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
'For all your many kindnesses to all of us and to my son, I thank you
from the very bottom of my soul, and pray that we may meet hereafter,
through the merits, and for the sake of our blessed Mediator and
Redeemer Jesus Christ our Lord, that as we have striven on earth to be
followers of Him and His glory, so we may be partakers of it in Heaven.
'Your loving Friend,
'J. PATTESON.'
The July mail was without a letter from the father. The end had come
in the early morning of June 28, 1861, with a briefer, less painful
struggle than had been thought probable, and the great, sound, wise,
tender heart had ceased to beat.
There is no need to dwell on the spontaneous honours that all of those
who had ever been connected with him paid to the good old Judge, when he
was laid beside his much-loved wife in Feniton churchyard. Bishop Sumner
of Winchester, the friend of his boyhood, read the funeral service.
'His works do follow him:' and we turn to that work of his son's in
which assuredly he had his part, since one word of his would have turned
aside the course that had brought such blessing on both, had he not
accepted the summons, even as Zebedee, when he was left by the lake
side, while his sons became fishers of men.
Unknowing of the tidings in reserve for him, the Bishop was on his
voyage, following the usual course; hearing at Anaiteum that a frightful
mortality had prevailed in many of these southern islands. Measles had
been imported by a trader, and had, in many cases, brought on dysentery,
and had swept away a third of Mr. Geddie's Anaiteum flock. Mr. Gordon's
letters had spoken of it as equally fatal in Erromango, and there were
reports of the same, as well as of famine and war, in Nengone.
'God will give me men in His time; for could I be cut up into five
pieces already I would be living at Nengone, Lifu, Mai, Mota, and
Bauro!' was the comment on this visit; and this need of men inspired a
letter to his uncle Edward, on a day dear to the Etonian heart:--
'Schooner "Dunedin," 60 tons.
'In sight of Erromango, New Hebrides: June 4, 1861.
'My dear Tutor,--Naturally I think of Eton and of you especially to-day.
I hope you have as fine a day coming on for the cricket-match and for
Surley as I have here. Thermometer 81°; Tanna and Erromango, with
their rugged hilly outlines, breaking the line of the bright sparkling
horizon.
'I managed to charter the vessel for the voyage just in time to escape
cold weather in New Zealand. She is slow, but sound; the captain a
teetotaller, and crew respectable in all ways. So the voyage, though
lengthy, is pleasant.
'I have some six or seven classes to take, for they speak as many more
languages; and I get a little time for reading and writing, but not
much.
'I need not tell you how heavily this new responsibility presses on me,
as I see the islands opening, and at present feel how very difficult it
must be to obtain men to occupy this opening--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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