Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands E-Book
Charlotte M. Yonge
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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Life of John Coleridge Patteson: Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands," Charlotte M. Yonge presents a meticulously researched biography that sheds light on the life and enduring legacy of Patteson, a key figure in the missionary movement during the Victorian era. Yonge's literary style is both eloquent and accessible, blending rigorous historical scholarship with vivid narrative craftsmanship. She situates Patteson's work within the broader context of colonial missionization and intercultural exchange in the Melanesian Islands, exploring the complexities of his faith, commitment, and the challenges faced in his evangelistic endeavors. Yonge, an eminent author and a prominent Victorian figure herself, was deeply influenced by her own Anglican faith and concern for social issues, which likely spurred her dedication to chronicling Patteson's story. Her background in literature and religious thought enabled her to approach the subject with both empathy and critical insight, creating a nuanced portrayal that transcends mere hagiography and examines the moral and ethical implications of missionary work in a colonial context. This book is a compelling read for scholars, students, and general readers interested in missionary history, Victorian literature, or the intricate dynamics between culture and religion. Yonge's portrayal of Patteson not only humanizes the missionary experience but also invites reflection on the broader implications of faith in action within diverse societies. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands
Table of Contents
Introduction
At the meeting point of faith and cultural encounter, this work follows a steadfast vocation carried across ocean horizons to the scattered communities of Melanesia. Life of John Coleridge Patteson: Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands, by Charlotte M. Yonge, is a nineteenth-century biography that presents the trajectory of an Anglican missionary's public life and character. First published in the early 1870s for a Victorian readership engaged with global mission, it situates Patteson's endeavors within the Church of England's expanding outreach. Yonge frames the narrative with measured reverence and documentary care, inviting readers into a story shaped by spiritual conviction, pedagogy, and seaborne travel.
Yonge's book belongs to the tradition of Victorian religious biography, fusing travel narrative with pastoral chronicle. It moves between England and the archipelagos of Melanesia in the mid-nineteenth century, tracing the institutional and human textures of a mission taking root among many languages and islands. Composed close in time to the events it recounts, the volume reflects its moment's sensibilities - earnest, didactic, and attentive to moral formation. Within this frame, Patteson appears as an exemplar of duty shaped by scholarship and devotion, while the islands emerge as places of both hospitality and risk.
The biography offers a chronological account of Patteson's preparation, calling, and leadership within the Melanesian mission, emphasizing the rhythms of voyaging, teaching, and community-building rather than dramatic incident. Readers encounter a steady accumulation of records, observations, and decisions that make up a life of service. Yonge's voice is calm and reflective, favoring clear description over embellishment, and allowing the subject's habits and choices to show their meaning. The mood is devout yet practical, attentive to logistics, weather, vessels, classrooms, and prayers, creating an experience akin to living alongside a working bishop at the edge of empire.
As a biographer, Yonge curates contemporary material to anchor the narrative in firsthand testimony and institutional memory. Her arrangement balances public milestones with everyday detail, so that policy, pedagogy, and pastoral care appear in the same field of view. Explanatory asides clarify ecclesial terms and regional references for general readers while maintaining a sympathetic reserve. The result is shapely rather than sensational: a design that privileges character over anecdote, and cumulative texture over isolated scenes, encouraging readers to infer motive and principle from the steady course of work described.
Several themes recur with quiet insistence: vocation as sustained practice; faith expressed through education and hospitality; leadership exercised through listening, study, and patience; and the complexity of cross-cultural contact. Yonge acknowledges difficulties - distance, illness, misunderstanding, the constraints of weather and means - without theatrics, allowing endurance to carry moral weight. The sea itself functions as a structural element, knitting scattered islands into a pastoral map and making every decision a logistical one. The portrait that emerges is not primarily one of triumph but of constancy - habits of prayer, learning, and care that shape relationships over time.
For today's readers, the book opens a window onto nineteenth-century Anglican mission at a moment when questions of culture, power, and belief were in tense proximity. It invites critical reflection on the ethics of evangelization alongside empathy for individuals acting within their historical frameworks. Students of religious history and postcolonial critique will find material for conversation, as will readers drawn to narratives of pedagogy, language, and institution-building. Without prescribing answers, Yonge's biography prompts inquiry into how ideals travel, where they adapt, and what forms of humility and accountability are necessary when communities meet across profound difference.
Approached with historical curiosity and moral attentiveness, this biography offers a steady, contemplative read that rewards patience with accumulating insight. It appeals to admirers of measured life-writing, maritime itineraries, and the inner workings of ecclesial projects, as well as those interested in Melanesia's place in global histories. Yonge's careful prose and selective focus provide a clear map through complex terrain, making the book suitable for both general readers and classroom contexts. What remains when the last page turns is less a single episode than a durable sense of purpose and attention - an invitation to consider what faithful work looks like in practice.
Synopsis
Charlotte M. Yonge’s Life of John Coleridge Patteson: Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands presents a chronological biography based largely on letters, journals, and official reports. The narrative situates Patteson within the Anglican revival of the nineteenth century and the wider expansion of Christian missions into the South Pacific. Yonge outlines the purpose, methods, and constraints of the Melanesian Mission, emphasizing seasonal voyages, small educational communities, and gradual trust-building. The book balances personal detail with institutional history, showing how character, training, and practical organization combined to shape the mission’s course. Throughout, Yonge’s documentary approach keeps attention on verifiable events and direct testimony.
The biography opens with Patteson’s family background, early education, and formation of habits that later proved essential for sustained work overseas. His schooling fostered discipline, languages, and a lifelong pattern of careful self-scrutiny. Early parish experience in England acquainted him with pastoral routine and the practicalities of teaching, visiting, and leading public worship. Yonge notes the personal influences that encouraged missionary interest, including mentors who connected religious commitment with service beyond Britain. The chapter establishes Patteson’s thoughtful temperament, steady application, and willingness to accept responsibility, preparing readers to understand both his readiness to depart and his methodical approach to learning new cultures.
