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
'I am less distressed now,' he adds, a few days later, in the same
strain, 'at the absence of all that is customary in England on these
occasions (great festivals), though I dare not say how far the loss of
all these privileges produces a bad effect upon my heart and character.
One often loses the spirit when the form is withdrawn, and I still
sorely long for the worship of God in the beauty of holiness, and my
mind reverts to Ottery Church, and college chapels and vast glorious
cathedrals.'
On the 10th of June the 'Southern Cross' was in Sydney harbour, and
remained there a fortnight, Bishop Barker gladly welcoming the new
arrivals, though in general Bishop Selwyn and his Chaplain announced
themselves as like the man and woman in the weather-glass, only
coming-out by turns, since one or other had to be in charge of the ship;
but later an arrangement was made which set them more at liberty.
And the churches at Sydney were a great delight to Patteson; the
architecture, music, and all the arrangements being like those among
which he had been trained.
'A Sunday worth a dozen gales of wind!' he exclaims, 'but you can hardly
judge of the effect produced by all the good substantial concomitants
of Divine worship upon one who for fourteen months has scarcely seen
anything but a small wooden church, with almost all the warmth of
devotion resting on himself. I feel roused to the core. ...I felt the
blessing of worshipping the Lord with a full heart in the beauty of
holiness. A very good organ well played, and my joy was great when we
sang the long 78th Psalm to an old chant of itself almost enough to
upset me, the congregation singing in parts with heart and voice.'
His exhilaration showed itself in a letter to his little cousin, Paulina
Martin:--
"Southern Cross," Sydney Harbour: June 18, 1856.
'My darling Pena,--Are you so anxious to have a letter from me, and do
you think I am going to forget all about you? However, you have had long
before this two or three letters from me, I hope, and when I write to
grandpapa or grandmamma or mamma, you must always take it as if a good
deal was meant for you, for I have not quite so much time for writing
as you have, I dare say, in spite of music and French and history and
geography and all the rest of it. But I do dearly love to write to you
when I can, and you must be quite certain that I shall always do so as I
have opportunity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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