Chapter XII · THE LAST EIGHTEEN MONTHS. 1870-1871. (continued 2)

'Your loving Brother,

'J. C. P.'

In spite of this distaste for writing, a good many letters were sent forth during the early months of 1871, most of them the final ones to each correspondent. The next, to Miss Mackenzie, is a reply to one in which, by Bishop Wilkinson's desire, she had sought for counsel regarding the Zulu Mission, especially on questions that she knew by experience to be most difficult, i.e., of inculcating Christian modesty, and likewise on the qualifications of a native ministry:—

'Norfolk Island: Jan. 26, 1871.

'My dear Miss Mackenzie,—In addition to a very long and interesting letter of yours, I have a letter from my sister, who has just seen you at Havant, so I must lose no more time in writing.

'First, let me say that I am as sure as I can be of anything that I have not registered, that I wrote to thank you for the prints long ago. Indeed, all these many gifts of yours are specially valuable as having been once the property of your brother, of whom it seems presumptuous for me to speak, and as having actually been used in Mission work in so distant a part of the world.

'I need not say that "Thomas a Kempis," his sextant, and his pedometer, are among my few real valuables. For the use of the prints, I can't say much on my own knowledge. My classes are for the most part made up of lads and young men, teachers, or preparing for Confirmation or Holy Communion; one class, always of younger ones, being prepared for Baptism; and sometimes youths, newcomers, when we have to take in hand a new language. Those prints are not of much use, therefore, to my special classes. Most of them have passed beyond the stage of being taught by pictures, though they like to look at them. But Mrs. Palmer has been using them constantly with the girls' classes, and so with the less advanced classes throughout the school.

'One difficulty will to the end be, that by the time we can talk freely to our scholars, and they can understand their own language employed as a vehicle for religious teaching, they are not sufficiently supplied with books. True, we have translations of such parts of the Bible as quite enable us to teach all that a Christian need know and do; but I often wish for plenty of good useful little books on other subjects, and I don't see my way to this. Our own press is always at work printing translations, &c. It is not easy to write the proper kind of book in these languages, and how are they to be printed? We haven't time to print them here, and who is to correct the press elsewhere? The great fact in your letter is the account of Bishop Wilkinson's Consecration. I am heartily glad to hear of it, and I will send, if I can, now, if not, soon, an enclosure to him for you to forward. I doubt if I can help him by any means as to qualifications of candidates for Holy Orders, &c. Our work is quite in a tentative state, and I am sometimes troubled to see that this Mission is supposed to be in a more advanced state than is really the case.

'For example, the report of a man going ashore dressed as a Bishop with a Bible in his hand to entice the natives away, assumes islands to be in a state where the conventional man in white tie and black-tail coat preaches to the natives. My costume, when I go ashore, is an old Crimean shirt, a very ancient wide-awake. Not a syllable has in all probability ever been written, except in our small note-books, of the language of the island. My attention is turned to keeping the crowd in good-humour by a few simple presents of fish-hooks, beads, &c. Only at Mota is there a resident Christian; and even there, people who don't know what Mota was, and what a Melanesian island, for the most part, alas! still is, would see nothing to indicate a change for the better, except that the people are unarmed, and would be friendly and confiding in their manner to a stranger.

'I hardly know how to bring my Melanesian experience to bear upon Zululand. The immorality, infanticide, superstition, &c., seem to be as great in a Melanesian island as in any part of the heathen world. And with our many languages, it is not possible for us to-know the "slang" of the various islands.

'We must be cheery about it all. Just see what the old writers, e.g. Chrysostom, say about Christian (nominally) morals and manners at wedding feasts, and generally. Impurity is the sin, par excellence, of all unchristian people. Look at St. Paul's words to the Corinthians and others. And we must not expect, though we must aim at, and hope, and pray for much that we don't see yet.

'What opportunity will Bishop Wilkinson have for testing the practical teaching power and steady conduct of his converts?

'Many of our Melanesians have their classes here, and we can form an opinion of their available knowledge, how far they can reproduce what they know, &c. We can see, too, whether they exercise any influence over the younger ones.

'Twelve (this season) are counted as sixth form, or monitors, or whatever you please to call them. [Then ensues an account of the rotation of industrial work, &c.]

'The other day I was examining an Ysabel lad, not formally in school, but he happened to be in my room, as they are always hanging about (as you know). He knew much more than I expected: "Who taught you all this? I am very well pleased."

'"Wogale," was the answer.

'Edward Wogale is George Sarawai's own brother, volunteering now to go to Anudha (Florida), near Ysabel Island. If I see that a young man (by his written notes, little essays so to say, analysis of lessons) understands what he has been taught; and if I see (by the proficiency of his pupils) that he can reproduce and communicate this teaching to others, then one part of the question of his fitness is answered. If he has been here for years, always well conducted, and if when at home occasionally he has always behaved well and resisted temptation; and perhaps I should add, if he is respectably married, or about to be married, to a decent Christian girl, then we may hope that the matter of moral fitness may be hopefully settled. Assuming this, and thank God, I believe I may assume that it is the case with several here now, as soon as a Deacon is required in any place that he is willing to work in, I should not hesitate to ordain him; but I can't specify exactly what his qualifications ought to be, because I can't undertake to settle the difficult question of what constitutes absolutely essential teaching for a Christian, i.e., the doctrine of fundamentals. Practically one can settle it; and that quite as well as in England, where there is, and must be any amount of inequality in the attainments and earnestness of the candidates, and where no examination can secure the fitness or even the mental capacity of the minister.

'I say to myself, "Here is an island or a part of an island from which we have had a good many scholars. Some married ones are going back to live permanently. They are Christians, and some are Communicants. They wish to do what they can to get the young ones about them for regular school and to talk to the older people. They all have and can use their Prayer-books. The people are friendly. Is there one among them of whom I can (humanly speaking) feel sure that, by God's blessing, he will lead a good life among them, and that he can and will teach them faithfully the elements of Christian truth and practice? If we all agree that there is such a one, why not ordain him?"

'But I want to see people recognising the office of Deacon as something very distinct indeed from that of the Priest. It is a very different matter indeed, when we come to talk about candidates for Priest's orders.

'Again, look at the missionary clergy of old times. No doubt in mediaeval times so much stress was laid upon the mere perfunctory performance of the ministerial act, as apart from careful teaching of the meaning and purport of the act, that the mediaeval missionary is so far not a very safe model for us to imitate.

'But I suppose that multitudes of men did good work who could no more comprehend nor write out the result of lessons that Edward, Henry, Edmund, Robert and twenty others here are writing out, than our English peasant can comprehend a learned theological treatise.

'And we must consider the qualifications of one's native clergy in relation to the work that they have to do. They have not to teach theology to educated Christians, but to make known the elements of Gospel truth to ignorant heathen people. If they can state clearly and forcibly the very primary leading fundamental truths of the Gospel, and live as simple-minded humble Christians, that is enough indeed.