Yonge then describes how the call to Melanesia crystallized through contact with Bishop George Augustus Selwyn, whose strategy combined seafaring mobility with education. After deliberation, Patteson left England to join the New Zealand–based mission. The narrative explains the mission’s distinctive pattern: short initial landings, establishing friendly relations, inviting selected youths to a central school for training, and returning them home as mediators of language and faith. Yonge emphasizes preparatory caution, noting the constraints of climate, distance, and uncertainty. Patteson’s resolve is portrayed not as sudden zeal but a measured assent to a demanding and experimental work.
Early voyages among the islands occupy several chapters. Yonge records Patteson’s systematic attention to languages, names, and customs, as he compiled vocabularies and short texts for instruction. The mission gathered small groups of students for seasonal schooling near Auckland, aiming to form teachers who could communicate within their communities. Yonge notes recurring challenges: illness, misunderstandings, and the need for slow, relational progress. Episodes of hardship are offset by instances of hospitality and growing familiarity. The account remains concrete, tracing itineraries and listing islands visited, while foregrounding the gradual emergence of a cadre of Melanesian pupils who could bridge cultures in everyday settings.
Consecrated Bishop of Melanesia, Patteson assumed broader oversight of routes, personnel, and training. Yonge highlights the role of the mission ship, the Southern Cross, in enabling repeated, brief landings across dispersed archipelagos. Administrative responsibility expanded to include the selection and formation of teachers, translation work, and the ordination of suitable candidates. The curriculum emphasized Scripture, practical skills, and steady habits of community life. Yonge’s use of letters reveals Patteson’s routine: planning cruises, visiting villages, assessing opportunities, and revising methods when needed. The narrative underscores incremental gains rather than rapid expansion, presenting the episcopate as an intensification of earlier practices.
A major development was the relocation of the mission’s residential school to a more suitable site, intended to protect health, consolidate staff, and provide a stable base for return voyages. Yonge details the building of a chapel, dormitories, and workshops, and the establishment of regular worship, study, and work patterns. The bishop’s tours continued seasonally, supported by a small team. The text notes fatigue and periodic illness, along with disruptions caused by weather and scarcity of supplies. Nevertheless, the mission’s internal life matured, with former pupils taking on responsibility. Yonge portrays a working community whose cohesion derived from repeated routines across years.
External pressures increasingly shaped the mission’s environment. Yonge reports the impact of commercial ventures, including the labour trade, which generated fear, suspicion, and occasional violence in the islands. Patteson consistently distinguished the mission from such activities, advocating clear signals of peaceful intent and protesting abuses in correspondence and reports. The book records incidents where previous goodwill was strained, requiring changes in approach or temporary withdrawal. Yonge’s narrative emphasizes prudence, patience, and listening as essential safeguards. The mission’s consistency—returning when appropriate, keeping promises, and maintaining transparent practices—emerges as the central means of rebuilding confidence.
The final voyage described by Yonge leads to the confrontation that ended in Patteson’s death. Accounts from crew and associates reconstruct the circumstances with restraint, noting the convergence of local grievances and broader regional tensions. Yonge avoids speculation beyond available testimony, presenting the event as the culmination of risks long acknowledged. The narrative dwells briefly on the immediate aftermath: the shock to the mission, communications to supporters, and practical measures to continue work safely. Without dramatization, the text recognizes the gravity of the loss while situating it within the mission’s established pattern of steady advance and careful review of procedures.
In conclusion, Yonge surveys the mission’s continuation under colleagues and successors, the public response at home, and the consolidation of educational and translation efforts. The biography highlights enduring outcomes: trained local leaders, portions of Scripture in island languages, and a method grounded in patience and mutual respect. Patteson’s life is presented as a case study in sustained, organized service rather than rapid results. The overall message emphasizes faithful perseverance amid complex cross-cultural conditions. Yonge’s documentary approach allows the events to stand in sequence, inviting readers to see how disciplined routine, clear purpose, and consistent goodwill shaped a lasting work in Melanesia.
Historical Context
Charlotte M. Yonge’s biography is rooted in the mid-Victorian era, roughly the 1840s to early 1870s, when the British Empire extended its influence across the Pacific. Its geographic focus is Melanesia—particularly the Banks, Solomon, and Santa Cruz Islands—interlinked with colonial New Zealand (Auckland) and Norfolk Island. This was a maritime world shaped by seasonal voyages, mission schooners, and Royal Navy patrols. New Zealand entered formal British sovereignty via the Treaty of Waitangi (1840), becoming a logistical base for Anglican missions. Norfolk Island, settled by Pitcairn Island descendants in 1856, later hosted the Melanesian Mission’s school. Yonge writes from 1870s England, mobilizing metropolitan networks on behalf of a distant oceanic frontier.
The Anglican Melanesian Mission emerged under George Augustus Selwyn, Bishop of New Zealand (arrived 1841), who from 1847–1849 began reconnaissance voyages among Melanesian islands seeking educational evangelization. John Coleridge Patteson accepted Selwyn’s 1854 invitation, was ordained the same year, and sailed in 1855 to develop a system of bringing youths seasonally to mission schools and returning them as teachers. The mission schooner Southern Cross enabled circuits among the Banks and Solomon Islands. Yonge, a close ally of the Tractarian circle, famously directed profits from her successful novels to support the mission ship, a philanthropic act the book highlights as a concrete tool for safe travel, language study, and pastoral contact.
Patteson was consecrated Bishop of Melanesia in 1861, formalizing a diocese stretching across the north of the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), the Banks Islands, and the southern Solomons. He chose Mota (from the Banks group) as a lingua franca and prioritized linguistic scholarship and catechist training. The mission school first operated near Auckland—at Kohimarama by 1859—then moved in 1867 to Norfolk Island, where St Barnabas was founded amid the Pitcairn-descended community’s self-governance. New Zealand’s internal conflicts in the 1860s complicated Auckland-based operations and underscored Norfolk’s neutrality and climate. Yonge’s narrative, rich with letters and reports, tracks these institutional shifts as strategic responses to regional instability and health realities.
