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
It would be impossible for me to say all he was to her. Not long before
her death, when he had just left the room, she said, 'I have not felt
any pain or weakness whilst Mr. Patteson has been here.' I was not
always present during his visits to her, and I think their closer
communings were only known to Him above, but their effects were
discernible in that deep confidence in him on her part, and that lasting
impression on him, for you will remember, in his letter last April, he
goes back in memory to that time, and calls it--'a solemn scene in my
early ministry.' Solemn, indeed, it was to us all that last night of
her life upon earth. He was with her from about the middle of the day
on Monday until about four o'clock on Tuesday morning; when, after
commending her soul to God, he closed her eyes with his own hands, and
taking out his watch, told us the hour and moment of her departure. He
then went home and apprised Miss Wilkins of her death in these words:
'My soul fleeth unto the LORD before the morning watch, I say before the
morning watch,' and at the earliest dawn of day, the villagers were made
aware that she had passed away by the tolling bell, and tolled by him.
This was not the only death during his ministry among us; but it was
the first occasion where he gave the Communion of the Sick, also when he
read the Burial Service. Cases of rejoicing with those that rejoiced as
well as of weeping with those that wept, the child and the aged seemed
alike to appreciate his goodness. In him were combined those qualities
which could inspire with deep reverence and entire confidence. Many,
many are or will be the stars in the crown of his rejoicing, and some
owe to him under God, their deeper work of grace in the heart and their
quickening in the divine life.'
A remarkable testimony is this to the impression remaining after the
lapse of sixteen years from a ministry extending over no more than
seventeen months. 'Our Mr. Patteson' the people called him to the last.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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