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
'But of course I must not dwell on such notions. If it come to pass that
for some years I can retain a hold upon them, they may be instructed
sufficiently to make them teachers in their turn to their own people.
But all this is in the hands of God. My home journal will tell you
particulars of our voyage. Don't believe in the ferocity, &c., of the
islanders. When their passions are excited, they do commit fearful
deeds, and they are almost universally cannibals, i.e. after a battle
there will be always a cannibal feast, not otherwise. But treat them
well and prudently, and I apprehend that there is little danger in
visiting them, meaning by visiting merely landing on the beach the first
time, going perhaps to a native village the next time, sleeping on shore
the third, spending ten days the fourth, &c., &c. The language once
learnt from the pupils we bring away, all is clear. And now good-bye, my
dear Miss Neill. That I think of you and pray for you, you know, and I
need not add that I value most highly your prayers for me. When I think
of my happiness and good spirits, I must attribute much, very much, to
God's goodness in accepting the prayers of my friends.'
After the old custom of telling the home party all his doings, the
journal-letter of the 27th of November goes through the teaching to the
Bauro boys:--
'I really think they comprehend thus much, that God, who made all
things, made man, Adam and Eve, very good and holy; that Adam and Eve
sinned, that they did not listen to the word of God, but to the Bad
Spirit; that God found them out, though they were afraid and tried to
hide (for He sees and knows all things); that He drove them out of the
beautiful garden, and said that they must die; that they had two sons,
Cain and Abel; that Cain killed his brother, and that all fighting
and killing people, and all other sins (I mention all for which I have
names) came into the world because of sin; that God and man were far
apart, not living near, no peace between them because men were so
evil. That God was so good that He loved men all the time, and that He
promised to save all men who would believe in His Son Jesus Christ, who
was to die for them (for I can't yet express, "was to die that men might
not go down to the fire, but live for ever with God "); that by and by
He sent a flood and drowned all men except Noah and seven other people,
because men would not be good; that afterwards there was a very good
man, named Abraham, who believed all about Jesus Christ, and God chose
him, and his son Isaac, and his son Jacob, and his twelve sons, to be
the fathers of a people called Jews; that those people alone knew about
God, and had teachers and praying men: and that they killed lambs and
offered them (gave them to God as a sign of Jesus Christ being one day
slain and offered to God on a cross) but these very men became wicked
too, and at last, when no man knew how to be happy and good, Jesus
Christ came down from heaven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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