

him; and very, very anxious I am sometimes, and almost oppressed by it.

'But strength will come; and it is not one's own work, which is the

comfort, and if I fail (which is very likely) God will place some other

man in my position, and the work will go on, whether in my hands or not,

and that is the real point.

'Some talk I find there has been about my going home. I did not hear

of it until after Mrs. Selwyn had sailed. It was thought of, but it was

felt, as I certainly feel, that it ought not to be.... My work lies

out here clearly; and it is true that any intermission of voyages or

residences in the islands is to be avoided.'

Mrs. Selwyn had gone home for a year, and had so arranged as to see the

Patteson family almost immediately on her return. Meantime the day drew

on. The Consecration was not by Royal mandate, as in the case of Bishops

of sees under British jurisdiction; but the Duke of Newcastle, then

Colonial Secretary, wrote:--'That the Bishops of New Zealand are at

liberty, without invasion of the Royal prerogative or infringement of

the law of England, to exercise what Bishop Selwyn describes as their

inherent power of consecrating Mr. Patteson or any other person to take

charge of the Melanesian Islands, provided that the consecration should

take place beyond British territory.'

In consequence it was proposed that the three consecrating Bishops

should take ship and perform the holy rite in one of the isles beneath

the open sky; but as Bishop Mackenzie had been legally consecrated in

Cape Town Cathedral, the Attorney-General of New Zealand gave it as his

opinion that there was no reason that the consecration should not take

place in Auckland.

'Kohimarama: Feb. 15, 1861.

'My dearest Father,--Mr. Kerr, who has just returned from Auckland,

where he spent yesterday, brings me the news that the question of the

Consecration has been settled, and that it will take place (D.V.) on

Sunday week, St. Matthias Day, February 24.

'I ought not to shrink back now. The thought has become familiar to me,

and I have the greatest confidence in the judgment of the Bishop of New

Zealand; and I need not say how your words and letters and prayers too

are helping me now.

'Indeed, though at any great crisis of our lives no doubt we are

intended to use more than ordinary strictness in examining our motives

and in seeking for greater grace, deeper repentance, more earnest and

entire devotion to God, and amendment of life, yet I know that any

strong-emotion, if it existed now, would pass away soon, and that I must

be the same man as Bishop as I am now, in this sense, viz., that I shall

have just the same faults, unless I pray for strength to destroy them,

which I can do equally well now, and that all my characteristic and

peculiar habits of mind will remain unchanged by what will only change

my office and not myself. So that where I am indolent now I shall be

indolent henceforth, unless I seek to get rid of indolence; and I shall

not be at all better, wiser, or more consistent as Bishop than I am now

by reason simply of being a Bishop.

'You know my meaning. Now I apply what I write to prove that any strong

excitement now would be no evidence of a healthy state of mind. I feel

now like myself, and that is not at all like what I wish to be. And so

I thank God that as before any solemn season special inducements to

earnest repentance are put into our minds, so I now feel a special call

upon me to seek by His grace to make a more faithful use of the means of

usefulness which He gives me, that I may be wholly and entirely turned

to Him, and so be enabled to do His will in Melanesia. You know, my

dearest Father, that I do not indeed undervalue the grace of Ordination;

only I mean that the right use of any great event in one's life, as I

take it, is not to concentrate feeling so much on it as earnestness of

purpose, prayer for grace, and for increase of simplicity and honesty

and purity of heart. Perhaps other matters affect me more than my

supposed state of feeling, so that my present calmness may be attributed

to circumstances of which I am partially ignorant; and, indeed, I do

wonder that I am calm when one moment's look at the map, or thought of

the countless islands, almost overwhelms me. How to get at them? Where

to begin? How to find men and means? How to decide upon the best method

of teaching, &c.? But I must try to be patient, and to be content with

very small beginnings--and endings, too, perhaps.

'Sunday, Feb. 24, St. Matthias, 10 A.M.--The day is come, my dearest

Father, and finds me, I thank God, very calm. Yesterday, at 6 P.M., in

the little chapel at Taurama, the three Bishops, the dear Judge, Lady

Martin, Mrs. Abraham, Mr. Lloyd and I met together for special prayer.

How we missed Mrs. Selwyn, dear dear Mrs. Selwyn, from among us, and how

my thoughts passed on to you! Evening hymn, Exhortation in Consecration

Service, Litany from the St. Augustine's Missionary Manual, with the

questions in Consecration Service turned into petitions, Psalm cxxxii.,

cxxxi., li.; Lesson i Tim. iii.; special prayer for the Elect Bishop

among the heathen, for the conversion of the heathen; and the Gloria in

Excelsis.

