Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands Part 68

'Sunday.--Very calm, but a light breeze took us into Nukapu. A canoe came off, I made them understand that it was our day of rest, and that I would visit them atainu (to-morrow), a curious word. I gave a few presents, and we slowly sailed on.

'Monday, 6 A.M.--Off Piteni, canoe off, went ash.o.r.e, low tide, got into a canoe, and so reached the beach, people well behaved, much talk of taking lads, quite well understood. The speech is (you remember) very Maori indeed. There were some nice lads, but no one came away. Four canoes from Taumaho were here, and two Piteni men came back from Taumaho while I was on sh.o.r.e.

'At Nukapu at 2.30 P.M. High water, went in easily over the reef by a short cut, not by our old winding narrow pa.s.sage. I was greatly pleased by the people asking me on board, "Where is Bisambe?" "Here I am." "No, no, the Bisambe tuai (of old). Your mutua (father). Is he below? Why doesn't he come up with some hatchets?"

'So you see they remember you. A tall middle-aged man, Moto, said that he was with us in the boat in 1859, and he and I remembered the one-eyed man who piloted us.

'I went here also into the houses. Here is a quaint place; many things, not altogether idols, but uncanny, and feared by the people. Women danced in my honour, people gave small presents, &c., but no volunteers.

I could talk with them with sufficient ease; and took my time, lying at my ease on a good mat with cane pillow, Anaiteum fas.h.i.+on. I told them that they had seen on board many little fellows from many islands; that they need not fear to let their children go; that I could not spend time and property in coming year by year and giving presents when they were unwilling to listen to what I said, but they only made unreal promises, put boys in the boat merely to take them out again, and so we went away atrakoi.'

There is a little weariness of spirits--not of spirit--in the contemporaneous words to the home party:--

'I don't know what to write about this voyage. You have heard all about tropical vegetation, Santa Cruz canoes, houses, customs, &c. If indeed I could draw these fellows, among whom I was lying on a mat on Monday; if you could see the fuzzy heads, stained white and red, the great sh.e.l.l ornaments on the arms, the round plate of sh.e.l.l as big as a small dinner plate hanging over the chest, the large holes in the lobes of the ears rilled with perhaps fifteen or twenty rings of tortoise-sh.e.l.l hung on to one another; the woven scarves and girdles stained yellow with turmeric and stamped with a black pattern: then it would make a curious sight for you; and your worthy brother, much at his ease, lying flat on his back on two or three mats, talking to the people about his great wish to take away some of the jolly little fellows to whom he was giving fish-hooks, would no doubt be very "interesting." But really all this has become so commonplace, that I can't write about it with any freshness. The volcano in this group, Tenakulu, is now active, and was a fine sight at night, though the eruption is not continuous as it was in 1859.

'October 9th--Near Ambrym [to the Bishop]. Some people from Aruas, the large western bay of Vanua Lava, had been taken by force to Queensland or Fiji. The natives simply speak of "a s.h.i.+p of Sydney."

'Wednesday.--Aroa and Matlavo. 'Henry Tagalana and Joanna and their baby Elizabeth, William Pasvorang and Lydia, and six others, all baptized, and four communicants among them, had spent five weeks on sh.o.r.e; a very nice set. Six of them lived together at Aroa, had regular morning and evening prayers, sang their hymns, and did what they could, talking to their people. Codrington went over in a canoe, and spent four days with them, much pleased. We brought three scholars for George from thence.

'Thursday, Mota.--Codrington says the time is come, in his opinion, for some steps to be taken to further the movement in Mota. Grown-up people much changed, improved, some almost to be regarded as catechumens.

'We left Mota, bringing all that were to come; indeed, we scarcely know what it is nowadays to lose a boy or man--a great blessing. There had been another visit of eleven canoes of Tikopians; friendly, though unable to converse, and promising to return again in two months.

'October 11th.--A topsail schooner in sight, between Ambrym and Paama--one of those kidnapping vessels. I have any amount of (to me) conclusive evidence of downright kidnapping. But I don't think I could prove any case in a Sydney Court. They have no names painted on some of their vessels, and the natives can't catch nor p.r.o.nounce the names of the white men on board. They describe their appearance accurately, and we have more than suspicions about some of these fellows.