'Perhaps this is as likely to make the Bishop understand my notions on the subject as any more detailed account of the course of instruction. I really have not time to copy out some ten or twelve pages of some older lad's note-book. I think you would be satisfied with their work. I don't mean, of course, the mere writing, which is almost always excellent, but there is a ready apprehension of the meaning of any point clearly put before them, which is very satisfactory. I am now thinking of the twenty or thirty best among our 145 scholars. This is a confused, almost unintelligible scrawl; but I am busy, and not very fresh for work.

'Yours very truly,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

A letter to Bishop Abraham was in hand at the same time, full of replies to the information in one newly received from this much valued friend. After deploring an attack of illness from which Mrs. Abraham had been suffering, comes the remark—

'You know what one always feels, that one can't be unhappy about good people, whatever happens to them. I do so enjoy your talk about Church works in England. It makes the modern phraseology intelligible. I know now what is meant by "missions" and "missioners" and "retreats."

'I was thinking lately of George Herbert at Hereford, as I read the four sermons which Vaughan lately preached there, one on the Atonement, which I liked very much indeed. The Cathedral has been beautifully restored, has it not? Then, I think of you in York Minster on November 20, with that good text from Psalm xcvi. I read your letter on Tuesday; on which day our morning Psalms in Chapel are always chanted, xcv., xcvi., xcvii. The application seems very natural, but to work out those applications is difficult. The more I read sermons, and I read a good many, the more I wonder how men can write them!

'Mind, I will gladly pay Charley ten shillings a sermon, if he will copy it out for me. It will do the boy good. Dear old Tutor used to fag me to write copies of the Bishop's long New Zealand letters, as I wrote a decent hand then. Don't I remember a long one from Anaiteum, and how I wondered where on earth or sea Anaiteum could be!

'I want to hear men talk on these matters (the Eucharistic question) who represent the view that is least familiar to me. And then I feel, when it comes to a point of Greek criticism, sad regret and almost remorse at my old idleness and foolish waste of time when I might have made myself a decent scholar. I cram up passages, instead of applying a scholarly habit of mind to the examination of them. And now too, it is harder than ever to correct bad habits of inattention, inaccuracy, &c. I am almost too weary oftentimes to do my work anyhow, much less can I make an effort to improve my way of doing it. But I must be content, thankful to get on somehow or other, and to be able to teach the fellows something.

'It is quite curious to see how often one is baffled in one's attempts to put oneself en rapport with the Melanesian mind. If one can manage it, they really show one that they know a good deal, not merely by heart, or as matter of memory, that is worth little; but they show that they can think. But often they seem utterly stupid and lost, and one is perplexed to know what their difficulty can possibly be. One thing is clear, that they have little faculty of generalization. As you know, they seldom have a name for their island, but only names for each tiny headland, and bay, and village. The name for the island you must learn from the inhabitants of another island who view the one whose name you are seeking as one because, being distant, it must appear to them in its oneness, not in its many various parts. Just so, they find it very difficult to classify any ideas under general heads. Ask for details, and you get a whole list of them. Ask for general principles, and only a few can answer.

'For example, it is not easy to make them see how all temptations to sin were overcome in the three representative assaults made upon Him in the wilderness; how love is the fulfilling of the Law; or how the violation of one Commandment is the violation (of the principle) of all.

'Then they have much difficulty (from shyness partly, and a want of teaching when young) in expressing themselves. They really know much that only skilful questioning, much more skilful than mine, can get out of them. It wants—all teaching does—a man with lots of animal spirits, health, pluck, vigour, &c. Every year I find it more difficult.'

To another of the New Zealand friends who had returned to England there was a letter on Jan. 31:—

'My dear Mr. Lloyd,—I must send you a line, though I have little to say. And I should be very sorry if we did not correspond with some attempt at regularity.

'What can one think of long without the mind running off to France? What a wonderful story it is! Only Old Testament language can describe it, only a Prophet can moralise upon it. It is too dreadful in its suddenness and extent. One fears that vice and luxury and ungodliness have destroyed whatever of chivalry and patriotism there once was in the French character. To think that this is the country of St. Louis and Bayard! The Empire seems almost systematically to have completed the demoralisation of the people. There is nothing left to appeal to, nothing on which to rally. It is an awful thing to see such judgments passing before our very eyes. So fearful a humiliation may do something yet for the French people, but I dread even worse news. It nearly came the other day to a repetition of the old Danton and Robespierre days.

'Here we are going on happily.... I would give something to spend a quiet Sunday with you in your old Church. How pleasant to have an old Church.

'Always yours affectionately,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

My own last letter came at the same time:—

'Norfolk Island: February 16th, 1871.

'My dear Cousin,—I must not leave your letter of last October without an instalment of an answer, though this is only a chance opportunity of sending letters by a whaler, and I have only ten minutes.

'Your account of the Southampton Congress is a regular picture. I thinly I can see the Bishops of Winton, Sarum, and Oxon; and all that you say by way of comment on what is going off in the Church at home interests me exceedingly. You can't think what a treat your letters are.

'You see Mr. Codrington is the only one of my age, and (so to say) education here, and so to commune with one who thinks much on these matters, which of course have the deepest interest for me, is very pleasant and useful. On this account I do so value the Bishop of Salisbury's letters, and it is so very kind of him to write to me in the midst of the overwhelming occupations of an English diocese.

'I don't think you have mentioned Dr. Vaughan. I read his books with much interest. He doesn't belong to the Keble theology; but he seems to me to be a thoughtful, useful, and eminently practical writer. He seems to know what men are thinking of, and to grapple with their difficulties. I am pleased with a little book, by Canon Norris, "Key to the New Testament": the work of a man who has read a good deal, and thought much.

'He condenses into a 2s. 6d. book the work of years.

'You are all alive now, trying to work up your parochial schools to "efficiency" mark—rather you were doing so, for I think there was only time allowed up to December 31, 1870. I hope that the efforts were successful. At such times one wishes to see great noble gifts, men of great riches giving their £10,000 to a common fund. Then I remember that the claims and calls are so numerous in England, that very wealthy men can hardly give in that way.

'Certainly I am spared the temptation myself of seeing the luxury and extravagance which must tempt one to feel hard and bitter, I should fear. We go on quietly and happily. You know our school is large. Thank God, we are all well, save dear old Fisher, who met with a sad boating accident last week. A coil of the boat raft caught his ankle as the strain was suddenly tightened by a rather heavy sea, and literally tore the front part of his foot completely off, besides dislocating and fracturing the ankle-bone. He bears the pain well, and he is doing very well; but there may be latent tetanus, and I shall not feel easy for ten days more yet.

'His smile was pleasant, and his grasp of the hand was an indication of his faith and trust, as he answered my remark, "You know Fisher, He does nothing without a reason: you remember our talk about the sparrows and the hairs of our heads."

'"I know," was all he said; but the look was a whole volume....

'Your Charlotte is Fisher's wife, you know, and a worthy good creature she is. Poor old Fisher, the first time I saw tears on his cheeks was when his wife met him being carried up, and I took her to him.

'The mail goes. Your affectionate Cousin,

'J. C. PATTESON.'

