CHAPTER VIII

THE MELANESIAN MISSION

A fortnight after Bishop Selwyn reached Auckland on his return from England, the _Southern Cross_, the new mission ship, arrived. She was first sighted on a very wet day, and as soon as the Bishop was sure it was her, he called Patteson to come with him to meet her. Patteson describes the scene:

“I hurried on waterproofs knowing that we were in for some mudlarking. Off we went, lugged down a borrowed boat to the water. I took one oar, a Maori another, the Bishop steering. After twenty minutes pull we met her, jumped on board, and then such a broadside of questions and answers. Mudlarking very slight on this occasion, but on Tuesday we had a rich scene. Bishop and I went to the _Duke of Portland_ and brought off our things ... the custom is for carts to go over the muddy sand ... in went our cart, with three valuable horses, while the Bishop and I stood on the edge of the water. Presently one of the horses lost his footing, and then all at once all three slipped up. Instanter Bishop and I had our coats off, and in we rushed to the horses, such a plunging and splashing but they were all got out safe. ‘This is your first lesson in mudlarking, Coley,’ was the Bishop’s remark.”

Before Selwyn could sail for his first voyage in the _Southern Cross_, he was called upon by the Governor to go to make peace in a native quarrel, which threatened to lead to trouble with the settlers. The disturbance had arisen in the neighbourhood of Taranaki, called by the colonists New Plymouth. A chief had tried to sell some land, the ownership of which was disputed, to the English, and another chief, Katatore, had shot him down in cold blood, unarmed. The settlers fearful of the disturbance that might follow, asked that some troops should be sent to protect them, but the Governor, thinking that the presence of English soldiers would only add to the difficulty, begged the Bishop to go down to see whether he could bring about a peaceful settlement. The Bishop started at once accompanied by Dr. Abraham and his faithful Maori Deacon, Rota. They had a hard fortnight’s walk through difficult country to the Pah, that is the camp, of William King, a well known native chief, who had taken the part of Katatore, and here they met with a friendly reception. The next day the conference began in Katatore’s Pah, and Abraham thus describes what happened. They found “one hundred men or so within; all were seated on the ground to hear what the Bishop had to say. After a few minutes a man dressed like a would-be flash criminal at Newgate came up to us. It was Katatore, a little cunning, ill-favoured looking rascal, dressed in a black paletot, moleskin trousers, boots and a little black hat on the top of an immense bush of hair. He then told us the story of the murder. When he came to it, the Bishop said: ‘So then you killed an unarmed man in cold blood for the matter of land?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then you repeated the act of Cain towards Abel, and in the sight of God and man you are a murderer.”

“The man started up in great wrath, but the Bishop calmly repeated it. The man started on his feet and left the ring of people, muttering and growling; but his own people did not seem disposed to support him on that point, nor to question the Bishop’s judgment.”

Some days after, the soldiers arrived, and the natives grew very excited thinking that the Bishop had broken faith with them; but he reassured them and finally after giving good advice to both sides in the dispute restored peace. Abraham writes:

“It was very striking to see the men’s delight when he wound up his speech with their old song, the Maori equivalent for ‘Lady bird, lady bird, fly away home.’ All the good advice seemed to tell but little, but this quotation set the whole party on the alert.”

During the days spent in this work of peace-making, Selwyn held many services with both colonists and natives, and persuaded the colonists to provide themselves with churches. Whilst waiting for the steamer which was to take him away, he with his party set to work to mend a road full of great holes, which he had in vain tried to persuade the people to mend. They made the road passable in a day and a half’s work; and were watched by the passers-by with amusement, but unfortunately not with shame for their own idleness.

The Bishop was violently attacked in the local papers for his conduct in the Taranaki dispute. In one of them it was said:

“Bishop Selwyn is again lending his blighting influence to New Zealand, has again taken the murderer by the hand.... It is reserved for the Bishop of New Zealand to use his undoubted influence to shield notorious criminals from justice when those criminals appeal to his sympathies through the medium of a dark skin.”

He was accused of preventing the sale of land to the settlers in New Plymouth. Thinking that some members of the Church might have been offended by the reports they had heard of his opinion and conduct, he felt it to be a religious duty to explain his opinions in a pastoral letter to them. In this he stated what he considered to be the cause of the hostility between the Maoris and the settlers. He said that land had been acquired too hastily without sufficient investigation of the titles, and went on:

“My advice to the natives in all parts of New Zealand has always been to sell all the land which they are not able to occupy or cultivate. I had two reasons for this: first to avoid continual jealousies between the races; and secondly to bring the native population within narrower limits, in order that religion, law, education and civilization might be brought to bear more effectually upon them.”