'The planters in Queensland and Fiji, who create the demand for labourers, say that they don't like the kidnapping any more than I do.

They pay occasionally from 6 to 12 for an "imported labourer," and they don't want to have him put into their hands in a sullen irritable state of mind.'

Touching at Nengone, the Bishop saw Mr. Creagh, who had recently visited New Caledonia, whither Ba.s.set, the poor chief who had been banished to Tahiti for refusing to receive a French priest, had been allowed to return, on the Emperor Napoleon forbidding interference with Protestant missionaries or their converts.

Wadrokala and his wife and child were brought away, making up a number of 65 black pa.s.sengers, besides the 60 scholars already at Norfolk Island. The weather throughout the voyage had been unusually still, with frequent calms, the sea with hardly any swell. And this had been very happy for the Bishop; but he was less well than when he had left Taurarua, and was unequal to attending the General Synod in New Zealand, far more so to another campaign in Australia, though he cherished the design of going to see after the condition of the labourers in Fiji.

He finishes his long letter to his former Primate:--

It is perhaps cowardly to say that I am thankful that I am not a clergyman in England. I am not the man even in a small parish to stand up and fight against so many many-headed monsters. I should give in, and s.h.i.+rk the contest. The more I pray that you may have strength to endure it. I don't think I was ever pugnacious in the way of controversy; and I am very very thankful to be out of it.'

Indeed, the tone of the references to Church matters at home had become increasingly cautious; and one long letter to Mrs. Martyn he actually tore up, lest it should do harm. His feeling more and more was to wish for patience and forbearance, and to deprecate violent words or hasty actions--looking from his hermit life upon all the present distress more as a phase of Church history that would develop into some form of good, and perhaps hardly sensible of the urgency of the struggle and defence.

For peace and shelter from the strife of tongues was surely one of the compensating blessings conferred on him. But, as all his companions agree, he was never the same man again after his illness. There was a lower level of spirits and of energy, a sensitiveness to annoyances, and an indisposition to active exertion, which distressed him.

His day began as early as ever, and was mapped out as before, for cla.s.ses of all kinds, Hebrew and reading; but he seldom left his room, except for Chapel and meals, being unable to take much out-door exercise. He did not see so much of his elder scholars as before, chiefly because the very large number of newer pupils made it necessary to employ them more constantly; but he never failed to give each of them some instruction for a short time every day, though with more effort, for indeed almost everything had become a burthen to him. Mr.

Codrington's photograph taken at this time shows how much changed and aged he had become. The quiet in which he now lived resulted in much letter-writing, taking up correspondences that had slumbered in more busy times, as his mind flew back to old friends: though, indeed, the letters given in the preceding Memoir must not be taken by any means to represent the numbers he wrote. When he speaks of sending thirty-five by one mail, perhaps only one or two have come into my hands; and of those only such portions are of course taken as ill.u.s.trate his life, work, character, and opinions without trenching on the reserve due to survivors. Thus mult.i.tudes of affectionate letters, partic.i.p.ating in the joys and sorrows of his brother, his cousins and friends, can necessarily find no place here; though the idea of his character is hardly complete without direct evidence of the unbroken or more truly increasing sympathy he had with those whom he had not met for sixteen years, and his love for his brother's wife and children whom he had never seen.

Soon after his return to Norfolk Island came a packet with a three months' acc.u.mulation of home despatches. He read and replied in his old conversational way, with occasionally a revelation of his deep inner self:--

'I have been thinking, dear old Fan, about your words, "there would be a good deal to give and take if you came home for a time;" less perhaps now than before I was somewhat tamed by my illness. I see more of the meaning of that pet.i.tion, "from all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; and from all uncharitableness."

'Alas! you don't know what a misspent life I looked back upon, never losing hold, G.o.d be praised, of the sure belief in His promises of pardon and acceptance in Christ. I certainly saw that a want of sympathy, an indifference to the feelings of others, want of consideration, selfishness, in short, lay at the bottom of very much that I mourned over.

'There is one thing, that I don't mention as an excuse for a fault which really does exist, but simply as a fact, viz., that being always, even now, pressed for time, I write very abruptly, and so seem to be much more positive and dogmatic than I hope, and really think, is the case.