It may as well be here mentioned that Fisher Pantatun escaped tetanus, lived to have his limb amputated by a medical man, who has since come to reside at Norfolk Island, and that he has been further provided with a wooden leg, to the extreme wonder and admiration of his countrymen at Mota, where he has since joined the Christian community.

The home letter, finished the last, had been begun before the first, on Feb. 11, 'My birthday,' as the Bishop writes, adding:—'How as time goes on we think more and more of him and miss him. Especially now in these times, with so many difficult questions distressing and perplexing men, his wise calm judgment would have been such a strength and support. You know I have all his letters since I left England, and he never missed a mail. And now it is nearly ten years since he passed away from this world. What would he say to us all? What would he think of all that has taken place in the interval? Thank God, he would certainly rejoice in seeing all his children loving each other more and more as they grow older and learn from experience the blessedness and infrequency of such a thoroughly united, happy set of brothers and sisters. Why, you have never missed a single mail in all these sixteen years; and I know, in spite of occasional differences of opinion, that there is really more than ever of mutual love, and much more of mutual esteem than ever. There is no blessing like this. And it is a special and unusual blessing. And surely, next to God, we owe it to our dear parents, and perhaps especially to him who was the one to live on as we grew up into men and women. What should I have done out here without a perfect trust in you three, and without your letters and loving remembrances in boxes, &c.? I fancy that I should have broken down altogether, or else have hardened (more than I have become) to the soft and restful influences of the home life. I see some people really alone in these countries, really expatriated. Now I never feel that; partly because I have your letters, partly because I have the knowledge that, if ever I did have to go to England, I should find all the old family love, only intensified and deepened. I can tell you that the consciousness of all this is a great help, and carries one along famously. And then the hope of meeting by-and-by and for ever!'

'True to the kindred points of heaven and home.' Surely such loyalty of heart, making a living influence of parents so long in their graves, has been seldom, at least, put on record, though maybe it often and often has existed.

Again, on March 8:—'Such a fit came over me yesterday of old memories. I was reading a bit of Wordsworth (the poet).

I remembered dear dear Uncle Frank telling me how Wordsworth came over to Ottery, and called on him, and how he felt so honoured; and so I felt on thinking of him, and the old (pet) names, and most of all, of course, of Father and Mother, I seemed to see them all with unusual clearness. Then I read one of the two little notes I had from Mr. Keble, which live in my "Christian Year," and so I went on dreaming and thinking.

'Yes, if by His mercy I may indeed be brought to the home where they dwell! But as the power of keen enjoyment of this world was never mine, as it is given to bright healthy creatures with eyes and teeth and limbs sound and firm, so I try to remember dear Father's words, that "he did not mean that he was fit to go because there was little that he cared to stop here for." And I don't feel morbid like, only with a diminished capacity for enjoying things here. Of the mere animal pleasures, eating and drinking are a serious trouble. My eyes don't allow me to look about much, and I walk with "unshowing eye turned towards the earth." I don't converse with ease; there is the feeling of difficulty in framing words. I prefer to be alone and silent. If I must talk, I like the English tongue least of all. Melanesia doesn't have such combinations of consonants and harsh sounds as our vernacular rejoices in. If I speak loud, as in preaching, I am pretty clear still; but I can't read at all properly now without real awkwardness.

'I am delighted with Shairp's "Essays" that Pena sent me. He has the very nature to make him capable of appreciating the best and most thoughtful writers, especially those who have a thoughtful spirit of piety in them. He gives me many a very happy quiet hour. I wish such a book had come in my way while I was young. I more than ever regret that Mr. Keble's "Praelectiones" was never translated into English. I am sure that I have neglected poetry all my life for want of some guide to the appreciation and criticism of it, and that I am the worse for it. If you don't use Uncle Sam's "Biographia Literaria," and "Literary Remains," I should much like to have them.

'Do you, Fan, care to have any of my German books? I have, indeed, scarce any but theological ones. But no one else reads German here, and I read none but the divinity; and, indeed, I almost wish I had them in translations, for the sake of the English type and paper. My eyes don't like the German type at all.

'Moreover, now (it was not so years ago), all that is worth reading in their language is in a good serviceable English dress, and passed, moreover, through the minds of clear English thinkers—and the Germans are such wordy, clumsy, involved writers. A man need not be a German scholar to be well acquainted with all useful German theology. Döllinger is almost the only clear, plain writer I know among them. Dorner, the great Lutheran divine, gives you about two pages and a half of close print for a single sentence—awful work, worse than my English!... But I know that if I read less, and thought more, it would be better. Only it is such hard work thinking, and I am so lazy! I was amused at hearing, through another lad, of Edward Wogale's remark, "This helping in translation" (a revisal of the "Acts" in Mota) "is such hard work!" "Yes, my boy, brain work takes it out of you." I wish I had Jem's power of writing reports, condensing evidence into clear reliable statements. Lawyers get that power; while we Clergymen are careless and inaccurate, because, as old Lord Campbell said, "there is no reply to our sermons."

'What would I give to have been well drilled in grammar, and made an accurate scholar in old days! Ottery School and Eton didn't do much for me in that way, though of course the fault was chiefly in myself.

'But most of all, I think that I regret the real loss to us Eton boys of the weekly help that Winchester, Rugby, and Harrow boys had from Moberly, Arnold, and Vaughan in their sermons! I really think that might have helped to keep us out of harm!

'It is now 4.30 P.M., calm and hot. Such a tiger-lily on my table, and the pretty delicate achimenes, and the stephanotis climbing up the verandah, and a bignonia by its side, with honeysuckle all over the steps, and jessamine all over the two water-tanks at the angle of the verandah. The Melanesians have, I think, twenty-nine flower gardens, and they bring the flowers, &c.—lots of flowers, and the oleanders are a sight! Some azaleas are doing well, verbenas, hibiscus of all kinds. Roses and, alas! clove carnations, and stocks, and many of the dear old cottage things won't grow well. Scarlet passion flowers and splendid Japanese lilies of perfect white or pink or spotted. The golden one I have not yet dared to buy. They are most beautiful. I like both the red and the yellow tritoma; we have both. But I don't think we have the perfume of the English flowers, and I miss the clover and buttercup. And what would I give for an old-fashioned cabbage rose, as big as a saucer, and for fresh violets, which grow here but have little scent, and lilies of the valley! Still more, fancy seeing a Devonshire bank in spring, with primroses and daisies, or meadows with cowslip and clover and buttercups, and hearing thrushes and blackbirds and larks and cuckoos, and seeing trout rise to the flies on the water! There is much exaggeration in second-rate books about tropical vegetation. You are really much better off than we are. No trees equal English oaks, beeches, and elms, and chestnuts; and with very little expense and some care, you have any flowers you like, growing out of doors or in a greenhouse. You can make a warmer climate, and we can't a colder one. But we have plenty to look at for all that. There, what a nice hour I have spent in chatting with you!'