He referred to the strong feeling amongst the Maoris for their land, and to their accurate knowledge with regard to its ownership, saying: “No menaces of military interference are likely to have any effect upon men who from their childhood, have been accustomed to regard it as a point of honour to shed their last drop of blood for the inheritance of their tribe.” He expressed his conviction “that the lives and property of our fellow settlers, scattered as they are, can only be preserved by the greatest forbearance and the strictest justice in our dealings with the native people.”

On Bishop Selwyn’s return to Auckland, he ordained a second Maori Deacon, Levi, a man of 38, whose character had had long testing, and whose final preparation for ordination he had begun immediately on his return from England. He was now free to set off on his first voyage with Patteson in the _Southern Cross_. This was to be a visitation tour to the Chatham Islands and to the Southern settlements in New Zealand. Selwyn was able to leave the vessel in charge of Patteson and to make some long journeys on foot. He had planned a journey of one thousand miles and fixed the exact time which it should take. A week before the appointed end he wrote to Mr. Abraham asking him to meet him at a certain place at 1 o’clock on the day fixed. Mr. Abraham writes:

“As my watch pointed to the hour I looked up and saw him emerge from a bush looking well, wiry and bushy. He had walked five hundred and fifty-miles and ridden four hundred and fifty in the course of the last three months, having examined and confirmed one thousand, five hundred people. He was alone nearly all the way and had great difficulty getting the horses he did, so engaged are the people in their cultivations, etc., that they could not spare time to go with him.... He gave an amusing account of the way in which he shamed them sometimes into giving him a horse to ride. He would go to a village and ask for a horse and guide. There were none was the answer. He would point to a herd of thirty or forty not far off—no one knew to whom they belonged. He would then put down his pack and begin to throw out the most useless articles, and pack it up again and begin to strap it on. ‘What are you about?’ ‘Lightening my burden for a walk.’ This touched some woman’s heart, who would either herself fetch, or urge her husband to get a horse. One morning at dawn, as he was just starting on his lonely march he found a woman standing with a horse ready for him.... The last month’s journey was the worst, perhaps, as he was obliged to leave his blankets behind to lighten his shoulders, and had to sleep under his tent with nothing but a thin maude these cold autumnal evenings.”

The thought that soon there would be another Bishop to care for these scattered southern settlements must often have cheered Selwyn during his lonely wanderings.

His thoughts were now turning to the Pacific Islands which he hoped would be the sphere of Patteson’s future work. On Ascension Day, 1855, he left Auckland in the _Southern Cross_ again. Ascension Day was his favourite day for starting, for he felt the charge ringing in his ears: “Go ye and teach all nations.” He went first with Mrs. Selwyn and Patteson to Sydney. He wished to get permission to set up his school for the young Melanesians in Norfolk Island. He had become convinced that it was impossible to go on bringing the young islanders to school at Auckland, and then on account of the climate, to have to take them back after a few months to their own homes. This was much too expensive and wasteful a method to be continued, and he wished to find a suitable island where a school and a centre for the mission might be set up. Norfolk Island struck him as eminently suited for the purpose. It had been used as a convict settlement, but this had now been given up. Selwyn had visited the island with Sir George Grey, who approved of his idea, and wrote to the home government asking that the disused prison and a portion of the land should be granted to the Bishop for his school. Objections were made in some quarters because of another proposal for using Norfolk Island. There had been discovered in a Pacific Island named Pitcairn, an English population who proved to be the descendants of a certain John Adams, the leader of a mutiny in a Government vessel called the _Bounty_. Adams had brought up the children of the mutineers who survived and their descendants with great care, during the years in which they had lived unknown and separated from the outer world. Now that they had been discovered in their lonely home, it was considered that they were too many to go on living on the little island of Pitcairn, and the English Government intended to transport them to Norfolk Island. Objections were made in England to the idea of bringing native islanders from the Pacific to live alongside with the Pitcairners, lest they should corrupt these interesting descendants of English mutineers, who, it was asserted, had grown up in a state of primitive innocence under a patriarchal system. Bishop Selwyn, however, urged that it would be good for the Pitcairners to help in the work of training the natives and of navigating the Mission vessel. But the Governor of New South Wales would not agree to his proposal. The Bishop was much interested in the Pitcairners and waited to see them on their arrival at Norfolk Island before he started for the Pacific. He was warmly welcomed by them. The careful provision of John Adams had seen to it that they were brought up as Christians, but naturally none of them had been confirmed. It was decided therefore to leave Mrs. Selwyn on the Island to teach and prepare the girls and women for confirmation, whilst Selwyn and Patteson went for their cruise to visit the northern Pacific Islands.

