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
'You will hear accounts of the voyage from Fanny. I have a long journal
going to my father, but I can't make time to write at length any more.
I am up before five and not in bed before eleven, and you know I must be
lazy sometimes. It does me good. Oh! how great a trial sickness would be
to me! In my health now all seems easy. Were I circumstanced like you,
how much I should no doubt repine and murmur. God has given me hitherto
a most merciful share of blessings, and my dear father's cordial
approbation of and consent to my proceedings is among the greatest....
'The anniversary of my dear mother's death comes round in ten days. That
is my polar star (humanly speaking), and whensoever it pleases God to
take my dear dear father to his rest, how blessed to think of their
waiting for us, if it be His merciful will to bring me too to dwell
before Him with them for ever.
'I must end, for I am very busy. The weather is cold, and my room full
of lads and young men. If I was not watching like a cat they would be
standing about in all sorts of places and catching cold.
'I send you in a box, a box made by Pitcairners of Pitcairn woods.
'Ever your loving old pupil,
'J. C. PATTESON.'
The little New Caledonian remained at Taurarua with the Bishop, and as
there was no woman at St. John's to take the charge of Cho's wife, she
was necessarily sent to Mrs. Kissling's school for Maori girls, while
her husband pursued his studies at St. John's.
Patteson often gave his services at the Maori village of Orakei, where
there was to be a central native school managed by Pirimona (Philemon),
a well-trained man, a candidate for Holy Orders.
'However, this did not satisfy his countrymen. As if I had not enough to
do, old Wi comes with a request from the folks at Orakei that I would be
their "minita," and take the management of the concern. Rather rich, is
it not? I said, of course, that I was minita for the islanders. "Oh, let
the Bishop take another man for that, you are the minister for us." He
is, you know, wonderfully tatooed, and a great object of curiosity to
the boys!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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