This same dreamy kind of 'chat,' full of the past, and of quiet meditation over the present, reminding one of Bunyan's Pilgrims in the Land of Beulah, continues at intervals through the sheets written while waiting for the 'Southern Cross.' Here is a note (March 14) of the teaching:—

'I am working at the Miracles with the second set, and I am able to venture upon serious questions, viz. the connection between sin and physical infirmity or sickness, the Demoniacs, the power of working miracles as essential to the Second Adam, in whom the prerogative of the Man (the ideal man according to the idea of his original condition) was restored. Then we go pretty closely into detail on each miracle, and try to work away till we reach a general principle or law.

'With another class I am making a kind of Commentary on St. Luke. With a third, trying to draw out in full the meaning of the Lord's Prayer. With a fourth, Old Testament history. It is often very interesting; but, apart from all sham, I am a very poor teacher. I can discourse, or talk with equals, but I can't teach. So I don't do justice to these or any other pupils I may chance to have. But they learn something among us all.'

He speaks of himself as being remarkably well and free from the discomforts of illness during the months of March and April: and these letters show perfect peace and serenity of spirit; but his silence and inadequacy for 'small talk' were felt like depression or melancholy by some of his white companions, and he always seemed to feel it difficult to rouse himself. To sit and study his Hebrew Isaiah with Delitzsch's comment was his chief pleasure; and on his birthday, April 1, Easter Eve, and the ensuing holy days, he read over all his Father's letters to him, and dwelt, in the remarks to his sisters, upon their wisdom and tenderness.

Mr. Codrington says: 'Before starting on the voyage he had confirmed some candidates in the Church in town: on which occasion he seemed to rouse himself with difficulty for the walk, and would go by himself; but he was roused again by the service, and gave a spirited and eloquent address, and came back, after a hearty meal and lively conversation, much refreshed in mind and body. This was on Palm Sunday. On Easter Day he held his last confirmation of three girls and two Solomon Island boys.

Then came the 'Southern Cross,' bringing with her from New Zealand a box with numerous books and other treasures, the pillow that the old Bishop of Exeter was leaning on when he died; a photograph, from the Bishop of Salisbury, of his Cathedral, and among the gifts for the younger Melanesians, a large Noah's ark, which elicited great shouts of delight.

'Well! [after mentioning the articles in order] all these things, and still more the thought of the pains taken and the many loving feelings engaged in getting them together, will help me much during the coming months. All the little unexpected things are so many little signs of the care and love you always have for me, and that is more than their own value, after all. I always feel it solemn to go off on these voyages. We have had such mercies. Fisher is doing quite well, getting about on crutches; and that is the only hospital case we have had during the whole summer.'

Then follows:—

'April 27th.—We start in a few hours (D.V.). The weather is better. You have my thoughts and hopes and prayers. I am really pretty well: and though often distressed by the thought of past sins and present ones, yet I have a firm trust in God's mercy through Christ, and a reasonable hope that the Holy Spirit is guiding and influencing me. What more can I say to make you think contentedly and cheerfully about me? God bless you all!'

So the last voyage was begun. The plan was much the same as usual. On the way to Mota, the Bishop landed on Whitsuntide Island, and there was told that what the people called a 'thief ship' had carried off some of their people. Star Island was found nearly depopulated. On May 16, the Bishop, with Mr. Bice and their scholars, landed at Mota, and the 'Southern Cross' went on with Mr. Brooke to Florida, where he found that the 'Snatch-snatch' vessels, as they were there called, had carried off fifty men. They had gone on board to trade, but were instantly clapped under hatches, while tobacco and a hatchet were thrown to their friends in the canoe. Some canoes had been upset by a noose from the vessel, then a gun was fired, and while the natives tried to swim away, a boat was lowered, which picked up the swimmers, and carried them off. One man named Lave, who jumped overboard and escaped, had had two fingers held up to him, which he supposed to mean two months, but which did mean two years.

It was plain that enticing having failed, violence was being resorted to; and Mr. Brooke was left to an anxious sojourn, while Mr. Atkin returned to Mota on his way to his own special charge at Bauro. He says, on June 9:—

'The Bishop had just come back from a week's journeying with William in his boat. They had been to Santa Maria, Vanua Lava, and Saddle Island; the weather was bad, but the Bishop, although he is tired, does not think he is any the worse for his knocking about. He is not at all well; he is in low spirits, and has lost almost all his energy. He said, while talking about the deportation of islanders to Fiji, that he didn't know what was to be done; all this time had been spent in preparing teachers qualified to teach their own people, but now when the teachers were provided, all the people were taken away. The extent to which the carrying off of the natives has gone is startling. It certainly is time for us to think what is to be done next. I do not think that it is an exaggerated estimate, others would say it is under the mark, that one half the population of the Banks Islands over ten years of age have been taken away. I am trying not to expect anything about the Solomon Islands before we are there, but we have heard that several vessels have cargoes from there. If the people have escaped a little longer for their wildness, it will not be for long.

'The Bishop still remained at Mota, while I went back to the Solomon Islanders. The cliffs of Mota, and perhaps the intelligence of the people, had comparatively protected it, though Port Patteson had become a station of the "labour ships." The village of Kohimarama was not a disappointment.'

Bishop Patteson proceeds:—

'Things are very different. I think that we may, without danger, baptize a great many infants and quite young children—so many parents are actually seeking Christian teaching themselves, or willing to give their children to be taught. I think that some adults, married men, may possibly be baptized. I should think that not less than forty or fifty are daily being taught twice a day, as a distinct set of Catechumens. Besides this, some of the women seem to be in earnest.

'About two hours and a half are spent daily by me with about twenty-three grown-up men. They come, too, at all hours, in small parties, two or three, to tell their thoughts and feelings, how they are beginning to pray, what they say, what they wish and hope, &c.

'There is more indication than I ever saw here before of a "movement," a distinct advance, towards Christianity. The distinction between passively listening to our teaching, and accepting it as God's Word and acting upon it, seems to be clearly felt. I speak strongly and habitually about the necessity of baptism. "He that believeth, and is baptized" &c. Independently of the doctrinal truth about baptism, the call to the heathen man to take some step, to enter into some engagement, to ally himself with a body of Christian believers by some distinct act of his own, needing careful preparation, &c., has a meaning and a value incalculably great.

'"Yes, JESUS is to us all a source of pardon, light, and life, all these treasures are in Him. But he distributes these gifts by His Spirit in His appointed ways. You can't understand or receive the Gospel with a heart clinging to your old ways. And you can't remake your hearts. He must do it, and this is His way of doing it. You must be born again. You must be made new men."

'But why write all this, which is so commonplace?

'I feel more than ever the need of very simple, very short services for ignorant Catechumens.

'They used to throng our morning and evening prayer, perhaps 130 being present, for about that number attend our daily school; but they could not understand one sentence in ten of the Common Prayer-book. And it is bad for people to accustom themselves to a "formal" service. So I have stopped that. We baptized people have our regular service and at the end of my school, held in the dark, 7-8.30 P.M., in the verandah, we kneel down, and I pray extempore, touching the points which have formed the lesson.