I don't remember ever writing you a letter in which I was able to write but as I would have talked out the matter under discussion in all its bearings. This arises partly from impatience, my pen won't go fast enough; but as I state shortly my opinion, without going through the reasons which lead me to adopt it, no doubt much that I say seems to be without reason, and some of it no doubt is.'

I need make no excuse for giving as much as possible of the correspondence of these last few months, when--though the manner of his actual departure was violent, there was already the shadow, as it were, of death upon him.

To Sir J. T. Coleridge the letter was:--

'December 9, 1870.

'My dearest Uncle,--How long it is since I wrote to you!... And yet it is true that I think more often of you than of anyone, except Jem, Joan and Fan. In fact, your name meets me so often in one way or another--in papers from England, and much more in books continually in use, that I could not fail to think of you if I had not the true, deep love that brings up the old familiar face and voice so often before my eyes....

'I wish I could talk with you, or rather hear you answer my many questions on so many points. I get quite bewildered sometimes. It is hard to read the signs of our times; so hard to see where charity ends and compromise begins, where the old opinion is to be stoutly maintained, and where the new mode of thought is to be accepted. I suppose there always was some little difference among divines as to "fundamentals," and no ready-made solution exists of each difficult question as it emerges.

'There is reason for that being so, because it is part of our duty and trial to exercise our own power of discretion and judgment. But so much now seems to be left to individuals, and so little is accepted on authority. In Church matters I have for years thought Synods to be the one remedy. If men meet and talk over a difficulty, there is a probability of men's understanding each other's motives, and thus preserving charity. If one-twentieth part of a diocese insists upon certain observances which nineteen-twentieths repudiate, it seems clear that the very small minority is put out of court. Yet how often the small minority contains more salt than the large majority!

'I know indeed I am speaking honestly, that I am not worthy to understand dear Mr. Keble on many points. "The secret of our Lord"

is with such men, and we fail to understand him, nous autres I mean, outside the sanctuary. Yet there is, I must confess it to you, my dear uncle, a something about his book on Eucharistic Adoration which has the character to me of foreign rather than of English divinity. I don't want to be exclusive, far from it. I don't want to be Anglican versus Primitive; but yet somehow, to me, there is a something which belongs more to French or Italian than to English character about some parts of the book. It is no doubt because I can't see what to his eye was plain.'

[An account of the voyage follows as before given.] 'The islanders are beginning to find out the true character of the many small vessels cruising among them, taking away people to the plantations in Queensland, Fiji, &c. So now force is subst.i.tuted for deceit. Natives are enticed on board under promises (by signs of course, for nowhere can they talk to them) of presents, tempted down below into the hold to get tomahawks, beads, biscuit, &c., then the hatches are clapped on, and they are stolen away. I have to try and write a statement about it, which is the last thing I can do properly.'

[Then the history of the weddings and baptisms.] 'There is another pleasant feature to be noticed. The older scholars, almost all of whom are Banks Islanders, talk and arrange among themselves plans for helping natives of the islands. Thus Edward Wogale, of Mota, volunteers to go to Anudha, 300 or 400 miles off, to stay there with his friend Charles Sapinamba of that island, to aid him in working among his people. Edward is older and knows more than Charles. They talk in Mota, but Edward will soon have to speak the tongue of Anudha when living there. B---- and his wife offer to go to Santa Maria, Robert Pantatun and his wife to go to Matlavo, John Nonono to go to Savo, and Andrew Lalena also. This is very comforting to me. It is bona fide giving up country and home. It is indicative of a real desire to make known the Gospel to other lands.

So long as they will do this, so long I think we may have the blessed a.s.surance that G.o.d's Holy Spirit is indeed working in their hearts. Dear fellows! It makes me very thankful.

'My clerical staff is increased by a Mr. Jackson, long a friend and supporter of the Mission....

'Atkin is a steady-going fellow, most conscientious, with a good head-piece of his own, diligent and thoughtful rather than quick. He and Bice read Hebrew daily with me, and they will have soon a very fair knowledge of it. Joe Atkin knows his Greek Testament very fairly indeed: Ellicott, Trench, Alford, Wordsworth and others are in use among us.

