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
With this purpose full in view, Coleridge Patteson received Ordination
as a Priest in the ensuing Ember Week, again at the hands of Bishop
Phillpotts, in Exeter Cathedral; where a beautiful marble pulpit is to
commemorate the fact.
The wrench from home and friends could not but be terrible. The sisters,
indeed, were so far prepared that they had been aware from the first
of his wish and his mother's reception of it, and when they told their
Father, he was pleased and comforted; for truly he was upheld by the
strength of willing sacrifice. Those were likewise sustained who felt
the spirit of missionary enterprise and sympathy, which was at that time
so strongly infused into the Church; but the shock was severe to many,
and especially to the brother who had been devoted to Coley from their
earliest infancy, and among his relations the grief was great.
As to the district of Alfington, the distress was extreme. The people
had viewed Mr. Patteson as their exclusive property, and could not
forgive the Bishop of New Zealand for, as they imagined, tempting him
away. 'Ah! Sir,' was the schoolmistress's answer to some warm words from
Mr. Justice Coleridge in praise of Bishop Selwyn, 'he may be--no
doubt he is--a very good man. I only wish he had kept his hands off
Alfington.' 'It would not be easy,' says the parishioner from whom
I have already quoted, 'to describe the intense sorrow in view of
separation. Mr. Patteson did all he could to assure us that it was his
own will and act, consequent upon the conviction that it was God's will
that he should go, and to exonerate the Bishop, but for some time he was
regarded as the immediate cause of our loss; and he never knew half the
hard things said of him by the same people who, when they heard he
was coming, and would preach on the Sunday, did their utmost to make
themselves and their children look their very best.'
Indeed, the affectionate writer seems to have shared the poor people's
feeling that they had thus festally received a sort of traitor with
designs upon their pastor. She goes on to tell of his ministrations to
her mother, whose death-bed was the first he attended as a Priest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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