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
The collections both at the door and on the following Sunday were very
large, and a strong warm feeling was excited in Sydney which has never
since died away. Mr. Patteson was much beloved there, and always met
with kind welcome and ready assistance from all classes. But there was
one great disappointment. The Bishop of New Zealand, on formally setting
before Sir William Denison, Governor-General of Australia, his plan
for making Norfolk Island the site of a school for training Melanesian
teachers, and eventually the seat of a bishopric, received a refusal,
and was not permitted even to place a chaplain there. Sir William, as
he tells us in his published diary, had heard from some quarter or other
rumours respecting the Melanesian scholars which made him suppose
that their presence might have a bad effect upon the Pitcairners; and
repeated that his instructions were that the islanders should be left as
much as possible to themselves. The request to be permitted to place Mr.
Patteson there was refused on the ground that Norfolk Island belonged to
the see of Tasmania, and not to that of New Zealand. But the Bishop of
Tasmania could hardly visit it without great inconvenience, and he had
therefore placed it under the care of his brother of New Zealand,
full in whose track it lay. The matter was referred to the Colonial
Secretary, and in the meantime Bishop Selwyn adhered to his purpose
of visiting it on leaving Sydney, and though he could not place his
chaplain there, leaving Mrs. Selwyn to assist in the work of training
the new comers to the novelties of a more temperate climate and a more
genial soil than they had known on the torrid rock of Pitcairn's Island.
Accordingly, on the 4th of July, the 'Southern Cross' again approached
the island, and finding that the Pitcairners had come, and that
their magistrate and Mr. Nobbs, their clergyman, would gladly welcome
assistance, the Bishop brought Mrs. Selwyn on shore, and left her there
to assist Mr. Nobbs in preparing the entire population to be confirmed
on his return. But the Pitcairners have been amply written about, and as
Coleridge Patteson's connection with them was only incidental, I shall
not dwell on them or their history.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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