'I don't like teaching these adults who can't read a form of private prayer. I try to make them understand that to wish earnestly is to pray; that they must put what they wish for clearly before their own minds, and then pray to God for it, through Christ. But I must try to supply progressive lessons for the Catechumens and others, with short prayers to be read by the teacher at the end (and beginning, too, perhaps) of the lesson. Much must depend on the individual teacher's unction and force.

'Well, I hope and trust to be able to tell you two months hence of some of these people being baptized. Only three adults have been baptized here on the island, and all three were dying.

'It is very comforting to think that all of us have been engaged in this Mota work, Dudley, and Mr. Pritt, and Mr. Kerr, too, and all our present staff have had much to do with it. Especially I think now of three young men, all married, who came to me lately, saying, "All these years (an interval of six or seven years) we have been thinking now and then about what we heard years ago, when we were with you in New Zealand for a few months." They are now thoroughly in earnest, as far as I can judge, and their wives, as I hope, move along with them. How one old set must have influenced them a long time ago. Bice, who speaks Mota very well, was very energetic during his fortnight here. He is now gone on with Mr. Brooke and Mr. Atkin that he may see the work in the Solomon Isles. I meant to go; but there seemed to be a special reason why I should stay here just now, vessels seeking labourers for Fiji and Queensland are very frequently calling at these islands.

'Mr. Thurston, late Acting Consul at Fiji, was with me the day before yesterday. He has taken a very proper view of this labour question; and he assures me that the great majority of the Fiji planters are very anxious that there should be no kidnapping, no unfair treatment of the islanders. I have engaged to go to Fiji (D.V.) at the end of my island work, i.e., on my return to Norfolk Island, probably about the end of September. I shall go there in the "Southern Cross," send her on to her summer quarters in New Zealand, and get from Fiji to New Zealand, after six or eight weeks in Fiji, in some vessel or other. There are about 4,000 or 5,000 white people in Fiji, mostly Church of England people, but (as I suppose) not very clearly understanding what is really meant by that designation. It is assumed that I am to act as their Bishop; and I ought to have been there before. But really a competent man might work these islands into a Bishopric before long.

'We must try to follow these islanders into Fiji or Queensland. But how to do it? On a plantation of, say, one hundred labourers, you may find natives of eight or ten islands. How can we supply teachers at the rate of one for every fifteen or twenty people? And there are some 6,000 or 7,000 islanders already on the Fiji plantations, and I suppose as many in Queensland.

'Some one knowing several languages, and continually itinerating from one plantation to another, might do something; but I don't think a native clergyman could do that. He must move about among white people continually in the boats, &c. I ought to do it; but I think my day has gone by for that kind of thing.

'I hope to judge of all this by-and-by. It might end in my dividing my year into Melanesian work as of old, and Melanesian work in Fiji, combined with the attempt to organise the white Church of England community, and only a month or two's work in Norfolk Island. To do this I must be in pretty good health. I may soon find out the limit of my powers of work, and then confine myself to whatever I find I can do with some degree of usefulness. We ought to make no attempt to proselytise among the Fiji natives, who have been evangelised by the Wesleyans. But there is work among our Western Pacific imported islanders and the white people.

'Norfolk Island could be quite well managed without me. Mr. Codrington could take that entirely into his own hands. I might spend a month or two there, and confirm Melanesians and Norfolk Islanders, and quietly fall into a less responsible position and be a moveable clergyman in Fiji or anywhere else, as long as my strength lasts.

'Norfolk Island certainly was rather my resting-place. But I think I am becoming more and more indifferent to that kind of thing. A tropical climate suits me, and Fiji is healthy—no ague. Dysentery is the chief trouble there. These are notions, flying thoughts, most likely never to be fully realised. Indeed, who can say what may befall me?'

Never to be fully realised! No. He, who in broken health so freely and simply sacrificed in will his cherished nook of rest on earth for a life so trying and distasteful, was very near the 'Rest that remaineth for the people of God.'

On June 26, the first public baptism in Mota took place, of one man, the Bishop and Sarawia in surplices in front of their verandah, the people standing round; but unfortunately it was a very wet day, and the rush of rain drowned the voices, as the Bishop made his convert Wilgan renounce individually and by name individual evil fashions of heathenism, just as St. Boniface made the Germans forsake Thor and Odin by name. There were twenty-five more nearly ready, and a coral-lime building was finished, 'like a cob wall, only white plaster instead of red mud,' says the Devonshire man. It was the first Church of Mota, again reminding us of the many 'white churches' of our ancestors; and on the 25th of June at 7 A.M., the first Holy Eucharist was celebrated there. It is also the place of private prayer for the Christians and Catechumens of Kohimarama.

The weather was exceedingly bad, drenching rain continually, yet the Bishop continued unusually well. His heart might well be cheered, when, on that Sunday evening in the dark, he was thus accosted:—

'I have for days been watching for a chance of speaking to you alone! Always so many people about you. My heart is so full, so hot every word goes into it, deep deep. The old life seems a dream. Everything seems to be new. When a month ago I followed you out of the Said Goro, you said that if I wanted to know the meaning and power of this teaching, I must pray! And I tried to pray, and it becomes easier as every day I pray as I go about, and in the morning and evening; and I don't know how to pray as I ought, but my heart is light, and I know it's all true, and my mind is made up, and I have been wanting to tell you, and so is Sogoivnowut, and we four talk together, and all want to be baptized.'

This man had spent one season at St. John's, seven years before; but on his return home had gone back to the ordinary island life, until at last the good seed was beginning to take root.

The next Sunday, the 2nd of July, ninety-seven children were baptized, at four villages, chosen as centres to which the adjacent ones could bring their children. It was again a wet day, but the rain held up at the first two places. The people stood or sat in a great half-circle, from which the eldest children, four or five years old, walked out in a most orderly manner, the lesser ones were carried up by their parents, and out of the whole ninety-seven only four cried! The people all behaved admirably, and made not a sound. At the last two places there was a deluge of rain; but as sickness prevailed in them, it was not thought well to defer the Baptism.

'It was a day full of thankful and anxious feelings. I was too tired, and too much concerned with details of arrangements, new names, &c., to feel the more contemplative devotional part of the whole day's services till the evening. Then, for I could not sleep for some hours, it came on me; and I thought of the old times too, the dear Bishop's early visits, my own fourteen years' acquaintance with this place, the care taken by many friends, past and present members of the Mission. The Sunday Collects as we call them, St. Michael's, All Saints', Saint Simon and St. Jude's calmed me, and my Sunday prayer, (that beautiful prayer in the Ordination of Priests, 'Almighty God and Heavenly Father,' slightly altered) was very full of meaning. So, thank God, one great step has been taken, a great responsibility indeed, but I trust not rashly undertaken.'

On July 4 the 'Southern Cross' returned, and the cruise among the New Hebrides was commenced. Mr. Bice was left to make a fortnight's visit at Leper's Island; and the Bishop, going on to Mai, found only three men on the beach, where there used to be hundreds, and was advised not to go to Tariko, as there had been fighting.