'Then the dear Bishop walked across to me, and taking my hand in both

of his, looking at me with that smile of love and deep deep thought, so

seldom seen, and so deeply prized. "I can't tell you what I feel," he

said, with a low and broken voice. "You know it--my heart is too full! "

'Ah! the memory of six years with that great and noble servant of God

was in my heart too, and so we stood, tears in our eyes, and I unable to

speak.

'At night again, when, after arranging finally the service, I was left

with him alone, he spoke calmly and hopefully. Much he said of you, and

we are all thinking much of you. Then he said: "I feel no misgiving in

my heart; I think all has been done as it should be. Many days we three

have discussed the matter. By prayer and Holy Communion we have sought

light from above, and it is, I believe, God's will." Then once more

taking both hands, he kissed my forehead: "God bless you, my dear Coley.

I can't say more words, and you don't desiderate them."

'"No," said I; "my heart, as yours, is too full for words. I have lived

six years with you to little purpose, if I do not know you full well

now!"

'And then I walked, in the perfect peace of a still cloudless night--the

moon within two days of full--the quarter of a mile to St. Stephen's

schools, where I slept last night. On the way I met the Bishop of

Wellington and Mrs. Abraham, coming up from St. Stephen's to the

Bishop's house.

J. C. P.--What a night of peace! the harbour like a silver mirror!

'B. of W.--Dominus tecum.

'Mrs. A.--I trust you will sleep.

'J. C. P.--I thank you; I think so. I feel calm.

'Sunday Night, 10 P.M. (Feniton, Sunday, 10.40 A.M.)--It is over--a most

solemn blessed service. Glorious day. Church crowded--many not able to

find admittance; but orderly. More than two hundred communicants. More

to-morrow (D.V.). All day you have been in our minds. The Bishop spoke

of you in his sermon with faltering voice, and I broke down; yet at the

moment of the Veni Creator being sung over me, and the Imposition of

Hands, I was very calm. The Bible presented is the same that you gave

me on my fifth birthday with your love and blessing. Oh! my dear dear

Father, God will bless you for all your love to me, and your love to Him

in giving me to His service. May His heavenly blessing be with you--all

your dear ones for ever!

'Your most loving and dutiful Son,

'J. C. PATTESON, Missionary Bishop.

'February 25th.--I am spending to-day and to-morrow here--i.e., sleeping

at the Judge's, dining and living half at his house, and half at the

Bishop's--quiet and calm it is, and I prize it. The music yesterday was

very good; organ well played. The choirs of the three town churches,

and many of the choral society people, filled the gallery--some eighty

voices perhaps. The Veni Creator the only part that was not good, well

sung, but too much like an anthem.

'Tagalana, half-sitting, half-kneeling behind me, held the book for the

Primate to read from at the Imposition of Hands--a striking group, I am

told.'

Here ends the letter, to which a little must be added from other

pens; and, first, from Mrs. Abraham's letter for the benefit of Eton

friends:--

'The Consecration was at St. Paul's Church, in default of a Cathedral.

Built before the Bishop arrived, St. Paul's has no chancel: and the

Clergy, including a Maori Deacon, were rather crowded within the rail.

Mr. Patteson was seated in a chair in front, ten of his island boys

close to him, and several working men of the rougher sort were brought

into the benches near. We were rather glad of the teaching that none

were excluded. The service was all in harmony with the occasion; and the

sermon gave expression to all the individual and concentrated feeling of

the moment, as well as pointing the Lesson and its teaching.

'The sermon was on the thought of the Festival: "And they prayed, and

said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, show whether of

these two Thou hast chosen." (Acts i. 24.) After speaking of the special

import and need of the prayers of those gathered to offer up their

prayers at the Holy Communion, for those who were to exercise the office

of apostles in their choice, he spoke in words that visibly almost

overpowered their subject:--

'"In this work of God, belonging to all eternity, and to the Holy

Catholic Church, are we influenced by any private feelings, any personal

regard? The charge which St. Paul gives to Timothy, in words of awful

solemnity, 'to lay hands suddenly on no man,' may well cause much

searching of heart. 'I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus

Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things, without

preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.' Does our

own partial love deceive us in this choice? We were all trained in

the same place of education, united in the same circle of friends; in

boyhood, youth, manhood, we have shared the same services, and joys,

and hopes, and fears. I received this, my son in the ministry of Christ

Jesus, from the hands of a father, of whose old age he was the

comfort. He sent him forth without a murmur, nay, rather with joy and

thankfulness, to these distant parts of the earth. He never asked even

to see him again, but gave him up without reserve to the Lord's work.

