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
'Leaving New Zealand on June 20th, I sailed to Norfolk Island, where I
held my first Confirmation. By desire of the Bishop of Tasmania, I
act as Bishop for the Norfolk Islanders. This was, as you know, a very
solemn time for me; sixteen dear children were confirmed. Since that
time I have visited very many islands with almost unequalled success, as
far as effecting landings, opening communication, and receiving native
lads are concerned. I have on board natives from many places from which
we have never received them before. Many I have left with Mr. Dudley and
Mr. Pritt on Mota Island at school, but I have now twenty-one, speaking
eleven languages. At many places where we had never landed, I was
received well.
'The state of things, too, in the Banks Islands is very encouraging.
What do you think of my having two married (after their fashion) couples
on board from the Solomon Islands (San Cristoval and Contrariete)? This
was effected with some difficulty. Both the men are old scholars, of
course. I ought therefore to be most thankful; and yet my heart is
sad because, after promises given by Grariri and his wife, Parenga and
Kerearua (all old scholars, save Mrs. Garm), not one came away with me
yesterday, and I feel grieved at the loss of my dear boys, who can read
and write, and might be taught so much now! It is all very faithless;
but I must tell it all to you, for indeed I do not feel as if I had
any right to expect it otherwise, but in the moment of perceiving and
confessing that it is very good for me, I find out for the first time
how much my heart was set upon having them.
'And then San Cristoval, sixty miles long, with its villages and
languages, and Malanta over eighty miles long, and Guadalcanar, seventy!
It is a silly thought or a vain, human wish, but I feel as if I longed
to be in fifty or a hundred places at once. But God will send qualified
men in good time. In the meanwhile (for the work must be carried on
mainly by native teachers gathered from each island), as some fall off I
must seek to gain others. Even where lads are only two, or even one year
with mer and then apparently fall back to what they were before, some
good may be done, the old teaching may return upon them some day, and
they may form a little nucleus for good, though not now.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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