The Oxford Movement (from John Keble’s 1833 Assize Sermon and the Tracts for the Times, 1833–1841) fostered a renewed Anglican vision of apostolic order, sacramental life, and missionary responsibility. That ecclesial revival powered the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and allied ventures, channeling English parochial philanthropy into overseas work. Patteson was spiritually formed within this milieu—mentored by Keble and cooperating with Selwyn—while Yonge, a Hursley-based lay author, used writing as practical mission finance and advocacy. The book embodies this movement’s historical energy: disciplined pastoral visitations, emphasis on indigenous leadership, and the conviction that the Anglican communion bore obligations to distant, vulnerable island societies.
From the early 1860s a coercive Pacific labor trade—blackbirding—expanded. Peruvian slavers seized Polynesians and Melanesians for Chincha Islands guano works in 1862–1863; separately, Queensland’s sugar frontier began importing “South Sea Islanders” after the Don Juan reached Mackay in 1863. Recruiters often used deception or violence, destabilizing communities in the Solomons, Banks, and Santa Cruz groups. Retaliatory attacks and mistrust grew as ships carrying false missionaries or trade goods abducted men. Patteson’s circuits increasingly collided with this economy of coercion. Yonge’s biography documents his protests to colonial authorities and his protective tactics—language learning, transparent shipboard rules, and careful gift exchange—set against the rising tempo of raids, sickness, and social fracture.
Patteson’s death at Nukapu in the Santa Cruz Islands on 20 September 1871 occurred within this climate of exploitation and reprisal. Approaching an island traumatized by recent kidnappings, he landed from the Southern Cross and was killed ashore. Contemporary reports described his body borne back to the ship, with marks interpreted locally as a message of vengeance for abducted kin; he was buried at sea. The event ignited public outcry across Britain, New Zealand, and Australia. Yonge positions the martyrdom not as a clash of faiths but as a grim indictment of the labor trade’s corruption of contact, showing how violent recruitment had poisoned trust painstakingly built by mission voyages.
Patteson’s killing accelerated legal and naval reforms. The Queensland Polynesian Labourers Act (1868) attempted colonial regulation; the Imperial Pacific Islanders Protection Act (1872) and its 1875 extension asserted British jurisdiction over British subjects in the Western Pacific and targeted kidnapping, empowering the Royal Navy to suppress abuses. In 1877 the office of High Commissioner for the Western Pacific was created, later enabling tighter control over recruiting licenses. While Islanders continued to be transported to Queensland and Fiji into the 1880s, oversight increased and mortality on voyages fell. Yonge’s 1874 biography became part of the humanitarian casework, marshalling names, dates, and testimonies to push metropolitan readers toward legal accountability.
The book functions as a moral and political critique of mid-Victorian informal empire in the Pacific. It exposes the disjunction between commercial ambition and imperial responsibility, indicting predatory labor recruiting and the failure of early enforcement. By foregrounding language work, consent, and indigenous education, Yonge contrasts a patient, reciprocal missionary ethos with the economics of coercion and racialized disregard. Her narrative challenges metropolitan complacency, pressing for laws that reach beyond colonial borders and for naval power deployed to protect, not plunder. In documenting Patteson’s life and death, it critiques the structures that made violence likely, urging a reordering of power toward justice for Melanesian communities.
Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands
PREFACE.
There are of course peculiar advantages as well as disadvantages in endeavouring to write the life of one recently departed. On the one hand, the remembrances connected with him are far fresher; his contemporaries can he consulted, and much can be made matter of certainty, for which a few years would have made it necessary to trust to hearsay or probable conjecture. On the other, there is necessarily much more reserve; nor are the results of the actions, nor even their comparative importance, so clearly discernible as when there has been time to ripen the fruit.
These latter drawbacks are doubled when the subject of the biography has passed away in comparatively early life: when the persons with whom his life is chiefly interwoven are still in full activity; and when he has only lived to sow his seed in many waters, and has barely gathered any portion of his harvest.
Thus what I have written of Bishop Patteson[1], far more what I have copied of his letters, is necessarily only partial, although his nearest relations and closest friends have most kindly permitted the full use of all that could build up a complete idea of the man as he was. Many letters relate to home and family matters, such as it would be useless and impertinent to divulge; and yet it is necessary to mention that these exist, because without them we might not know how deep was the lonely man's interest and sympathy in all that concerned his kindred and friends. Other letters only repeat the narrative or the reflections given elsewhere; and of these, it has seemed best only to print that which appeared to have the fullest or the clearest expression. In general, the story is best told in letters to the home party; while thoughts are generally best expressed in the correspondence with Sir John Taylor Coleridge[3], to whom the Nephew seems to have written with a kind of unconscious carefulness of diction. There is as voluminous a correspondence with the Brother, and letters to many Cousins; but as these either repeat the same adventures or else are purely domestic, they have been little brought forward, except where any gap occurred in the correspondence which has formed the staple material.
Letters upon the unhappy Maori war[2] have been purposely omitted; and, as far as possible, such criticisms on living personages as it seemed fair towards the writer to omit. Criticisms upon their publications are of course a different thing. My desire has been to give enough expression of Bishop Patteson's opinions upon Church and State affairs, to represent his manner of thinking, without transcribing every detail of remarks, which were often made upon an imperfect report, and were, in fact, only written down, instead of spoken and forgotten, because correspondence served him instead of conversation.
I think I have represented fairly, for I have done my best faithfully to select passages giving his mind even where it does not coincide completely with my own opinions; being quite convinced that not only should a biographer never attempt either to twist or conceal the sentiments of the subject, but that either to apologise for, or as it were to argue with them, is vain in both senses of the word.
The real disadvantage of the work is my own very slight personal acquaintance with the externals of the man, and my ignorance of the scenes in which the chief part of his life was passed. There are those who would have been far more qualified in these respects than myself, and, above all, in that full and sympathetic masculine grasp of a man's powerful mind, which is necessarily denied to me. But these fittest of all being withheld by causes which are too well known to need mention, I could only endeavour to fulfil the work as best I might; trusting that these unavoidable deficiencies may be supplied, partly by Coleridge Patteson's own habit of writing unreservedly, so that he speaks for himself, and partly by the very full notes and records with which his friends have kindly supplied me, portraying him from their point of view; so that I could really trust that little more was needed than ordinary judgment in connecting and selecting. Nor until the work is less fresh from my hand will it be possible to judge whether I have in any way been allowed to succeed in my earnest hope and endeavour to bring the statue out of the block, and as it were to carve the figure of the Saint for his niche among those who have given themselves soul and body to God's Work.
