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
28th, 3 P.M.--The first anniversary of our dear Father's death. How you
are all recalling what took place then! How full of thankfulness for his
gain, far outweighing the sorrow for our loss! And yet how you must
feel it, more than I do, and yet I feel it deeply: but the little fond
memories of the last months, and above all the looks and spoken words
of love, I can't altogether enter into them. His letters are all that
letters can be, more than any other letters can be, but they are not
the same thing in all ways. The Primate has left us to hurry down the
sailing master of the "Sea Breeze." It was a very rough morning, but is
calm now, boats passing and repassing between the shore and the schooner
at anchor off Kohimarama.'
The habit of writing journals was not at once resumed by Bishop Patteson
when his father was not there to read them; and the chance of seeing his
sisters, no doubt, made him write less fully to them, since they might
be on the voyage when the letters arrived in England. Thus the fullest
record of the early part of the voyage is in a report which he drew up
and printed in the form of a letter to the Rev. J. Keble:--
'We chartered the "Sea Breeze" schooner in June last for four months:
she is a vessel of seventy tons register, a little larger than the old
"Southern Cross," and as well suited for our purpose as a vessel can be
which is built to carry passengers in the ordinary way. No voyage can of
course equal in importance those early expeditions of the Primate, when
he sailed in his little schooner among seas unknown, to islands never
before visited, or visited only by the sandal-wood traders. But I never
recollect myself so remarkable a voyage as this last. I do not mean that
any new method was adopted in visiting islands, or communicating with
the natives. God gave to the Bishop of New Zealand wisdom to see and
carry out from the first the plan, which more and more approves itself
as the best and only feasible plan, for our peculiar work. But all
through this voyage, both in revisiting islands well known to us, and in
recommencing the work in other islands, where, amidst the multitude
of the Primate's engagements, it had been impossible to keep up our
acquaintance with the people, and in opening the way in islands now
visited for the first time, from the beginning to the end, it pleased
God to prosper us beyond all our utmost hopes. I was not only able to
land on many places where, as far as I know, no white man had set foot
before, but to go inland, to inspect the houses, canoes, &c., in crowded
villages (as at Santa Cruz), or to sit for two hours alone amidst a
throng of people (as at Pentecost Island), or to walk two and a half
miles inland (as at Tariko or Aspee). From no less than eight islands
have we for the first time received, young people for our school here,
and fifty-one Melanesian men, women, and young lads are now with
us, gathered from twenty-four islands, exclusive of the islands so
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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