Before leaving Sydney, a crowded meeting was held by the Australian Board of Missions to hear Bishop Selwyn speak on the Melanesian Mission, and at this meeting Patteson was introduced by the Bishop as his dear friend, one for whose companionship he ought to thank God. After this they took Mrs. Selwyn to Norfolk Island and sailed for the Pacific. They went first to the Presbyterian mission at Anaiteum, and deposited goods and letters that they had brought for the missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Ingles. Patteson much admired their schools and wrote of their work as full of hope and encouragement. After this many islands new to the Bishop were visited. Near one of them they came across a brig with a sandal wood trader who was notorious for “dark deeds of revenge and unscrupulous retaliation upon the natives.” In the past the Bishop had been one of those who had helped to bring him to justice, but he had remained friends with him and had baptised his only son. Now he introduced Patteson to him, saying, “Mr. Patteson is come from England on purpose to look after these islands.” He was convinced that the knowledge that there were those who watched their doings would have a restraining effect upon the traders.

Patteson was able to learn from the behaviour of the Bishop how to be on the look out for signs of danger. Selwyn’s quick eye was always on the watch and without any apparent suspicion of fear, he was ever on the alert to detect any slight intimation of possible danger. On one occasion whilst they were happily bartering fish hooks for cocoanuts, the Bishop, to Patteson’s surprise, made a sudden sign to come away. When they were in their boat he said: “I saw some young men running through the bushes with bows and arrows, and these young gentry have not the sense to behave well like their parents.”

The Bishop’s method in his work among the islands has been described by one who watched it as follows:

“On first invading the land he tries to make a favourable impression on the people’s minds by presents, and by letting them see that he is not come to trade. This he does by leaving his boat ten or twenty yards from the reef, where some hundred people are standing and shouting; he then plunges into the water arranging no end of presents on his back, which he has been showing to their astounded eyes out of the boat. He probably has learnt from some stray canoe or a neighbouring island the name of the chief. He calls out his name; he steps forward; the Bishop hands him a tomahawk, and holds out his hand for the chief’s bow and arrows. The old chief with innate courtesy sends the tomahawk to the rear, to show that he is safe and may place confidence in him. The Bishop pats the children on the head, gives them fishhooks and red tape, for there is an enormous demand for red tape in these islands. Probably then the Bishop has some ‘tame elephant’ with him—a black boy from some other island—and he has clothed him, and taught him to read or the like; and he brings forward this specimen and sample, and tries to make them understand that he wants some of their boys to treat in like manner. The Bishop gets as many names written down as he can and picks up as many words as he can; establishes a friendly relation, and after a while swims off to his boats. Next year he will go and call out the names of his old friends, get two or three on board, induce them to take a trip with him while he goes to the neighbouring islands. So he learns their language enough to tell them what he has come for.”

During this trip with Patteson, he landed on sixty islands, and they brought back thirty-three scholars, who were looked upon as Patteson’s boys. They stopped at Norfolk Island to hold what Selwyn described as “one of the most remarkable confirmations in the history of the Church. The whole adult population of the Pitcairn Islanders, except those who were too feeble to attend, presented themselves to me in nine classes to be examined and confirmed.” The eldest of the candidates, a woman over seventy, was a daughter of John Adams. The service was held in the old convict chapel, which opened on to the prison yard, “in every corner heaps of rusty fetters and cast-off garments.” The Confirmation was followed by a Celebration of Holy Communion.

This time the boys from the Islands had again to be taken to Auckland as no other place was ready for them. Selwyn wrote from there to Judge Patteson expressing his delight in the help given him by his son:

“I do indeed most thankfully acknowledge the goodness of God in giving me timely aid when I was pledged to a great work without any steady force to carry it on. Coley is the right man in the right place physically and mentally.... You know in what direction my wishes tend, viz., that Coley, when he has come to suitable age, and has developed as I have no doubt he will, a fitness for the work, should be the first island Bishop.”

Some years would have to pass before these wishes could be fulfilled, but already in 1856, Selwyn had the joy of welcoming Dr. Harper, appointed Bishop of Christchurch, who came out with all his family, immediately after his consecration in Lambeth Chapel. Selwyn went to Christchurch to meet him in the _Southern Cross_ and wrote in his diary:

“Went on board at 8 took off the Bishop and his whole family in our two boats; carried them to the _Southern Cross_; whole Harper family seated round our cabin, fourteen or fifteen happy faces. Went on shore, borrowed trucks, pulled baggage up bridle path; three cheers on the top.”