It has been an almost solemn work of anxiety, as well as one of love. May I only have succeeded in causing these letters and descriptions to leave a true and definite impression of the man and of his example!
Let me here record my obligations for materials—I need hardly say to the immediate family and relations—for, in truth, I act chiefly as their amanuensis[4]; but likewise to the Bishop of Lichfield, Bishop Abraham.
Lady Martin, the Rev. B. T. Dudley, the Rev. E. Codrington, and Captain Tilly, for their valuable aid—the two first mentioned by correction and revision, the others by contributions such as could only be supplied by eye-witnesses and fellow-workers. Many others I must thank for kindly supplying me with letters.
CHARLOTTE MARY YONGE. ELDERFIELD, September 19, 1873.
CHAPTER I. CHILDHOOD AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL, 1827-1838.
So much of a man's cast of character depends upon his home and parentage, that no biography can be complete which does not look back at least as far as the lives of the father and mother, from whom the disposition is sure to be in part inherited, and by whom it must often be formed. Indeed, the happiest natures are generally those which have enjoyed the full benefit of parental training [1q]without dictation, and have been led, but not forced, into the way in which they should go.
Therefore it will not be irrelevant to dwell on the career of the father whose name, though still of great weight in his own profession, may not be equally known to the younger generation who have grown up since the words 'Mr. Justice Patteson' were of frequent occurrence in law reports.
John Patteson, father of the subject of the present memoir, was son to a clergyman of a Norfolk family, and was born at Coney Weston, on February 11, 1790. He was educated at Eton[5], and there formed more than one friendship, which not only lasted throughout his life, but extended beyond his own generation. Sport and study flourished alike among such lads as these; and while they were taught by Dr. Groodall to delight in the peculiarly elegant and accurate scholarship which was the characteristic of the highest education of their day, their boyhood and youth were full of the unstained mirth that gives such radiance to recollections of the past, and often causes the loyalty of affectionate association to be handed on to succeeding generations. The thorough Etonian impress, with all that it involved, was of no small account in his life, as well as in that of his son.
The elder John Patteson was a colleger, and passed on to King's College, Cambridge, whence, in 1813, he came to London to study law. In 1816 he opened his chambers as a special pleader, and on February 23, 1818, was married to his cousin, Elizabeth Lee, after a long engagement. The next year, 1819, he was called to the Bar, and began to go the Northern circuit. On April 3, 1820, Mrs. Patteson died, leaving one daughter, Joanna Elizabeth. Four years later, on April 22, 1824, Mr. Patteson married Frances Duke Coleridge, sister of his friend and fellow-barrister, John Taylor Coleridge. This lady, whose name to all who remember her calls up a fair and sweet memory of all that was good, bright, and beloved, was the daughter of James Coleridge, of Heath's Court, Ottery St. Mary, Devon, Colonel of the South Devon Volunteers. He was the eldest of the numerous family of the Rev. John Coleridge, Master of Ottery St. Mary School, and the poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was the youngest.
The strong family affection that existed between all Colonel Coleridge's children, and concentrated itself upon the only sister among them, made marriage with her an adoption into a group that could not fail to exercise a strong influence on all connected with it, and the ties of kindred will be found throughout this memoir to have had peculiar force.
John Coleridge Patteson, his mother's second child and eldest son, was born at No. 9, Grower Street, Bedford Square, on the 1st of April, 1827, and baptized on the 8th. Besides the elder half-sister already mentioned, another sister, Frances Sophia Coleridge, a year older than, and one brother, James Henry, nearly two years younger than Coleridge, made up the family.
Three years later, in 1830, Mr. Patteson was raised to the Bench, at the unusually early age of forty.
It is probable that there never was a period when the Judicial Bench could reckon a larger number of men distinguished not only for legal ability but for the highest culture and for the substantial qualities that command confidence and respect. The middle of the nineteenth century was a time when England might well be proud of her Judges.
There was much in the habits of the Bench and Bar to lead to close and friendly intimacy, especially on the circuits. When legal etiquette forbade the use of any public conveyance, and junior barristers shared post-chaises, while the leaders travelled in their own carriages, all spent a good deal of time together, and it was not unusual for ladies to go a great part of the circuit with their husbands, especially when it lay in the direction of their own neighbourhood. The Judges' families often accompanied them, especially at the summer assize, and thus there grew up close associations between their children, which made their intimacy almost like that of relationship. Almost all, too, lived in near neighbourhood in those parts of London that now are comparatively deserted, but which were then the especial abodes of lawyers, namely, those adjacent to Bedford Square, where the gardens were the daily resort of their children, all playing together and knowing one another with that familiarity that childhood only gives.
'Sir John Patteson's contemporaries have nearly all, one by one, passed away,' writes one of them, Sir John Taylor Coleridge. 'He has left few, if any, literary monuments to record what his intellectual powers were; and even in our common profession the ordinary course and practice are so changed, that I doubt whether many lawyers are now familiar with his masterly judgments; but I feel that I speak the truth when I describe him as a man of singularly strong common sense, of great acuteness, truthfulness, and integrity of judgment. These were great judicial qualities, and to these he added much simplicity and geniality of temper and manners; and all these were crowned by a firm, unhesitating, devout belief in the doctrines of our faith, which issued in strictness to himself and the warmest, gentlest charity to his fellow-creatures. The result was what you might expect. Altogether it would be hard to say whether you would characterise him as a man unusually popular or unusually respected.'
Such was the character of Mr. Justice Patteson, a character built upon the deep, solid groundwork of religion, such as would now be called that of a sound Churchman of the old school, thoroughly devout and scrupulous in observance, ruling his family and household on a principle felt throughout, making a conscience of all his and their ways, though promoting to the utmost all innocent enjoyment of pleasure, mirth, or gaiety. Indeed, all who can look back on him or on his home remember an unusual amount of kindly genial cheerfulness, fun, merriment, and freedom, i.e. that obedient freedom which is the most perfect kind of liberty.
