Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian IslandsYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Religion
Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Missions -- Melanesia; Patteson, John Coleridge, 1827-1871
'One thing that specially impressed me was his reverent appreciation of
the good he had gained from older friends. He certainly had not imbibed
any of the indifference to the opinion of elders ascribed to the youth
of this generation. "Dear old tutor," his uncles, Sir John Coleridge and
Dr. Coleridge, to whom he looked up with almost filial reverence, the
beloved Uncle Frank, whose holy life and death he dwelt on with a sort
of awe, how gratefully and humbly he spoke of the help he had got
from them! He was full of enthusiasm about music, painting, and art in
general. He would flow on to willing listeners of Mendelssohn and other
great composers, and when he found that we hoped to visit Italy he was
just as eager about pictures. He owned that both at Dresden and at Rome
he had weakened his eyes by constant study of his favourite masters.
'Altogether he gave me the impression of having had a very happy youth
and having enjoyed it thoroughly. His Eton and Oxford life, the society
of men of thought at his father's house, home interests, foreign travel,
art, happy days with his brother Jem in the Tyrol, were all entertained
as pleasant memories, and yet he was able without conscious effort or
struggle to put them all aside for his work's sake.
'The Bishop kindly gave us a passage to Wellington in the "Southern
Cross," and Mr. Patteson went with us in charge of the vessel. We were
five days at sea. I used to lie on the deck, and watch with amused
interest the struggle going on between his student habits and his
practical duties, which were peculiarly distasteful to him. He was
never quite well at sea, but was headachy and uncomfortable. He was
scrupulously neat and clean, and the dirt and stiffness displeased
him--how much we never knew, till he spoke out one day when very ill
at our house in 1870. He was not apt at teaching, but he used
conscientiously to hear a young lad spell and read daily. He would come
up with some book of thought in his hand, and seemed buried in it, till
he suddenly would remember he ought to be directing or overlooking in
some way. This would happen half a dozen times in an afternoon.
'He shrank at this time from finding fault. It was a positive distress
to him. At Wellington we parted. He seemed a little depressed, I
remember, as to what use he would be. I said: "Why, you will be the son
Timothy! This was after some years of partially failing health, when
these feelings had become habitual. I do not think they existed in
his earlier voyages so long waited for." His face brightened up at the
thought. "Yes, if I can release the Bishop of some of his anxieties,
that will be enough."'
No doubt he was depressed at parting with the Chief Justice and Mrs.
Martin, who were thoroughly home-like friends, and whose return was then
uncertain. His success as a sea-captain however encouraged him, and he
wrote as follows on his return:--
'Kohimarama: March 6, 1856.
"Southern Cross."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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