Life of John Coleridge Patteson

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  'August 6th.-To-day there is no rain, for the first time for weeks. It blew a heavy gale all night, and had done so with heavy rain for some days before.

  'At 8 A.M. to-day I baptized 14 grown men, one an old bald man, and another with a son of sixteen or so, five women and six lads, taught entirely in George's school. Afterwards, at a different service, 7 infants and little children were baptized. 238 + 5 who have died have now been baptized since the beginning of July. To-day's service was very comforting. I pray and trust that these grown-up men and women may be kept steadfast to their profession. It is a great blessing that I could think it right to take this step. You will, I know, pray for them; their position is necessarily a difficult one.

  'It is 2 P.M., and I feel tired: the crowds are gone, though little fellows are as usual sitting all round one. I tell them I can't talk; I must sit quietly, with Charlotte Yonge's "Pupils of St. John the Divine." Dear me, what advantage young folks have nowadays, though indeed the dangers of these times far outweigh those of our young days.

  'I suppose Lightfoot's "Commentaries" hardly come in your way. They are critical and learned on the Greek of St. Paul's Epistles. But there are dissertations which may be read by the English reader. He seems to me to be a very valuable man, well fitted by his learning, and moderation, and impartiality, and uncontroversial temper to do much good. His sympathies with the modern school of thought are, I fancy, beyond me.

  'There is no doubt that Matthew Arnold says much that is true of the narrowness, bigotry, and jealous un-Christian temper of Puritanism; and I suppose no one doubts that they do misrepresent the true doctrine of Christianity, both by their exclusive devotion to one side only of the teaching of the Bible, and by their misconception of their own favourite portions of Scripture. The doctrine of the Atonement was never in ancient times, I believe, drawn out in the form in which Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and others have lately stated it.

  'The fact of the Atonement through the Death of Christ was always clearly stated; the manner, the "why," the "how" man's Redemption and Reconciliation to God is thus brought about, was not taught, if at all, after the Protestant fashion.

  'Oxenham's "History of the Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement" is a fairly-written statement of what was formerly held and taught. Such words as "substitution," "satisfaction," with all the ideas introduced into the subject from the use of illustrations, e.g. of criminals acquitted, debts discharged, have perplexed it perhaps, rather than explained, what must be beyond explanation.

  'The ultra-Calvinistic view becomes in the mind and language of the hot-headed ignorant fanatic a denial of God's Unity. "The merciful Son appeasing the wrath of the angry Father" is language which implies two Wills, two Counsels in the Divine Mind (compare with this John iii. 16).

  I suppose that an irreverent man, being partly disgusted with the popular theology, having no scruples about putting aside Inspiration, and conceiving that he himself is an adequate representative of the nineteenth century's intelligence, and that the nineteenth century's intelligence is most profound and infallible, sets to work to demolish what is distasteful to himself, and what the unerring criticism of the day rejects, correcting St. Paul's mistakes, patronising him whenever he is fortunate enough to receive the approbation of the great thinkers of our day, and so constructs a vague "human" religion out of the Christianity which he criticises, eliminating all that lies beyond the speculative range of the mind, and that demands assent by its own authority as God's Revelation. I don't know how to state briefly what I mean.

  'I think I can understand that this temper of mind is very prevalent in England now, and that I can partly trace the growth of it. Moreover, I feel that to ignore, despise, or denounce it, will do no good.

  'As a matter of fact, thousands of educated men are thinking on these great matters as our fathers did not think of them. Simplicity of belief is a great gift; but then the teaching submitted to such simple believers ought to be true, otherwise the simple belief leads them into error. How much that common Protestant writers and preachers teach is not true! Perhaps some of their teaching is untrue absolutely, but it is certainly untrue relatively, because they do not hold the "proportion of the faith," and by excluding some truths and presenting others in an extravagant form they distort the whole body of truth.