Though this was in great part the effect of having such a head of the family, the details of management could not but chiefly depend upon the mother, and Lady Patteson was equally loved for her tenderness and respected for her firmness. 'She was, indeed,' writes her brother, 'a sweet and pious person, of the most affectionate, loving disposition, without a grain of selfishness, and of the stoutest adherence to principle and duty. Her tendency was to deal with her children fondly, but this never interfered with good training and discipline. What she felt right, she insisted on, at whatever pain to herself.'
She had to deal with strong characters. Coleridge, or Coley, to give him the abbreviation by which he was known not only through childhood but through life, was a fair little fellow, with bright deep-blue eyes, inheriting much of his nature from her and her family, but not by any means a model boy. He was, indeed, deeply and warmly affectionate, but troublesome through outbreaks of will and temper, showing all the ordinary instinct of trying how far the authorities for the time being will endure resistance; sufficiently indolent of mind to use his excellent abilities to save exertion of intellect; passionate to kicking and screaming pitch, and at times showing the doggedness which is such a trial of patience to the parent. To this Lady Patteson 'never yielded; the thing was to be done, the point given up, the temper subdued, the mother to be obeyed, and all this upon a principle sooner understood than parents suppose.'
There were countless instances of the little boy's sharp, stormy gusts of passion, and his mother's steady refusal to listen to his 'I will be good' until she saw that he was really sorry for the scratch or pinch which he had given, or the angry word he had spoken; and she never waited in vain, for the sorrow was very real, and generally ended in 'Do you think God can forgive me?' When Fanny's love of teasing had exasperated Coley into stabbing her arm with a pencil, their mother had resolution enough to decree that no provocation could excuse 'such unmanliness' in a boy, and inflicted a whipping which cost the girl more tears than her brother, who was full of the utmost grief a child could feel for the offence. No fault was lightly passed over; not that punishment was inflicted for every misdemeanour, but it was always noticed, and the children were shown with grave gentleness where they were wrong; or when there was a squabble among them, the mother's question, 'Who will give up?' generally produced a chorus of 'I! I! I!' Withal 'mamma' was the very life of all the fun, and play, and jokes, enjoying all with spirits and merriment like the little ones' own, and delighting in the exchange of caresses and tender epithets. Thus affection and generosity grew up almost spontaneously towards one another and all the world.
On this disposition was grafted that which was the one leading characteristic of Coley's life, namely, a reverent and religious spirit, which seems from the first to have been at work, slowly and surely subduing inherent defects, and raising him, step by step, from grace to grace.
Five years old is in many cases an age of a good deal of thought. The intelligence is free from the misapprehensions and misty perceptions of infancy; the first course of physical experiments is over, freedom of speech and motion have been attained, and yet there has not set in that burst of animal growth and spirits that often seems to swamp the deeper nature throughout boyhood. By this age Coley was able to read, and on his birthday he received from his father the Bible which was used at his consecration as Bishop twenty-seven years later.
He had an earnest wish to be a clergyman, because he thought saying the Absolution to people must make them so happy, 'a belief he must have gleaned from his Prayer-book[6] for himself, since the doctrine was not in those days made prominent.' The purpose was fostered by his mother. 'She delighted in it, and encouraged it in him. No thought of a family being to be made, and of Coley being the eldest son, ever interfered for a moment. That he should be a good servant at God's altar was to her above all price.'
Of course, however, this was without pressing the thought on him. He grew on, with the purpose accepted but not discussed, except from time to time a half-playful, half-grave reference to himself as a future clergyman.
Reverence was strongly implanted in him. His old nurse (still his sister's valued servant) remembers the little seven years old boy, after saying his own prayers at her knee, standing opposite to his little brother, admonishing him to attention with 'Think, Jemmy; think.' In fact, devoutness seems to have been natural to him. It appears to have been the first strongly traceable feature in him, and to have gradually subdued his faults one by one.
Who can tell how far this was fostered by those old-fashioned habits of strictness which it is the present habit to view as repellent? Every morning, immediately after breakfast, Lady Patteson read the Psalms and Lessons for the day with the four children, and after these a portion of some book of religious instruction, such as 'Horne on the Psalms' or 'Daubeny on the Catechism.' The ensuing studies were in charge of Miss Neill, the governess, and the life-long friend of her pupils; but the mother made the religious instruction her individual care, and thus upheld its pre-eminence. Sunday was likewise kept distinct in reading, teaching, employment, and whole tone of conversation, and the effect was assuredly not that weariness which such observance is often supposed to produce, but rather lasting benefit and happy associations. Coley really enjoyed Bible-reading, and entered into explanations, and even then often picked up a passage in the sermons he heard at St. Giles's-in-the-Fields from the Rev. J. Endell Tyler, and would give his home-oracles no peace till they had made it as clear to his comprehension as was possible.
The love of his home may be gathered from the fact that his letters have been preserved in an unbroken series, beginning from a country visit in 1834, after a slight attack of scarlet fever[7], written in the round-hand of a boy of seven years old, and finished off with the big Roman capitals FINIS, AMEN, and ending with the uncompleted sheets, bearing as their last date September 19, 1871.
The boy's first school was at Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire, of which his great-grandfather and great-uncle had both been head-masters.
There was much to make Ottery homelike to Coley, for his grandparents lived at Heath's Court, close to the church, and in the manor-house near at hand their third son, Francis George Coleridge, a solicitor, whose three boys were near contemporaries of Coley, and two of them already in the school.
From first to last his letters to his parents show no symptom of carelessness; they are full of ease and confidence, outpourings of whatever interested him, whether small or great, but always respectful as well as affectionate, and written with care and pains, being evidently his very best; nor does the good old formula, 'Your affectionate and dutiful son,' ever fail or ever produce stiffness.
The shrinking from rough companions, and the desire to be with the homelike relatives around, proved a temptation, and the little boy was guilty of making false excuses to obtain leave of absence. We cannot refrain from giving his letter of penitence, chiefly for the sake of the good sense and kindness of his uncle's treatment:—
'April 26, 1836.