Bishop Harper was installed at once and Selwyn wrote:

“This day fifteen years I left England, and this morning I woke up with a thankful feeling that my load was at length lightened by the transfer to the Bishop of Christchurch of one-third of New Zealand.”

Both he and the colonists in the other provinces were impatient that the remaining dioceses which had been fixed upon should be speedily completed. Selwyn wrote:

“The number of persons to be confirmed is not the labour, but the distance to be gone in search of them. My average is about one candidate for confirmation for every mile of travelling. In all other respects of organising institutions and giving a tone to a new society, it is absolutely necessary that a bishop should be early in the field and have a field within the compass of his powers.”

Selwyn’s care for the interests and needs of the colonists in New Zealand never distracted him from the wider mission field amongst the heathen, which was ever so dear to his heart. The arrival of Bishop Harper was followed in a few months by the meeting of the Conference at Auckland, which finally settled the constitution of the New Zealand Church as described in the last chapter. Whilst Selwyn was busy with it, Patteson made a voyage alone to take back the boys from the Islands, as the New Zealand winter was coming on. The Conference over, Selwyn started with Patteson for a long cruise in the Pacific, first leaving Mrs. Selwyn at Norfolk Island to carry on her work amongst the Pitcairners. A long and prosperous voyage followed during which many islands were visited. In three there were urgent demands that they should be given a teacher, but the Bishop had none to give. All that could be done was, wherever possible, to persuade boys to come back with him to be taught. Finally after a cruise of four months they returned to Auckland bringing with them thirty-three Melanesians, gathered from nine islands and speaking eight languages. They had visited sixty-six islands and landed eighty-one times, wading and swimming; they had visited amongst others, some islands where the London Missionary Society had been at work, and where the native teachers had been left for a long while without any English missionary. They now gladly turned to Bishop Selwyn for advice and help. But nearly all the islands they visited were still untouched by any missionary work. A second voyage was made that year, and on that occasion, the _Southern Cross_ ran aground, in the lagoon at New Caledonia. After many exertions she was got off the ledge on which she had stuck, but it was impossible to be certain that her bottom was uninjured. There were no divers to be got, but as one who was present described the scene: “the Bishop was equal to the occasion. He caused the ship to be heeled over as far as was safe; and then, having stripped himself to his tweed trousers and jersey, in the presence of the captain of the _Bayonnais_ (a French warship that was in the harbour) and some of his officers, and amid their exclamations of admiration, made a succession of dives, during which he felt over the whole of the keel and forward part of the vessel, much to the detriment of his hands, which were cut to pieces by the jagged copper; and ascertained the exact condition of her bottom and the nature of the injuries sustained. No wonder that the next day, after dining on board the Frenchman, he was sent away with a salute of eleven guns.”

When this accident happened, the Bishop was on his way to call for Patteson who had been left on the Island of Lifu with his scholars. Now the _Southern Cross_ had to be taken to Auckland to be repaired and contrary to his usual punctual habits, he was a month late in reaching Lifu. There followed a rapid voyage back, picking up scholars by the way till forty-seven were collected, amongst them three young married women and two babies; with the crew there were sixty-three persons in the little ship. Patteson writes:

“As you may suppose the little _Southern Cross_ is cram full, but the Bishop’s excellent arrangements in the construction of the vessel for securing ventilation, preserve us from harm by God’s blessing. Every day a thorough cleaning and sweeping goes on and frequent washing, and as all beds turn up like the flap of a table, and some thirty lads sleep on the floor on mats and blankets, by 7 a.m. all traces of the night’s arrangements have vanished. The cabin looks and feels airy; meals go on regularly.... A vessel of this size unless arranged with special reference to such objects, could not carry safely so large a party, but we have nothing on board to create, conceal or accumulate dirt.”

School and prayers were held regularly every day. Part of the Bishop’s own cabin was screened off for the three women and two babies; and he himself looked after them, washing the babies and tending the women when sick.

Selwyn was grateful indeed that it was now possible happily to leave all these new scholars at Auckland under Patteson’s care, for plenty of work awaited him. He had to start off at once on a confirmation tour of one thousand miles and then be at Wellington early in the coming year for the meeting of the first Synod. The year, 1858, that was drawing to a close, he described as “a year of many blessings. Two prosperous voyages to the Islands, one prosperous voyage to the Southern Settlements, one-third of the Visitation Tour by land accomplished, the consecration of the Bishops of Wellington and Nelson.” These two, both consecrated in England were old friends; his fellow worker, Archdeacon Abraham, had been appointed Bishop of Wellington, and Rev. E. Hobhouse, Bishop of Nelson.

