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
'Now I see of course the distinction between a man making it his
business to read the Bible and neighbours dropping in occasionally
to read a chapter to one who is unable to read, but where you are
distinctly told that the wish is most decidedly to support the
clergyman, and answers not unsatisfactory are given upon main points,
what difference remains between the two cases I have put that can
furnish matter for fair argument, with a man from education, &c.,
disposed to take a different view of the whole question? Add to this,
that I cannot appeal to the universal practice of the clergy. "Why,"
might it be said, "do you, as a clergyman find a difficulty where Mr.
H. finds none? You are, after all, acting on your own private opinion,
though you lay claim to authority for it." I cannot successfully appeal
to the distinctive teaching of our Church, clear and manifest as it is,
for the very words I think conclusive contain no such evidence for him,
and so on ad infinitum. Besides, to speak quite what I feel at present,
though only so perhaps because my view is necessarily unformed, the
natural order of things in such a district as this seems to be: gain
the affections of the people by gentleness and showing real interest
in their welfare, spiritual and temporal; show them in the Bible such
teaching as the Church considers necessary (but not as yet upon the
authority of the Church, or at least not so expressed to them); lead
them gradually to the acknowledgment of such truths as these: that
Christ did found a society called the Church, and appoint to certain
persons whom he sent the Ministry of reconciliation; that if we have no
guide but mere opinion, there will be thousands of conflicting opinions
in the world even among good men, whereas Truth can be but one, and that
practically this is found to be so; that it is no argument to say, that
the Spirit so operated as to enlighten the reason of each individual to
this extent, viz., that it may compose a Creed for him or herself; that
the Spirit acts now in the ordinary, though not less real and heavenly
manner; and that the infinite divisions among sectaries proves the fact
to be as I state it.
'Thus I imagine the want of that external and visible Church will be
felt as necessary to fix the Creeds pasa katadike.
'But to reverse this process, to cram positive teaching down their
throats upon the authority of the Church before they know what the
Church is, or feel the need of any power outside (so to speak) their
own minds to guide them, does seem to me in a place like this (humanly
speaking) suicidal. I cannot, of course, tell how much preparatory
teaching they have received, but I must judge from what I see and hear,
and deal accordingly in each cottage. Some few there are to whom I can
speak, as to Church people in the real sense of the word, but these are
as two or three in a hundred.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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