Pray, dear brethren, for your Bishops, that our partial love may not

deceive us in this choice, for we cannot so strive against natural

affection as to be quite impartial."

'And again, as the Primate, addressing more especially his beloved son

in the ministry, exclaimed, "May Christ be with you when you go forth in

His name, and for His sake, to those poor and needy people," and his eye

went along the dusky countenances of his ten boys, Coleridge Patteson

could hardly restrain his intensity of feeling.'

Another letter from the same lady to the sisters adds further details to

the scene, after describing the figures in the church:--

'Lady Martin, who had never seen the dress (the cassock and rochet)

before, said that Coley reminded her of the figures of some young knight

watching his armour, as he stood in his calm stedfastness, and answered

the questions put to him by the Primate.

'The whole service was very nicely ordered, and the special Psalm well

chanted. With one exception (which was, alas! the Veni Creator), the

music was good, and Coley says was a special help to him; the pleasure

of it, and the external hold that it gave, helping him out of himself,

as it were, and sustaining him.'

Lady Martin adds her touch to the picture; and it may perhaps be

recorded for those who may in after times read the history of the first

Bishop of the Melanesian Church, that whatever might be wanting in

the beauty of St. Paul's, Auckland, never were there three Bishops who

outwardly as well as inwardly more answered to the dignity of their

office than the three who stood over the kneeling Coleridge Patteson.

'I shall never forget the expression of his face as he knelt in the

quaint rochet. It was meek and holy and calm, as though all conflict

was over and he was resting in the Divine strength. 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 then the long line of island boys, and of St.

Stephen's native teachers and their wives, were living testimonies of

Mission work. Coley had told us in the morning of a consecration he had

seen at Rome, where a young Greek deacon had held a large illuminated

book for the Pope to read the words of Consecration. We had no such

gorgeous dresses as they, but nothing could have been more simply

beautiful and touching than the sight of Tagalana's young face as he did

the same good office. There was nothing artistic about it; the boy came

forward with a wondering yet bright look on his pleasant face, just

dressed in his simple grey blouse.

'You will read the sermon, so there is no need to talk about it. Your

brother was overcome for a minute at the reference to his father, but

the comfort and favour of His Heavenly Master kept him singularly calm,

though the week before he had undoubtedly had much struggle, and his

bodily health was affected.'

All the friends who were thus brought together were like one family,

and still called the new Bishop by the never disused abbreviation that

recalled his home. He was the guest of the now retired Chief Justice and

Lady Martin, who were occupying themselves in a manner probably unique

in the history of law and lawyers, by taking charge of the native school

at St. Stephen's.

The next two were great days of letter writing. Another long full letter

was written to the father, telling of the additional record which

each of the three consecrating Bishops had written in the Bible of his

childhood, and then going into business matters, especially hoping that

the Warden and Fellows of Merton would not suppose that as a Bishop he

necessarily had £5,000 a year and a palace, whereas in fact the see

had no more than the capital of £5,000 required by Government! He had

already agreed with his father that his own share of the inheritance

should go to the Mission; and, as he says, on hearing the amount:--

'Hard enough you worked, my dear Father, to leave your children so well

off. Dear old Jem will have enough; and my children now dwell in 200

islands, and will need all that I can give them. God grant that the day

may come when many of them may understand these things, and rise up and

call your memory blessed!

'Your words of comfort and blessing come to me with fresh strength just

now, two days only after the time when you too, had you been here, would

in private have laid your hand on my head and called down God's blessing

upon me. I shall never know in this world what I owe to your prayers.'

There is much, too, of his brother's marriage; and in a separate letter

to the sisters there are individual acknowledgments of each article of

the equipment, gratifying the donor by informing her that the 'cutaway'

coat was actually to be worn that very evening at a dinner party at the

Chief Justice's, and admiring the 'gambroon,' which turned out to be the

material of the cassock, so much as to wish for a coat made of it for

the islands. Apropos of the hat:-- 'You know my forehead is square, so

that an oval hat does not fit; it would hang on by the temples, which

form a kind of right angle with the forehead.'

Another letter of that 26th was from the Bishop of Wellington to Dr.