At Ambrym there was a schooner with Mr. Thurston on board, and fifty-five natives for Fiji. On the north coast was the 'Isabella,' with twenty-five for Queensland. The master gave Captain Jacob his credentials to show to the Bishop, and said the Bishop might come on board and talk to the people, so as to be convinced they came willingly, but weighed anchor immediately after, and gave no opportunity; and one man who stood on the rail calling out 'Pishopa, Pishopa,' was dragged back.

Mr. Bice was picked up again on the 17th, having been unmolested during his visit; but two of the 'Lepers,' who had been at Espiritu Santo, had brought back a fearful story that a small two-masted vessel had there been mastered by the natives, and the crew killed and eaten in revenge for the slaughter of some men of their own by another ship's company some time back.

On the voyage he wrote to the Bishop of Lichfield:—

'Off Tariko. Sloop: July 8, 1871.

'My dear Bishop,—Towards the end of April I left Norfolk Island, and after a six days' passage reached Mota. I called at Ambrym (dropping three boys) at three places; at Whitsuntide; at Leper's Island, dropping seven boys; Aurora, two places; Santa Maria, where I left B——, and so to Mota on the day before Ascension Day, and sent the vessel back at once to Norfolk Island for the Solomon Island scholars. All our Aroa and Matlavo party wished to spend Ascension Day with us; and after Holy Communion they went across with Commodore William Pasvorang in a good whale boat, which I brought down on the deck of the schooner, and which Willy looks after at Aroa. We want it for keeping up a visitation of the group.

'Bice, ordained Priest last Christmas, was with me. We found George and all well, George very steady and much respected. Charles Woleg, Benjamin Vassil and James Neropa, all going on well. The wives have done less than I hoped; true, they all had children to look after, yet they might have done more with the women. [Then as before about the movement.]

'After a week I went off in the boat, leaving Bice at Kohimarama, the Mota station. I went to B—— first at the north-east part of the island; back to Tarasagi (north-east point); sailed round to Lakona, our old Cock Sparrow Point, where B—— and I selected one or two boys to stay with him at Tarasagi. Thence we sailed to Avreas Bay, the great bay of Vanua Lava, B—— going back to Tarasagi by land. Heavy sea and rain; reached land in the dark 8 P.M., thankful to be safe on shore.

'On to Aroa, where I spent two days; Willie and Edwin doing what they can. Twenty children at school; but the island is almost depopulated, some seven hundred gone to Brisbane and Fiji. I did not go to Uvaparapara; the weather was bad, I was not well, and I expected the "Southern Cross" from Norfolk Island. Next day, after just a week's trip in the boat, I got to Mota; and the next day the "Southern Cross" arrived with Joe Atkin and Brooke and some twenty-four Solomon Islanders, many of them pressing to stay at Norfolk Island, where about eighty scholars in all are under the charge of Codrington, Palmer, and Jackson.

'I sent Bice on in the "Southern Cross," as he ought to see something of his brethren's work in the north and west. I had just a month at Mota, very interesting.

'I hope to spend three weeks more at Mota, if this New Hebrides trip is safely accomplished, and to baptize the rest of the children, and probably some ten or fifteen adults. All seem thoroughly in earnest. Some of the first scholars, who for years have seemed indifferent, are now among my class of thirty-three adults. It would be too long a story to tell you of their frequent private conversations, their stories, their private prayers, their expressions of earnest thankfulness that they are being led into the light.

'Some of the women, wives of the men, are hopeful. George's old mother said to me, "My boys are gone; George, Woleg, Wogale—Lehna died a Christian; Wowetaraka (the first-born) is going. I must follow. I listen to it all, and believe it all. When you think fit, I must join you," i.e. be baptized.

'It is very comforting that all the old party from the beginning are directly (of course indirectly also) connected with this movement. Some of those most in earnest now came under the influence of the early workers, Dudley, Mr. Pritt, &c.

'We need this comfort.

'From Mota some thirty or more have gone or been taken away, but the other islands are almost depopulated. Mr. Thurston, late Acting Consul in Fiji, was at Mota the other day seeking labourers. He says that about 3,000 natives from Tanna and Uvaparapara are now in Fiji, and Queensland has almost as many.

'He admits that much kidnapping goes on. He, with all his advantages of personal acquaintance with the people and with native interpreters on board, could only get about thirty. Another, Captain Weston, a respectable man who would not kidnap, cruised for some weeks, and left for Fiji without a single native on board. How then do others obtain seventy or one hundred more?

'But the majority of the Fiji settlers, I am assured, do not like these kidnapping practices, and would prefer some honest way of obtaining men. Indeed, many natives go voluntarily.

'In the Solomon Isles a steamer has been at Savo and other places, trying to get men.

'Three or four of these vessels called at Mota while I was there. On one day three were in sight. They told me they were shot at at Whitsuntide, Sta. Maria, Vanua Lava, &c. And, indeed, I am obliged to be very careful, more so than at any time; and here, in the North Hebrides, I never know what may happen, though of course in many places they know me.

'We are now at our maximum point of dispersion: Brooke at Anudha, J. Atkin at or near San Cristoval, Gr. Sarawia at Mota, B—— at Santa Maria, Bice at Leper's Island, Codrington at Norfolk Island, I on board "Southern Cross."

'Leper's Island is very pleasant; I longed to stay there. All the people wanting to come with us, and already discriminating between us and the other white visitors, who seem to have had little or no success there.

'July 21st.—At anchor, Lakona, west side of Santa Maria. Pleasant to be quietly at anchor on our old "shooting ground." We anchored for a day and a night at Ambrym, near the east point, very safe and comfortable place. Nine lads from five villages are on board. I bought about three and a half tons of yams there. Anchored again at the end of Whitsuntide, where I am thankful to say we have at last received two lads, one a very pleasant-looking fellow. That sad year of the dysentery, 1862, when Tanau died and Tarivai was so ill, two out of only three scholars from the island, made them always unwilling to give up lads.

'Next day at Leper's Island. Anchored a night off Wehurigi, the east end of the high land, the centre part of the island.

'Bice was quite feted by the people. We brought away three old and twelve new scholars, refusing the unpromising old scholars. There is, I hope, a sufficient opening now at Ambrym and Leper's Island to justify my assigning these islands to Jackson and Bice respectively.

'Our plan now is to take very few people indeed from the Banks Islands to Norfolk Island, as they have a permanent school and resident clergyman at Mota. The lads who may turn out clever and competent teachers are taken to Norfolk Island, none others.

'We must take our large parties from islands where there is as yet no permanent teacher: Ambrym, Leper's Island, the Solomon Islands.

'Meanwhile the traders are infesting these islands, as Captain Jacobs says, "like mosquitoes." Three vessels anchored at Mai during the day I was there. Three different vessels were at Ambrym. To-day I saw four, three anchored together near the north-east side of Santa Maria. B—— saw six yesterday.

'The people now refuse to go in them, they are much exasperated at their people being kept away so long. Sad scenes are occurring. Several white men have been killed, boats' crews cut off, vessels wrecked.

'We shall hear more of such doings; and really I can't blame the islanders. They are perfectly friendly to friends; though there is much suspicion shown even towards us, where we are not well known.

