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 Primate and Missionary Bishop planted a Norfolk pine in the centre
of the quadrangle--"the tree planted by the water side," &c. The Bishop
then robed and proceeded to chapel, and the Primate led the little
service in which he spoke the words of installation, and the mew Bishop
took the oath of allegiance to him. The Veni Creator was sung, and the
Primate's blessing-given. The island boys looked on from one transept,
the "Iris" sailors from another, and Charlie stood beside me. I am
afraid his chief remembrance of the day is fixed upon Kanambat's tiny
boat and outrigger, which he sat in on the beach, and went on voyages,
in which the owner waded by his side, and saw him (Kanambat) skim along
the waves like a white butterfly. We all dined in hall, after the boys,
on roast beef and plum pudding, melons and water melons, and strolled
about the place and beach at leisure, till it was time to sail back
again.'
On the Sunday the new Bishop preached at St. Mary's one of the sermons
that broke from him when he was too much excited (if the word may be
used) for his usual metaphysical style. The subject was the promise
of the Comforter, His eternal presence and anointing, and the need of
intercessory prayer, for which the preacher besought earnestly, as one
too young for his office, and needing to increase in the Holy Spirit
more and more. Very far were these from being unrealised words. God's
grace had gone along with him, and had led him through every step and
stage of his life, and so mastered his natural defects, that friends who
only knew him in these years hear with incredulous indignation of those
flaws he had conquered in his younger days. 'Fearless as a man, tender
as a woman, showing both the best sides of human nature,' says one of
the New Zealand friends who knew him best; 'always drawing out the good
in all about him by force of sympathy, and not only taking care that
nothing should be done by others that he would not do himself, but doing
himself what he did not like to ask of them, and thinking that they
excelled him.' Humility, the effort of his life, was achieved at last
the more truly because not consciously.
The letter to his father was again almost wholly on money matters; but
at the end come two notable sentences:--
'How can I thank you for giving me up to this work, and for all the wise
and loving words with which you constantly cheer me and encourage me?
Your blessing comes now to strengthen me, as work and responsibilities
are fast accumulating upon me. I thank God that He enables us at the
two ends of the world to see this matter in the same way, so that no
conflict of duties arises in my mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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