Goodford respecting this much-loved old pupil:--

'Anything more conscientious and painstaking cannot be conceived than

the way he has steadily directed every talent, every hour or minute

of his life, to the one work he had set before him. However small

or uncongenial or drumdrudgery-like his occupation, however hard, or

dangerous, or difficult, it seemed to be always met in the same calm,

gentle, self-possessed spirit of love and duty, which I should fancy

that those who well knew his good and large-minded, large-hearted

father, and his mother, whom I have always heard spoken of as saintly,

could best understand. Perhaps the most marked feature in his character

is his genuine simplicity and humility. I never saw it equalled in one

so gifted and so honoured and beloved.

'It is really creditable to the community to see how universal is the

admiration for his character, for he is so very good, so exceedingly

unworldly, and therefore such a living rebuke to the selfishness of the

world; and though so gentle, yet so firm and uncompromising that you

would have supposed he would hardly be popular outside the circle

of friends who know him and understand him. Certainly he is the most

perfect character I ever met.'

The last day of February was that of the Installation.

Again Mrs. Abraham must speak:--

'On Thursday last we had another happy day at Kohimarama, where Bishop

Patteson was duly installed in the temporary chapel of St. Andrew's

College, as we hope to call it, after the church at Cocksmoor, in "The

Daisy Chain." The morning was grey, and we feared rain would keep our

ladies away, but we made the venture with our willing squire, Mr. M----,

in the "Iris" boat to help us. The pity was, that after all Lady Martin

could not go, as she had an invalid among her Maori flock, whom she

could not trust all day by herself. The day lightened, and our sail was

pleasant.

'The Primate and Missionary Bishop planted a Norfolk pine in the centre

of the quadrangle--"the tree planted by the water side," &c. The Bishop

then robed and proceeded to chapel, and the Primate led the little

service in which he spoke the words of installation, and the mew Bishop

took the oath of allegiance to him. The Veni Creator was sung, and the

Primate's blessing-given. The island boys looked on from one transept,

the "Iris" sailors from another, and Charlie stood beside me. I am

afraid his chief remembrance of the day is fixed upon Kanambat's tiny

boat and outrigger, which he sat in on the beach, and went on voyages,

in which the owner waded by his side, and saw him (Kanambat) skim along

the waves like a white butterfly. We all dined in hall, after the boys,

on roast beef and plum pudding, melons and water melons, and strolled

about the place and beach at leisure, till it was time to sail back

again.'

On the Sunday the new Bishop preached at St. Mary's one of the sermons

that broke from him when he was too much excited (if the word may be

used) for his usual metaphysical style. The subject was the promise

of the Comforter, His eternal presence and anointing, and the need of

intercessory prayer, for which the preacher besought earnestly, as one

too young for his office, and needing to increase in the Holy Spirit

more and more. Very far were these from being unrealised words. God's

grace had gone along with him, and had led him through every step and

stage of his life, and so mastered his natural defects, that friends who

only knew him in these years hear with incredulous indignation of those

flaws he had conquered in his younger days. 'Fearless as a man, tender

as a woman, showing both the best sides of human nature,' says one of

the New Zealand friends who knew him best; 'always drawing out the good

in all about him by force of sympathy, and not only taking care that

nothing should be done by others that he would not do himself, but doing

himself what he did not like to ask of them, and thinking that they

excelled him.' Humility, the effort of his life, was achieved at last

the more truly because not consciously.

The letter to his father was again almost wholly on money matters; but

at the end come two notable sentences:--

'How can I thank you for giving me up to this work, and for all the wise

and loving words with which you constantly cheer me and encourage me?

Your blessing comes now to strengthen me, as work and responsibilities

are fast accumulating upon me. I thank God that He enables us at the

two ends of the world to see this matter in the same way, so that no

conflict of duties arises in my mind.

'This book, "Essays and Reviews," I have, but pray send your copy also;

also any good books that may be produced bearing on that great question

of the Atonement, and on Inspiration, Authority of Scripture, &c. How

sad it is to see that spirit of intellectualism thinking to deal with

religion in forgetfulness of the necessary conditions of humility and

faith! How different from the true gnosis!'

'Kohimarama: April 29, 1861.

'My dearest Father,--As I read your letters of Feb. 21-25, you are, I

trust, reading mine which tell you of what took place on Feb. 24. That

point is settled. I almost fear to write that I am a Bishop in the

Church of Christ. May God strengthen me for the duties of the office to

which I trust He has indeed called me!

'As I read of what you say so wisely and truly, and dear Joan and Fan

and Aunt James and all, of my having expected results too rapidly at

Mota, I had sitting with me that dear boy Tagalana, who for two months

last winter was in the great sacred enclosure, though, dear lad, not by

his own will, yet his faith was weak, and no wonder.