'My dear Papa,—I am very sorry for having told so many falsehoods, which Uncle Frank has told mamma of. I am very sorry for having done so many bad things, I mean falsehoods, and I heartily beg your pardon; and Uncle Frank says that he thinks, if I stay, in a month's time Mr. Cornish will begin to trust me again. Uncle Frank to-day had me into his house and told me to reflect upon what I had done. He also lectured me in the Bible, and asked me different questions about it. He told me that if I ever told another falsehood he should that instant march into the school and ask Mr. Cornish to strip and birch me; and if I followed the same course I did now and did not amend it, if the birching did not do, he should not let me go home for the holidays; but I will not catch the birching...
'So believe me your dear Son,
'J. C. PATTESON.'
On the flap of the letter 'Uncle Frank' writes to the mother:—
'My dear Fanny,—I had Coley in my room to-day, and talked to him seriously about his misdeeds, and I hope good has been done. But I could scarcely keep my countenance grave when he began to reduce by calculation the exact number of fibs he had told. He did not think it was more than two or three at the utmost: and when I brought him to book, I had much to do to prevent the feeling that the sin consisted in telling many lies. However the dear boy's confession was as free as could be expected, and I have impressed on his mind the meanness, cowardice, and wickedness of the habit, and what it will end in here and hereafter. He has promised that he will never offend in future in like manner, and I really believe that his desire to be away from the school and at ease among his friends induced him to trump up the invitations, &c., to Mr. Cornish, in which consisted his first fibs. I shall watch him closely, as I would my own child; and Cornish has done wisely, I think, by giving the proper punishment of confining him to the school-court, &c., and not letting him go to his friends for some time. The dear boy is so affectionate, and has so much to work on, that there is no fear of him; only these things must be looked after promptly, and he must learn practically (before his reason and religion operate) that he gains nothing by a lie... He is very well, and wins one's heart in a moment...
'Ever your affectionate Brother,
'F. G. C.'
The management was effectual, and the penitence real, for this fault never recurred, nor is the boy's conduct ever again censured, though the half-yearly reports often lament his want of zeal and exertion. Coley was sufficiently forward to begin Greek on his first arrival at Ottery, and always held a fair place for his years, but throughout his school career his character was not that of an idle but of an uninterested boy, who preferred play to work, needed all his conscience to make him industrious, and then was easily satisfied with his performances; naturally comparing them with those of other boys, instead of doing his own utmost, and giving himself full credit for the diligence he thought he had used. For it must be remembered that it was a real, not an ideal nature; not a perfect character, but one full of the elements of growth.
A childish, childlike boy, he was now, and for many years longer, intensely fond of all kinds of games and sports, in which his light active form, great agility, and high spirit made him excel. Cricket, riding, running-races, all the school amusements were his delight; fireworks for the 5th of November sparkle with ecstasy through his letters, and he was a capital dancer in the Christmas parties at his London home. He had likewise the courage and patience sure to be needed by an active lad. While at Ottery he silently bore the pain of a broken collar-bone for three weeks, and when the accident was brought to light by his mother's embrace, he only said that 'he did not like to make a fuss.'
Consideration for others, kindness, and sweetness of nature were always his leading characteristics, making him much beloved by all his companions, and an excellent guardian and example to his little brother, who soon joined him at Ottery. Indeed, the love between these two brothers was so deep, quiet, and fervid, that it is hard to dwell on it while 'one is taken and the other left.' It was at this time a rough buffeting, boyish affection, but it was also a love that made separation pain and grief, and on the part of the elder, it showed itself in careful protection from all harm or bullying, and there was a strong underlying current of tenderness, most endearing to all concerned with the boys, whether masters, relations, friends, or servants.
CHAPTER II. BOYHOOD AT ETON. 1838—1845.
After the Christmas holidays of 1837-8, when Coley Patteson was nearly eleven years old, he was sent to Eton, that most beautifully situated of public schools, whose delightful playing fields, noble trees, broad river, and exquisite view of Windsor Castle give it a peculiar charm, joining the venerable grandeur of age to the freshness and life of youth, so as to rivet the affections in no common degree.
It was during the head-mastership of Dr. Hawtrey that Patteson became, in schoolboy phrase, an Eton fellow, being boarded in the house of his uncle, the Rev. Edward Coleridge, one of the most popular and successful Eton masters. Several of his cousins were also in this house, with other boys who became friends of his whole life, and he was thoroughly happy there, although in these early days he still felt each departure from home severely, and seldom failed to write a mournful letter after the holidays. There is one, quite pathetic in its simplicity, telling his mother how he could not say his prayers nor fall asleep on his first night till he had resolutely put away the handkerchief that seemed for some reason a special link with home. It illustrates what all who remember him say, how thoroughly a childlike being he still was, though a well-grown, manly, high-spirited boy, quite able to take care of himself, keep his place, and hold his own.
He was placed in the lower remove of the fourth form, which was then 'up to' the Rev. Charles Old Goodford, i.e. that was he who taught the division so called in school.
The boy was evidently well prepared, for he was often captain of his division, and his letters frequently tell of successes of this kind, while they anticipate 'Montem.'
That of 1838 was a brilliant one, for Queen Victoria, then only nineteen, and her first year of sovereignty not yet accomplished, came from the Castle to be driven in an open carriage to Salt Hill and bestow her Royal contribution.
In the throng little Patteson was pressed up so close to the Royal carriage that he became entangled in the wheel, and was on the point of being dragged under it, when the Queen, with ready presence of mind, held out her hand: he grasped it, and was able to regain his feet in safety, but did not recover his perceptions enough to make any sign of gratitude before the carriage passed on. He had all a boy's shyness about the adventure; but perhaps it served to quicken the personal loyalty which is an unfailing characteristic of 'Eton fellows.'