  'But when a man not only points out some of the popular errors, but claims to correct St. Paul when he Judaizes, and to do a little judicious Hellenizing for an inspired Apostle, one may well distrust the nineteenth century tone and spirit.

  'I do really and seriously think that a great and reverently-minded man, conscious of the limits of human reason-a man like Butler- would find his true and proper task now in presenting Christian teaching in an unconventional form, stripped of much error that the terms which we all employ when speaking doctrine seem unavoidably to carry with them.

  'Such a man might ask, "What do you mean by your theory of Substitution, Satisfaction, "Where do you find it?" "Prove it logically from the Bible." "Show that the early Church held it."

  'Butler, as you know, reproved the curiosity of men who sought to find out the manner of the Atonement. "I do not find," he says, "that it is declared in the Scriptures." He believed the fact, of course, as his very soul's treasure. "Our ignorance," he says, "is the proper answer to such enquiries."

  'At the same time, no one now can do, it seems, what another Butler might do, viz., deal with the Bible as the best of the nineteenth- century men wish to hear a divine deal with it. He would never make mere assertions. He would never state as a proved truth, to be presented to a congregation's acceptance, a statement or a doctrine which really equalled only an opinion of Wesley or any other human teacher. He would never make arbitrary quotations from Scripture, and try to prove points by illogical reasoning, and unduly pressing texts which a more careful collation of MSS. has shown to be at least doubtful. And by fairness and learning he would win or conciliate right-minded men of the critical school. What offends these men is the cool reckless way in which so many preachers make the most audacious statements, wholly unsupported by any sound learning and logical reasoning. A man makes a statement, quotes a text or two, which he doesn't even know to be capable of at least one inter- pretation different from that which he gives to it; and so the critical hearer is disgusted, and no wonder.

  'One gain of this critical spirit is, that it makes all of us Clergy more circumspect in what we say, and many a man looks at his Greek Testament nowadays, and at a good Commentary too, before he ventures to quote a text which formerly would have done duty in its English dress and passed muster among an uncritical congregation. Nowadays every clergyman knows that there are probably men in his congregation who know their Bible better than he does, and as practical lawyers, men of business, are more than his match at an argument. It offends such men to have a shallow-minded preacher taking for granted the very points that he ought to prove, giving a sentence from some divine of his school as if it settled the question without further reference even to the Bible.

  'This critical spirit becomes very easily captious; and a man needn't be unbelieving because he doesn't like to be credulous. Campbell's book on the Atonement is very hard, chiefly because the man writes such unintelligible English. I think Shairp in his "Essays," gives a good critique as far as it goes on the philosophical and religious manner of our day.

  'Alexander Knox says somewhere in his correspondence with Bishop Jebb that he couldn't understand the Protestant theory of Justification. And it does seem to be often stated as if the terms employed in describing a mere transaction could adequately convey the true power and meaning of a Divine mystery.

  'But I only puzzle you, I dare say, and certainly I am liable to the charge of not writing intelligible English. I can tell you I am glad enough that I am not called on to preach on these subjects after the fashion that a preacher in England must go to work.

  'It is a cool thing to say, but I do believe that what half our English congregations want is
just the plain simple teaching that our Melanesians get, only the English congregations wouldn't stand it.'

  A letter to Arthur Coleridge is of the same date:-

  'Mota Island: August 6, 1871-

  'My dear Arthur,-I have had a busy day, having baptized thirty-two persons, of whom twenty-five are adults; and then the crowd, the incessant talking, teaching, and the anxious feeling which attend any step of so much importance as the Baptism from heathenism. Fourteen of the men are married, two are elderly, several are middle-aged, five women are among the number. I believe that God's spirit is indeed working in the hearts of these people. Some twelve or thirteen years have passed, and only now have I felt that I could take the step of baptizing the infants and young children here, the parents promising that they shall be sent to school as they grow up. About 200 young children have during the past month been baptized: things seem hopeful. It is very happy work; and I get on pretty well, often very tired, but that doesn't matter.