'As far as I can speak of my own plans, I hope to stay at Mota for a time, till the "Southern Cross" returns from Norfolk Island; then go to the Solomon Islands; return by way of Santa Cruz and probably Tikopia, to Mota; thence to Norfolk Island; thence probably to New Zealand, to take the steamer for Fiji. We have no chart on board of Fiji; and I don't think it right to run the risk of getting somehow to Levuka with only the general chart of the South Pacific, so I must go, as I think, to New Zealand, and either take the steamer or procure charts, and perhaps take Mr. Tilly as pilot. I don't like it; it will be very cold; but then I shall (D.V.) see our dear Taurarua friends, the good Bishop and others, and get advice about my Fiji movements. The Church of England folk there regard me as their Bishop, I understand; and the Bishops of Sydney and Melbourne assume this to be the fitting course. A really able energetic man might do much there, and, in five years, would be Bishop of Levuka.

'This is all of Melanesia and myself; but you will like to have this scrawl read to you.

'How I think of you as I cruise about the old familiar places, and think that you would like to have another trip, and see the old scenes with here and there, thank God, some little changes for the better. Best love, my dear dear Bishop, to Mrs. Selwyn, William and John.

'Your very affectionate

'J. C. PATTESON.'

About forty, old scholars and new, had been collected and brought back to Mota; where, after landing the Bishop, Captain Jacobs sailed back to Norfolk Island, carrying with him the last letters that were to be received and read as from a living man. All that follow only came in after the telegram which announced that the hand that had written them was resting beneath the Pacific waters. But this was not until it had been granted to him to gather in his harvest in Mota, as will be seen:—

'Mota: July 31, 1871.

'My dearest Sisters,—You will be glad to know that on my return hither after three weeks' absence, I found no diminution of strong earnest feeling among the people. George Sarawia had, indeed, been unable to do very much in the way of teaching 60 or 90 men and women, but he had done his best, and the 100 younger people were going on with their schooling regularly. I at once told the people that those who wished to be baptized must let me know; and out of some 30 or 40 who are all, I think, in earnest, 15, and some few women are to be baptized next Sunday. These will be the first grown-up people, save John Wilgan, baptized in Mota, except a few when in an almost dying state. They think and speak much of the fact that so many of their children have been baptized, they wish to belong to the same set. But I believe them all to be fairly well instructed in the great elementary truths. They can't read; all the teaching is oral, no objection in my eyes. It may be dangerous to admit it, but I am convinced that all that we can do is to elevate some few of the most intelligent islanders well, so that they can teach others, and be content with careful oral teaching for the rest. How few persons even among ourselves know how to use a book! And these poor fellows, for I can only except a percentage of our scholars, have not so completely mastered the mechanical difficulty of reading as to leave their minds free for examination of the meaning and sense of what they read. I don't undervalue a good education, as you know. But I feel that but few of these islanders can ever be book-learned; and I would sooner see them content to be taught plain truths by qualified persons than puzzling themselves to no purpose by the doubtful use of their little learning. You know that I don't want to act the Romish Priest amongst them. I don't want to domineer at all. And I do teach reading and writing to all who come into our regular school, and I make them read passages to verify my teaching. At the same time, I feel that the Protestant complaint of "shutting up the Bible from the laity," is the complaint of educated persons, able to read, think, and reflect.

'The main difficulty is, of course, to secure a supply of really competent teachers. George, Edward, Henry, Robert, and some three or four others are trustworthy. I comfort myself by thinking that a great many of the mediaeval Clergy certainly did not know as much nor teach as well.

'Yesterday I baptized 41 more children and infants on again an unpropitious day. I was obliged to leave 42 to be baptized at some future time. The rain poured down. The people will bring them over to-morrow. The whole number of infants and children will amount to 230 or more, of adults to perhaps 25 or 30. You will pray earnestly for them that they may lead the rest of their lives "according to this beginning."

'There is much talk, something more than talk, I think, about putting up a large church-house here, on this side of the island (north-west side) and of a school-house, for church also, on the south-east side.

'We have all heavy coughs and colds; and I have had two or three very disturbed nights, owing to the illness of one of the many babies. The little thing howls all night.

'All our means of housing people are exhausted. People flock here for the sake of being taught. Four new houses have been built, three are being built. We shall have a large Christian village here soon, I hope and trust. At present every place is crammed, and 25 or 30 sleep on the verandah. The little cooking house holds somehow or other about 24 boys; they pack close, not being burdened with clothes and four-posters. I sleep on a table, people under and around it. I am very well, barring this heavy cold and almost total loss of voice for a few hours in the morning and evening.

'August 1st.—Very tired 7 A.M., Prayers 7.20-8.20, school 8.20-10; baptized 55 infants and young children. Now it is past 1; a boisterous day, though as yet no rain. I had a cup of cocoa at 6.30, and at 10.30 a plate of rice and a couple of eggs, nice clean fare. The weather is against me, so cold, wet, and so boisterous. I got a good night though, for I sent Mrs. Rhoda and her squalling baby to another house, and so slept quietly.

'I am sorry that teaching is so irksome to me. I am, in a sense, at it all day. But there is so much to be done, and the people, worthy souls, have no idea that one can ever be tired. After I was laid down on my table, with my air-pillow under my head and my plaid over me, I woke up from a doze to find the worthy Tanoagnene sitting with his face towards me, waiting for a talk about the rather comprehensive subject of Baptism.

'And at all odd times I ought to be teaching George and others how to teach, the hardest work of all. I think what a life a real pedagogue must have of it. There is so much variety with me, so much change and holiday, and so much that has its special interest.

'The "Southern Cross" has been gone a week. I hope they have not this kind of weather. If they have, they are getting a good knocking about, and they number about 55 on board.

'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, &c., 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, &c.?" "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 interpretation 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, &c., 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, &c. 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 resigning 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.

'I feel satisfied of their earnestness, and I think it looks like a stable, permanent work. Yet I need not tell you how my old text is ever in my mind, "Thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged." Now more than ever are your prayers needed for dear old George Sarawia and his infant Church.

'I never had such an experience before. It is something quite new to me. Classes regularly, morning and evening, and all day parties coming to talk and ask questions, some bringing a wife or child, some a brother, some a friend. We were 150 sleeping on the Mission premises, houses being put up all round by people coming from a distance.

'Scarce a moment's rest, but the work so interesting and absorbing, that I could scarcely feel weariness. The weather for six out of the seven weeks was very rainy and bad generally; but I am and was well, very well—not very strong, yet walking to Gatava and back, five or six miles, on slippery and wet paths, and schooling and talking all day.

'The actual services were somewhat striking. The behaviour of the people reverent and quiet during the infants' and children's baptisms; and remarkably so during the baptisms of adults.

'You can understand the drift of my teaching: trying to keep to the great main truths, so as not to perplex their minds with a multiplicity of new thoughts.

'I think that I shall have to stay a few days at Mota on my return (D.V.) from Solomon and Santa Cruz Islands, as there are still many Catechumens.

