Life of John Coleridge Patteson, Missionary Bishop the Melanesian Islands

Life of John Coleridge Patteson

by Charlotte M. Yonge

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life of John Coleridge Patteson
by Charlotte M. Yonge (#26 in our series by Charlotte M. Yonge)
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

Author: Charlotte M. Yonge
Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4952] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 3, 2002]
[Date last updated: June 17, 2006]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LIFE OF
JOHN COLERIDGE PATTESON ***

This Project Gutenberg Etext of the Life of John Coleridge Patteson:
Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands, by Charlotte Mary
Yonge was prepared by Sandra Laythorpe, [email protected].
More information about the history of the Anglican Church may be
found at Project Canterbury, http://justus.anglican,org/. A web page for
Charlotte M Yonge may be found at www.menorot.com/cmyonge.htm.

Life of John Coleridge Patteson: Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian
Islands
by Charlotte Mary Yonge

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, 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, 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 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