'I wish you could see some of these little fellows. It is, I suppose, natural that an old bachelor should have pleasure in young things about him, ready-made subst.i.tutes for children of his own. I do like them.

With English children, save and except Pena, I never was at my ease, partly I think from a worse than foolish self-consciousness about so ugly a fellow not being acceptable to children. Anyhow, I don't feel shy with Melanesians; and I do like the little things about me, even the babies come to me away from almost anyone, chiefly, perhaps, because they are acquainted at a very early age with a corner of my room where dwells a tin of biscuits.

'To this day I shut up and draw into my sh.e.l.l when any white specimen of humanity looms in sight. How seldom do one's natural tastes coincide with one's work. And I may be deceiving myself all along. It is true that I have a very small acquaintance with men; not so very small an acquaintance with men pa.s.sed from this world who live in their books; and some living authors I read--our English Commentators are almost all alive.

'I think that I read too exclusively one cla.s.s of books. I am not drawn out of this particular kind of reading, which is alone really pleasant and delightful to me, by meeting with persons who discuss other matters.

So I read divinity almost if not quite exclusively. I make dutiful efforts to read a bit of history or poetry, but it won't do. My relaxation is in reading some old favourite, Jackson, Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, &c. Not that I know much about them, for my real studying time is occupied in translating and teaching. And so I read these books, and others some German, occasionally (but seldom) French: Reuss, for example, and Guizot. And on the whole I read a fair amount of Hebrew; though even now it is only the narrative books that I read, so to say, rapidly and with ease.

'I wish some of our good Hebrew scholars were sound Poly- and Melanesian scholars also. I believe it to be quite true that the mode of thought of a South Sea islander resembles very closely that of a Semitic man. And their state of mental knowledge or ignorance, too. It is certainly a mistake to make the Hebrew language do the work of one of our elaborated European languages, the products of thoughts and education and literary knowledge which the Hebrew knew nothing of. A Hebrew grammar constructed on the principle of a Greek or a Latin grammar is simply a huge anachronism.

'How did the people of the time of Moses, or David, or Jeremiah think?

is the first question. How did they express their thoughts? is the second. The grammar is but the mode adapted in speech for notifying and communicating thoughts. That the Jew did not think, consequently did not speak, like a European is self-evident. Where are we to find people, children in thought, keenly alive to the outer world, impressible, emotional, but devoid of the power of abstract thought, to whom long involved processes of thought and long involved sentences of speech are unknown? Consequently, the contrivances for stringing together dependent clauses don't exist. Then some wiseacre of an 18th or 19th century German writes a grammar on the a.s.sumption that a paulo-post-futurum is necessarily to be provided for the unfortunate Israelite who thought and talked child's language. Now, we Melanesians habitually think and speak such languages. I a.s.sure you the Hebrew narrative viewed from the Melanesian point of thought is wonderfully graphic and lifelike. The English version is dull and lifeless in comparison. No modern Hebrew scholar agrees with any other as to the mode of construing Hebrew.

Anyone makes anything out of those unfortunately misused tenses.

Delitzsch, Ewald, Gesenius, Perowne, Thrupp, Kay too, give no rule by which the scholar is to know from the grammar whether the time is past, present, or future, i.e., whether such and such a verse is a narrative of a past fact or the prophecy of a future one. It is much a matter of exegesis; but exegesis not based on grammar is worth very little.

'Really the time is not inherent in the tense at all. But that is a strong a.s.sertion, which I think I could prove, give me time and a power of writing clearly. Sir William Martin is trying to prove it.

'All languages of the South Seas are constructed on the same principle.

We say, "When I get there, it will be right." But all South Sea Islanders, "I am there, and it is right." The time is given by something in the context which indicates that the speaker's mind is in past, present, or future time. "In the beginning G.o.d made" rightly, so, but not because the tense gives the past sense, for the same tense very often can't have anything to do with a past sense, but in the beginning indicates a past time.

'The doctrine of the Vaw conversive is simply a figment of so-called grammarians; language is not an artificial product, but a natural mode of expressing ideas.

'And if they a.s.sume that Hebrew has a perfect and imperfect, or past and future (for the grammars use all kinds of names), why on earth should people who have, on their showing, a past tense, use a clumsy contrivance of turning a future tense into a past, and vice versa?