'I am half disposed to ordain George Priest on my return (D.V.) Yet on the whole I think it may be better to wait till another year. But I am balancing considerations. Should any delay occur from my incapacity to go to Mota, which I don't at all anticipate, it would be a serious thing to leave such a work in the hands of a Deacon, e.g. ten communicants are permanent dwellers now in Mota; and I really believe that George, though not learned, is in all essentials quite a fit person to be ordained Priest. This growth of the work, owing, no doubt, much to him, is a proof of God's blessing on him.

'I pray God that this may be a little gleam of light to cheer you, dear friends, on your far more toilsome and darksome path. It is a little indeed in one sense; yet to me, who know the insufficiency of the human agency, it is a proof indeed that the Gospel is dunamis Theou eis soterian.

'I can hardly realize it all yet. It is good to be called away from it for a month or two. I often wished that Codrington, Palmer, and the rest could be with me: it seemed selfish to be witnessing by myself all this great happiness—that almost visible victory over powers of darkness.

'There is little excitement, no impulsive vehement outpouring of feeling. People come and say, "I do see the evil of the old life; I do believe in what you teach us. I feel in my heart new desires, new wishes, new hopes. The old life has become hateful to me; the new life is full of joy. But it is so mawa (weighty), I am afraid. What if after making these promises I go back?"

"What do you doubt—God's power and love, or your own weakness?"

'"I don't doubt His power and love; but I am afraid."

'"Afraid of what?" '"Of falling away."

'"Doesn't He promise His help to those who need it?"

'"Yes, I know that." '"Do you pray?"

'"I don't know how to pray properly, but I and my wife say—God, make our hearts light. Take away the darkness. We believe that you love us because you sent JESUS to become a Man and die for us, but we can't understand it all. Make us fit to be baptized."

'"If you really long to lead a new life, and pray to God to strengthen you, come in faith, without doubting."

'Evening by evening my school with the baptized men and women is the saying by heart (at first sentence by sentence after me, now they know them well) the General Confession, which they are taught to use in the singular number, as a private prayer, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the ten Commandments (a short version). They are learning the Te Deum. They use a short prayer for grace to keep their baptismal vows.

'I think that they know fairly well the simpler meaning of these various compendiums of Prayer, Faith and Duty. But why enter into details? You know all about it. And, indeed, you have all had your large share, so to say, in bringing about this happy change.

'And then I turn from all this little secluded work to the thoughts of England and France, the Church at home, &c....

'I have now read the "Guardian's" account of the civil war in France. There is nothing like it to be read of, except in the Old Testament perhaps. It is like the taking of Jerusalem.

'It is an awful thing! most awful! I never read anything like it. Will they ever learn to be humble? I don't suppose that even now they admit their sins to have brought this chastening on them. It is hard to say this without indulging a Pharisaic spirit, but I don't mean to palliate our national sins by exaggerating theirs. Yet I hardly think any mob but a French or Irish mob could have done what these men did.

'And what will be the result? Will it check the tendency to Republicanism? Will Governments unite to put down the many-headed monster? Will they take a lesson from the fate of Paris and France? Of course Republicanism is not the same thing as Communism. But where are we to look for the good effects of Republicanism?

'August 22nd.—The seventh anniversary of dear Fisher's death. May God grant us this year a blessing at Santa Cruz!

'Your affectionate

'J. C. PATTESON.'

The last letter to the beloved sister Fanny opened with the date of her never-forgotten birthday, the 27th of August, though it was carried on during the following weeks; and in the meantime Mr. Atkin, Stephen, Joseph and the rest were called for from Wango, in Bauro, where they had had a fairly peaceable stay, in spite of a visit from a labour traffic vessel, called the 'Emma Bell,' with twenty-nine natives under hatches, and, alas! on her way for more. After picking the Bauro party up, the Bishop wrote to the elder Mr. Atkin:—

'Wango Bay (at anchor): August 25, 1871.

'My dear Mr. Atkin,—You may imagine my joy at finding Joe looking really well when we reached this part of the world on the 23rd. I thought him looking unwell when he spent an hour or two with me at Mota, about ten weeks since, and I begged him to be careful, to use quinine freely, &c. He is certainly looking now far better than he was then, and he says that he feels quite well and strong. There is the more reason to be thankful for this, because the weather has been very rough, and rain has been falling continually. I had the same weather in the Banks Islands; scarcely a day for weeks without heavy rain. Here the sandy soil soon becomes dry again, it does not retain the moisture, and so far it has the advantage over the very tenacious clayey soil of Mota.

'Nearly all the time of the people here has been spent—wasted, perhaps, we should say—in making preparations for a great feast: so that Joe found it very hard to gain the attention of the people, when he tried to point out to them better things to think of than pigs, native money, tobacco and pipes. Such advance as has been made is rather in the direction of gaining the confidence and good-will of the people all about, and in becoming very popular among all the young folks. Nearly all the young people would come away with him, if the elders would allow them to do so. I have no doubt that much more has been really effected than is apparent to us now. Words have been said that have not been lost, and seed sown that will spring up some day. Just as at Mota, now, after some twelve or thirteen years, we first see the result in the movement now going on there, so it will be, by God's goodness, some day here. There at Mota the good example of George Sarawia, the collective result of the teaching of many years, and the steady conduct, with one exception, of the returned scholars, have now been blessed by God to the conversion of many of the people. We no longer hesitate to baptize infants and young children, for the parents engage to send them to school when they grow up, and are themselves receiving instruction in a really earnest spirit.

'Many, too, of those who have for some time abandoned the old ways, but yet did not distinctly accept the new teaching, have now felt the "power of the Gospel;" and though many candidates are still under probation, and I sought to act with caution, and to do all that lay in my power to make them perceive the exceeding solemnity of being baptized, the weighty promises, the great responsibility, yet I thought it right to baptize not less than forty-one grown men and women, besides seventeen lads of George's school, about whom there could be no hesitation. It has, indeed, been a very remarkable season there. I spent seven weeks broken by a New Hebrides trip of three weeks' duration into two periods of three and four weeks. Bice was with me for the first three weeks; and with a good many of our scholars turned into teachers here, we three (Bice, George, and I) kept up very vigorous school: a continual talking, questioning, &c., about religion, were always going on day and night. Many young children and infants were baptized, about 240 in all + 41 + 17.

'You will, I am sure, pray more than ever for George and all these converts to Christianity, that they may be strengthened and guarded against all evil, and live lives worthy of their profession. We hope to spend two or three days there on our return (D.V.); and if so, Joe will write you his impressions. Meanwhile, I tell him what I fully believe, that no one hearty effort of his to benefit these poor people is thrown away. Already they allow us to take boys, and perhaps this very day we may go off with two young girls also. And all this will result in some great change for the better some day.

'You will want to hear a word about myself. I am much better, partly I confess owing to the warmth of the climate, which certainly agrees with me. I may feel less well as we draw by-and-by to the south once more.

'I can't take strong exercise, and that is a privation. It did me good, and I feel the want of it; but I am much better than I was a year or ten months ago, and I do my work very fairly, and get about better than I expected. Remember me kindly to Mrs. Atkin and Mary, and believe me to be