The Royal custom of the Sunday afternoon parade on the terrace of Windsor Castle for the benefit of the gazing public afforded a fine opportunity for cultivating this sentiment, and Coley sends an amusingly minute description of her Majesty's dress, evidently studied for his mother's benefit, even to the pink tips of her four long ostrich feathers, and calling to mind Chalon's water-colours of the Queen in her early youth. He finishes the description with a quaint little bit of moralising. 'It certainly is very beautiful with two bands playing on a calm, blessed Sunday evening, with the Queen of England and all her retinue walking about. It gives you an idea of the Majesty of God, who could in one short second turn it all into confusion. There is nothing to me more beautiful than the raising one's eyes to Heaven, and thinking with adoration who made this scene, and who could unmake it again.'
A few days later the record is of a very different scene, namely, Windsor Fair, when the Eton boys used to imagine they had a prescriptive right to make a riot and revel in the charms of misrule.
'On the second day the Eton fellows always make an immense row. So at the signal, when a thing was acting, the boys rushed in and pulled down the curtain, and commenced the row. I am happy to say I was not there. There were a great many soldiers there, and they all took our part. The alarm was given, and the police came. Then there was such a rush at the police. Some of them tumbled over, and the rest were half-knocked down. At last they took in custody three of our boys, upon which every boy that was there (amounting to about 450) was summoned. They burst open the door, knocked down the police, and rescued our boys. Meantime the boys kept on shying rotten eggs and crackers, and there was nothing but righting and rushing.'
A startling description! But this was nothing to the wild pranks that lived in the traditions of the elder generation; and in a few years more the boys were debarred from the mischievous licence of the fair.
Coley had now been nearly a year at Eton, and had proceeded through the lower and middle removes of the fourth form, when, on November 23, he achieved the success of which he thus writes:—
'Rejoice! I was sent up for good yesterday at eleven o'clock school. I do not know what copy of verses for yet, but directly I do, I will send you a copy.... Goodford, when I took my ticket to be signed (for I was obliged to get Goodford, Abraham, and my tutor to sign it), said, "I will sign it most willingly," and then kept on stroking my hand, and said, "I congratulate you most heartily, and am very glad of it." I am the only one who is sent up; which is a good thing for me, as it will give me forty or fifty good marks in trials. I am so splitting with joy you cannot think, because now I have given you some proof that I have been lately sapping and doing pretty well. Do not, think that I am praising myself, for I am pretty nearly beside myself, you may suppose.'
One of his cousins adds, on the same sheet: 'I must tell you it is very difficult to be sent up in the upper fourth form, and still more so in the middle remove.'
The subject of the Latin verses which obtained this distinction was a wreath or garland, and there must have been something remarkable in them, for Mr. Abraham preserved a copy of them for many years. There was something in the sweetness and docility of the boy, and in the expression of his calm, gentle face, that always greatly interested the masters and made them rejoice in his success; and among his comrades he was a universal favourite. His brother joined him at Eton during the ensuing year, when the Queen's wedding afforded the boys another glimpse of Royal festivity. Their tumultuous loyalty and audacity appear in Coley's letter:—
'In college, stretching from Hexter's to Mother Spier's was a magnificent representation of the Parthenon: there were three pillars, and a great thing like this (a not over-successful sketch of a pediment), with the Eton and Royal arms in the middle, and "Gratulatur Etona Victoria et Alberto" It cost £150, and there were 5,000 lamps hung on it. Throughout the whole day we all of us wore large white bridal favours and white gloves. Towards evening the clods got on Long Walk Wall; and as gentle means would not do, we were under the necessity of knocking some over, when the rest soon jumped off. However, F—— and myself declared we would go right into the quadrangle of the Castle, so we went into the middle of the road and formed a line. Soon a rocket (the signal that the Queen was at Slough) was let off, and then some Life Guards came galloping along, and one of them ran almost over me, and actually trod on F—-'s toe, which put him into dreadful pain for some time. Then came the Queen's carriage, and I thought college would have tumbled down with the row. The cheering was really tremendous. The whole 550 fellows all at once roared away. The Queen and Consort nodding and bowing, smiling, &c. Then F—— and I made a rush to get up behind the Queen's carriage, but a dragoon with his horse almost knocked us over. So we ran by the side as well as we could, but the crowd was so immensely thick, we could not get on as quick as the Queen. We rushed along, knocking clean over all the clods we could, and rushing against the rest, and finally F—— and myself were the only Eton fellows that got into the quadrangle. As we got there, the Queen's carriage was going away. You may fancy that we were rather hot, running the whole way up to the Castle, besides the exertion of knocking over the clods and knocking at doors as we passed; but I was so happy.'
Such is bliss at twelve years old!
The first half-year of 1839 had brought Patteson into the Remove, that large division of the school intermediate between the fourth and fifth forms. The work was harder, and his diligence somewhat relaxed. In fact, the Coley of this period and of a good while later had more heart for play than work. Cricket, bathing, and boating were his delight; and though his school-work was conscientiously accomplished, it did not interest him; and when he imagined himself to have been working hard and well, it was a thunderbolt to him to find, at the end of the half-year, that a great deal more had been expected of him by his tutor. It shows how candid and sweet his nature was, that, just as when he was a little fellow at Ottery, his penitent letter should contain the rebuke he had received, without resentment against anyone but himself:—
'Aunt has just called me down into the drawing-room and shown me my character. I am stupefied at it; it is so shocking just when I most wanted a good one on account of mamma's health. I am ashamed to say that I can offer not the slightest excuse; my conduct on this occasion has been very bad. I expect a severe reproof from you, and pray do not send me any money, nor grant me the slightest [favour?]. Whilst ....., who has very little ability (uncle says), is, by plodding on, getting credit, I, who (my tutor says) have abilities, am wickedly neglecting and offending both my heavenly and earthly Father by my bad use of them. Aunt called me into the drawing-room, and very kindly showed me the excessive foolishness of my conduct; but from this very moment I am determined that I will not lose a moment, and we will see what the next three weeks will produce.'
Poor little fellow! his language is so strong that it is almost a surprise to find that he was reproaching himself for no more heinous fault than not having worked up to the full extent of his powers! He kept his promise of diligence, and never again incurred reproof, but was sent up for good again in November. His career through the school was above the average, though not attaining to what was expected from his capabilities; but the development of his nature was slow, and therefore perhaps ultimately the more complete, and as yet study for its own sake did not interest him; indeed, his mind was singularly devoid of pleasure in classical subjects, though so alert in other directions.