  'I could wish all my good friends were here, that those who have been enabled to contribute to this end might see for themselves something of the long hoped for beginning of a new state of things in this little island.

  'August 11.-In a little more than a month 248 persons have been baptized here, twenty-five of them adults, the rest infants and young children. I am very sorry to think that I must leave them soon, for I expect the "Southern Cross" in a few days; and I must go to the Solomon Islands, from them to Santa Cruz Island, and so to Norfolk Island, calling here on the way. Then I am off to the Fiji Islands for, I suppose, a month or six weeks. There are some 6,000 or 7,000 white people there, and it is assumed by them and the Church people in this part of the world that I must be regarded as their Bishop. Very soon a separate Bishop ought to be at work there, and I shall probably have to make some arrangement with the settlers. Then, on the other hand, I want to look into the question of South Sea Islanders who are taken to the Fiji plantations.

  'How far I can really examine into the matter, I hardly know. But many of the settlers invite me to consider the matter with them.

  'I believe that for the most part the islanders receive good treatment when on the plantations, but I know that many of them are taken away from their islands by unfair means.

  'The settlers are only indirectly responsible for this. The traders and sailing masters of the vessels who take away the islanders are the most culpable. But the demand creates the supply.

  'Among all my multifarious occupations here, I have not much time for reading; I am never alone night or day. I sleep on a table, with some twelve or more fellows around me; and all day long people are about me, in and out of school hours. But I have read, for the third time I think, Lightfoot's "Galatians"-and I am looking forward to receiving his book on the Ephesians. He doesn't lay himself out to do exactly the work that Bishop Ellicott has done so excellently, and his dissertations are perhaps the most valuable part of his work. He will gain the ear of the men of this generation, rather than Ellicott; he sympathises more with modern modes of thought, and is less rigid than Ellicott. But he seems very firm on all the most essential and primary points, and I am indeed thankful for such a man. I don't find much time for difficult reading; I go on quietly, Hebrew, I have many good books on both Old and New Testaments, English and German, and some French, e.g. Keuss and Guizot.

  'I like to hear something of what this restless speculative scientific generation is thinking and doing. But I can't read with much pleasure the fragmentary review literature of the day. The "Cornhill" and that class of books I can't stand, and sketchy writings. The best specimens of light reading I have seen of late are Charlotte Yonge's "Pupils of St. John the Divine," and Guizot's "St. Louis," excellent.

  'I did read, for it was put on board, Disraeli's novel. I was on my back sea-sick for four days; what utter rubbish! clever nonsense! And I have read Mr. Arnold's "St. Paul and Protestantism." He says some clever things about the Puritan mind, no doubt. But what a painful book it is: can't he see that he is reducing all that the spirit of a man must needs rest on to the level of human criticism? simply eliminating from the writings of the Apostles, and I suppose from the words of the Saviour, all that is properly and strictly Divine.-[Then follows much that has been before given.]-How [winding up thus] thankful I am that I am far away from the noise and worry of this sceptical yet earnest age!

  'There is something hazy about your friend Davis's writings. I know some of his publications, and sympathise to a very considerable extent with him. But I can't be sure that I always understand him: that school has a language of its own, and I am not so far initiated as to follow.

  'I can't understand Maurice, much as I respect him. It is simply wasting my time and my brains to attempt to read him; he has great thoughts, and he makes them intelligible to people less stupid than me, and many writers whom I like and understand have taken their ideas from him; but I cannot understand him. And I think many of his men have his faults. At least I am so conceited as to think it is not all my fault.

  'Do you know two little books by Norris, Canon of Bristol, "Key to the Gospel History," and a Manual on the Catechism?

  'They are well worth reading, indeed I should almost say studying, so as to mould the teaching of your young ones upon them.

