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
'There is a mighty work to be done. God employs human agents, and the
Bible tells us what are the rules and conditions of their efficiency.
'"Oh! but, poor man, he has a sickly wife!" Yes, but, "it remaineth that
those who have wives be as they that have none."
'True, but the case of a large family? "Whosoever loveth child more than
me," &c.
'Second. The fact that we live almost without servants makes us more
independent, and also makes us acquainted with the secrets of each
other's housekeeping, &c. All that artificial intercourse which depends
a good deal upon a well-fitted servants' hall does not find place here.
More simple and more plain and homely in speech and act is our life in
the colonies--e.g., you meet me carrying six or seven loaves from town
to the college. "Oh, I knew that the Bishop had to meet some persons
there to-day, and I felt nearly sure there would be no breakfast then."
Of course an English person thinks, "Why didn't he send the bread?" To
which I answer, "Who was there to send?"
'I don't mean that I particularly like turning myself into a miller one
day and a butcher the next; but that doing it as a matter of course,
where there is no one else to do it, one does sometimes think it
unreasonable to say, as has been said to the Bishop:--"Two thousand
pounds a year you want for your Mission work!" "Yes," said the
Bishop, "and not too much for sailing over ten thousand miles, and for
educating, clothing, and feeding some forty young men!"
'I mean that conventional notions in England are preventing people from
really doing half what they might do for the good of the needy.
'I don't know how this might be said to be a theory tending to
revolutionise society; but I think I do know that there is a kind of
religious common sense which comes in to guide people in such matters.
Only, I do not think it right to admit that plea for not doing more in
the way of almsgiving which is founded upon the assumption that first
of all a certain position in society must be kept up, which involves
certain expenditure.
'A barrister is living comfortably on £800 a year, or a clergyman in
his living of £400. The professional income of the one increases, and a
fatter living is given to the other, or some money is left them. What
do they do? Instantly start a carriage, another servant, put the
jack-of-all-trades into a livery, turn the buttons into a flunkey, and
the village girl into a ladies' maid! Is this really right? They were
well enough before. Why not use the surplus for some better purpose?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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