In 1859, after the Synod was over, Selwyn made his last voyage to Melanesia again in company with Patteson. They touched at Lifu where they had before visited the native teachers belonging to the mission of the London Missionary Society. These men, as they had not had an English missionary among them for a long while, implored to be connected with the Anglican Mission. But they were told that two missionaries from L.M.S. were on their way from Sydney to Lifu, and that it would do harm to have two rival systems on the island. Patteson writes:

“They acquiesced but not heartily, and it was a sad affair altogether, all parties unhappy and dissatisfied and yet unable to solve the difficulty.”

They called at Lifu again on their way back and found that the two missionaries had arrived, but learned also that there were two French Roman Catholic priests in the north of the island who were attracting many to them. So again possibilities of true comity disappeared, and the simple islanders were disturbed by the unhappy differences between Christians.

After this voyage, Bishop Selwyn left to Patteson the whole guidance of the Melanesian mission. He had served his apprenticeship under the Bishop and gained a full knowledge of the nature of the work, and had shown that he possessed the gifts necessary to carry it on, so that he could be given full responsibility for what had been to Selwyn one of the most delightful parts of his great work.

To Patteson it had meant much to begin his work in close association with one whom he loved and admired as he did Bishop Selwyn. He still looked constantly to him for help and support. He wrote to his father:

“Of course no treat is so great to me as the occasional talks with the Bishop. Oh! the memory of those days and evenings on board the _Southern Cross_. Well, it was so happy a life that it was not good for me, I suppose, that it should last.”

It was not yet possible to move the school for the Melanesian boys to Norfolk Island, but a more sheltered spot was found for it temporarily, opposite to the entrance of Auckland harbour. St. John’s College was reserved entirely for the sons of colonists. A new master, Rev. B. Blackburn, had been found in England by Abraham who, as Archdeacon, had been its head till he was appointed Bishop of Wellington. When Mr. Blackburn was offered the post he accepted saying with what intense pleasure he would work under as great a man as Bishop Selwyn. To which Abraham answered: “he is a great man and would appear so to his valet if he had one.” Blackburn was not disappointed when he first saw Selwyn on arriving at Auckland. He described him as “a king every inch of him; he would rule by a look, but stoop to perform the most menial office without the slightest loss of dignity.” After helping to carry the newcomer’s luggage from the ship, the Bishop suggested that they should go to the chapel to give thanks for their safe voyage, and after a little service of prayers and psalms laid his hands on each, down to the baby in arms, giving them his blessing. Mr. Blackburn writes further:

“Bishop Selwyn had a love of work, and great power of endurance. I have heard of his taking eight services in one day. When 10,000 soldiers were landed in New Zealand with only one chaplain (and he a Roman Catholic) the Bishop felt it was his duty to provide for them: he started a number of services and held Bible classes with the men. The soldiers were enthusiastic about him. He knew exactly how to adapt his language to them. It was amusing to hear the officers speak of him. They not only admired him as a bishop, but they discovered in him great power for taking in the details of military life. They used to say that it was a shame he was not a general. The naval men were equally enthusiastic about his seamen-like qualities. They all agreed that he would have made a first rate admiral.”

In 1861, Patteson was consecrated first Bishop of Melanesia. Lady Martin describes the consecration: “It was altogether a wonderful scene: the three consecrating Bishops, all such noble-looking men, the goodly company of clergy and Hohua’s fine intelligent brown face among them, and the long line of island boys and of native teachers and their wives were living testimonies of mission work.” To Selwyn, Patteson was like a son, and in the sermon preached at his consecration he said, as he gazed on one so dearly loved: “May Christ be with you when you go forth in His name and for His sake to those poor and needy people.” The consecration marked the final achievement of independence by the New Zealand Church. So far no bishop had been appointed in the Church overseas except under letters patent or under mandate from the Crown. If this necessity for constant reference to government authority in England had continued, the progress of the Church would have been subject to needless limitations. Selwyn, always marked by wisdom and caution as well as by his zeal for the development of the independent Church, after much anxious consideration, suggested to the Colonial Secretary that the difficulty about the appointment of a bishop would be got over if the New Zealand bishops were allowed to exercise the powers inherent in their office, as bishops of a distinct province of the Church, without any mandate from the Crown. This was allowed, and henceforth the Church overseas was free to develop on its own lines, without interference from the Colonial Office and its legal advisers. Thus after nineteen years of work, the Bishop who had been given the sole charge of New Zealand, and who had started the mission to Melanesia, saw himself surrounded by five brother bishops, with the missionary obligation of the Church to the Pacific islands fully recognized, and entrusted to a man whom he loved as a son, and who was specially gifted for this work.