  'How you would be amused could you see the figures and scenes which surround me here! To-day about 140 men, women, lads and girls are working voluntarily here, clearing and fencing the gardens, and digging the holes for the yams, and they do this to help us in the school; we have two pigs killed, and give them a bit of a feast. The feeling is very friendly. A sculptor might study them to great advantage, though clothing is becoming common here now. Our thirty- four baptized adults and our sixteen or twenty old scholars wear decent clothing, of course.

  'Well, I must leave off.

  'I think very often of you, your wife and children, and, indeed, of you all. It would be very nice to spend a few weeks with you, but I should not get on well in your climate.

  'The heat seems to suit me better, and I am pretty well here. Indeed I am better than I have been for more than a year, though I have a good deal of discomfort.

  'Good-bye, dear Arthur. How often I think of your dear dear Father.

  'Your affectionate Cousin,

  'J. C. PATTESON.'

  To the sisters, the journal continues-recording, on August 14, the Baptism of twelve men and women the day before, the Communion of sixteen at 7 A.M., the presence of fifty-six baptized persons at morning service. More than 100 were working away the ensuing day in preparing yam gardens for Kohimarama, while two pigs were stewing in native ovens to feast them afterwards; and the Bishop was planting cocoa-nut trees and sowing flower seeds, or trying experiments with a machine for condensing water, in his moments of relaxation, which were few, though he was fairly well, and very happy, as no one can doubt on reading this:-

  'Lots of jolly little children, and many of them know me quite well and are not a bit shy. They are often very sad-looking objects, and as they don't get regularly washed, they often have large sores and abscesses, poor little things. But there are many others-clean- skinned, reddish brown, black-eyed, merry little souls among them. The colour of the people is just what Titian and the Venetian painters delighted in, the colour of their own weather-beaten Venetian boatmen, glowing warm rich colour. White folks look as if they were bleached and had all the colour washed out of them.

  'Some of the Solomon Islanders are black, and some of the New Hebrides people glossy and smooth and strong-looking; but here you seldom see any very dark people, and there are some who have the yellow, almost olive complexion of the South European. Many of the women are tattooed from head to foot, a regular network of a bluish inlaid pattern. It is not so common with the men, rather I ought to say very unusual with them, though many have their bodies marked pretty freely.'

  On the 17th sixteen more adults were baptized, elderly men, whose sons had been baptized in New Zealand coming in, and enemies res
igning deadly feuds.

  The work in Mota is best summed up in this last letter to Bishop Abraham, begun the day after what proved the final farewell to the flock there, for the 'Southern Cross' came in on the 19th, and the last voyage was at once commenced:-

  "'Southern Cross": Sunday, August 20, 1871.

  'My dear dear Friends,-Yesterday the "Southern Cross" came to me at Mota, twenty-seven days after leaving that island for Norfolk Island with some fifty Melanesians on board under charge of Bice.

  'Into what a new world your many kind affectionate letters take me! And how good it must be for me to be taught to think more than I, alas! usually do, about the trials and sorrows of others.

  'I have had such a seven weeks at Mota, broken by a three weeks' course in the New Hebrides, into two portions of three and four weeks.

  'Last year we said in our Report, that the time seemed to be come when we should seek to move the people in Mota to do more than assent to the truth of our words and the blessings promised in the Gospel, when we should urge them to appropriate to themselves those blessings, by abandoning their ignorant heathen ways, and embracing Christianity.

  'That time has come in the good Providence of God, in answer to His all-prevailing Intercession, and hastened (who can doubt it?) by the prayers of the faithful everywhere-your Whit-Sunday thoughts and prayers, your daily thoughts and prayers, all contributing to bring about a blessed change indeed in the little island.

  'In these two months I have baptized 289 persons in Mota, 231 children and infants, seventeen of the lads and boys at Kohimarama, George Sarawia's school, and forty-one grown and almost all married men and women.

  'I have tried to proceed cautiously and to act only when I had every human probability of a personal conviction and sincere desire to embrace Christian teaching and to lead a Christian life. I think the adult candidates were all competently instructed in the great truths.