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
barometers (aneroids), sympie-someters, fixed chest for chronometers,
charts, &c. Of course, wherever the "Southern Cross" goes I go too, and
I am a most complete skipper. I feel as natural with my quadrant in my
hand as of old with a cricket bat. Then I do rather have good salt-water
baths, and see glorious sunsets and sunrises, and star-light nights, and
the great many-voiced ocean, the winds and waves chiming all night with
a solemn sound, lapping against my ear as I lie in my canvas bed, six
feet by two and a half, and fall sound asleep and dream of home. Oh!
there is much that is really enjoyable in this kind of life; and if the
cares of the vessel, management of men, &c., do harass me sometimes, it
is very good for me; security from such troubles having been anxiously
and selfishly pursued by me at home.
'If it please God to give success to our mission work, I may some day be
"settled" (if I live) on some one of the countless islands of the South
Pacific, looking after a kind of Protestant Propaganda College for the
education of teachers and missionaries from among the islanders, but
this is all uncertain.
'Now good-bye, my dear Miss Neill. I never doubt that in all your
sufferings God does administer abundant sources of consolation to you.
Even my life, so painless and easy, is teaching me that we judge of
these things by a relative standard only, and I can conceive of one duly
trained and prepared for heaven that many most blessed anticipations of
future rest may be vouchsafed in the midst of extreme bodily pain. It is
in fact a kind of martyrdom, and truly so when borne patiently for the
love of Christ.
'Always, my dear Miss Neill,
'Your very affectionate,
'J. C. PATTESON.'
The Sundays were days of little rest. Clergy were too scarce for one
with no fixed cure not to be made available to the utmost, and the
undeveloped state of the buildings and of all appliances of devotion
fell heavily and coldly on one trained to beauty, both of architecture
and music, though perhaps the variety of employment was the chief trial.
His Good Friday and Easter Sunday's journal show the sort of work that
came on him:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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