He was growing into the regular tastes of the refined, fastidious Eton boy; wrote of the cut of his first tail-coat that 'this is really an important thing;' and had grown choice in the adorning of his room and the binding of his books, though he never let these tastes bring him into debt or extravagance. His turn for art and music began to show itself, and the anthems at St. George's Chapel on the Sunday afternoons gave him great delight; and in Eton Chapel, a contemporary says, 'I well remember how he used to sing the Psalms with the little turns at the end of the verses, which I envied his being able to do.' Nor was this mere love of music, but devotion. Coley had daily regular readings of the Bible in his room with his brother, cousins, and a friend or two; but the boys were so shy about it that they kept an open Shakespeare on the table, with an open drawer below, in which the Bible was placed, and which was shut at the sound of a hand on the door.
Hitherto No. 33 Bedford Square had been the only home of the Patteson family. The long vacations were spent sometimes with the Judge's relations in the Eastern counties, sometimes with Lady Patteson's in the West. Landwith Rectory, in Cornwall, was the home of her eldest brother, Dr. James Coleridge, whose daughter Sophia was always like an elder sister to her children, and the Vicarage of St. Mary Church, then a wild, beautiful seaside village, though now almost a suburb of Torquay, was held by her cousin, George May Coleridge; and here the brothers and sisters climbed the rocks, boated, fished, and ran exquisitely wild in the summer holidays. Christmas was spent with the Judge's mother at Ipswich, amongst numerous cousins, with great merriment and enjoyment such as were never forgotten.
Colonel Coleridge had died in 1836, his widow in her daughter's house in 1838, and Heath's Court had become the property of Mr. Justice Coleridge, who always came thither with his family as soon as the circuit was over. In 1841, Feniton Court, about two miles and a half from thence, was purchased by Judge Patteson, much to the delight of his children. It was a roomy, cheerful, pleasantly-situated house, with a piece of water in the grounds, the right of shooting over a couple of farms, and all that could render boy life happy.
Feniton was a thorough home, and already Coley's vision was, 'When I am vicar of Feniton, which I look forward to, but with a very distant hope, I should of all things like Fanny to keep house for me till I am married;' and again, when relating some joke with his cousins about the law-papers, of the Squire of Feniton, he adds: 'But the Squire of Feniton will be a clergyman.'
Whether this were jest or earnest, this year, 1841, brought the dawn of his future life. It was in that year that the Rev. George Augustus Selwyn was appointed to the diocese of New Zealand. Mrs. Selwyn's parents had always been intimate with the Patteson family, and the curacy which Mr. Selwyn had held up to this time was at Windsor, so that the old Etonian tie of brotherhood was drawn closer by daily intercourse. Indeed, it was from the first understood that Eton, with the wealth that her children enjoyed in such large measure, should furnish 'nerves and sinews' to the war which her son was about to wage with the darkness of heathenism, thus turning the minds of the boys to something beyond either their studies or their sports.
On October 31, the Rev. Samuel Wilberforce, then Archdeacon of Surrey, and since Bishop of Oxford and of Winchester, preached in the morning at New Windsor parish church, and the newly-made Bishop of New Zealand in the afternoon. Coley was far more affected than he then had power to express. He says: 'I heard Archdeacon Wilberforce in the morning, and the Bishop in the evening, though I was forced to stand all the time. It was beautiful when he talked of his going out to found a church, and then to die neglected and forgotten. All the people burst out crying, he was so very much beloved by his parishioners. He spoke of his perils, and putting his trust in God; and then, when, he had finished, I think I never heard anything like the sensation, a kind of feeling that if it had not been on so sacred a spot, all would have exclaimed "God bless him!"'
The text of this memorable sermon was, 'Thine heart shall be enlarged, because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces also of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.' (Is. lx. 5.) Many years later we shall find a reference to this, the watchword of the young hearer's life.
The Archdeacon's sermon was from John xvii. 20, 21: 'Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; that they all may be One, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be One in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.' And here again we find one of the watchwords of Coley's life, for nothing so dwelt with him and so sustained him as the sense of unity, whether with these at home in England, or with those in the inner home of the Saints. When the sermon concluded with the words, 'As we are giving of our best, as our Church is giving of her best, in sending forth from her own bosom these cherished and chosen sons, so let there go forth from every one of us a consenting offering; let us give this day largely, in a spirit of self-sacrifice, as Christian men, to Christ our Lord, and He will graciously accept and bless the offerings that we make'—the preacher could little guess that among the lads who stood in the aisle was one in whom was forming the purpose of offering his very self also.
For at that time Coleridge Patteson was receiving impressions that became the seed of his future purpose, and the eyes of his spirit were seeing greater things than the Vicarage of Feniton. Indeed, the subject was not entirely new to him, for Edward Coleridge was always deeply interested in missions, and had done his best to spread the like feeling, often employing the willing services of his pupils in copying letters from Australia, Newfoundland, &c.
When the Bishop of New Zealand came to take leave, he said, half in earnest, half in playfulness, 'Lady Patteson, will you give me Coley?' She started, but did not say no; and when, independently of this, her son told her that it was his greatest wish to go with the Bishop, she replied that if he kept that wish when he grew up he should have her blessing and consent.
But there was no further mention of the subject. The sisters knew what had passed, but it was not spoken of to his father till long after, when the wish had become purpose. Meantime the boy's natural development put these visions into the background. He was going on with ordinary work and play, enjoying the pageantry of the christening of the Prince of Wales, and cheering himself hoarse and half-frantic when the King of Prussia came to see the school; then on his father's birthday writing with a 'hand quite trembling with delight' to announce what he knew would be the most welcome of birthday presents, namely, the news that he had been 'sent up' for a very good copy of seventy-nine verses, 'all longs, on Napoleon e Seylhia profugus, passage of Beresina, and so forth.' His Latin verses were his strong point, and from this time forward he was frequently sent up, in all twenty-five times, an almost unprecedented number.
