'I have told you about our manner of life here. Up at 5, when I go round and pull the blankets, not without many a joke, off the sleeping boys, many of the party are already up and washing. Then, just before prayers, I go into the kitchen and see that all is ready for breakfast. Prayers at 5.45 in English, Mota, Baura, beginning with a Mota Hymn, and ending with the Lord's Prayer in English. Breakfast immediately after: at our table Mr. Pritt, Mr. Kerr, and young Atkin who has just joined us. At the teachers' table, five Norfolk Islanders, Edward (a Maori), five girls and two of their husbands, and the three girls being placed at this table because they are girls; Melanesians at the other three tables indiscriminately. There are four windows, one at the north, three at the east side. The school and chapel, in one long modern building, form the corresponding wing on the eastern side of my little room, and the boys dormitories between.
'We are daily expecting the vessel, though it will be a quick passage for her if she comes in the next ten days, and then what a bustle!
'We send Dudley and his wife away to Canterbury for eight or nine months; he is so weak as to make the change, which I had urged him to try for some time past, quite necessary.
'Next Sunday a Confirmation at Orehunga, eight miles off; back to Auckland for catechising and Baptism at 3 p.m. and evening service at 6.30, and never a word of either sermon written, and all the school work! Never mind, a good growl to you is a fine restorative, and really I get on very well somehow.
'Well, good-bye, you dear Sisters,
'Your affectionate Brother,
'J. C. P.'
On the last day of February came the new 'Southern Cross,' and two delightful notes announced it to the Vicar of Hursley and to myself in one envelope.
'St. Andrew's: Feb. 28, 1863.
'My dear Cousin,-The 'Southern Cross' arrived safely this morning. Thanks to God!
'What it is to us even you can hardly tell; I know not how to pour out my thankfulness. She seems admirably adapted for the work. Mr. Tilly's report of her performance is most satisfactory: safe, fast, steers well, and very manageable. Internal arrangements very good; after cabin too luxurious, but then that may be wanted for sick folk, and as it is luxurious, why I shall get a soft bed, and take to it very kindly.
'Pray let dear Mr. Keble and Dr. Moberly know at once how very happy and thankful I am for this blessing. I know all you good friends at home will try to picture to yourselves my delight as I jumped on board!
'The boys are, of course, wild with excitement. It is blowing very hard. Last night (when we were thinking of them) it was an anxious night for them close on the coast.
'I have no time to write more. I thought of Lady... as I looked at the chronometers and instruments, and of you all as I looked at the beautiful vessel slipping along through the water with scarce a stitch of canvas. I pray that she may be spared many years to the Mission, and that we may have grace to use her, as she ought to be used, to His glory.
'Your affectionate Cousin,
'J. C. PATTESON, Bishop.
'You know that you are daily remembered in our prayers. God bless you.'
'10.30 P.M., March 1, 1863.
'My dear Mr. Keble,-One line, though on Sunday night, to tell you of the safe arrival of the 'Southern Cross.' You have a large share in her, and she has a large share in your good wishes and prayers, I am sure.
'Solemn thoughts on this day, an Ordination Sunday, mingle with the joy at the coming of this messenger (I trust of mercy and peace). I need not ask you to pray continually for us, for I know you do so. But indeed, now is the time when we seem especially to need your prayers.
'The lads have no lack of intellectual capacity, they not unfrequently surprise me. Now is the time when they are in the receptive state, and now especially any error on our part may give a wrong direction to the early faith of thousands! What an awful thought! We are their only teachers, the only representatives of Christianity among them. How inexpressibly solemn and fearful! This is the thought so perpetually present to me. The training of the future missionaries of Melanesia is, by God's Providence, placed in our hands. No wonder that I feel sometimes overwhelmed at the thought!
'But I know that if God gives me grace to become more simple-minded and humble, He will order even this aright. You I know will pray more than ever for me. My kindest regards to Mrs. Keble; I hope she is better.
'Your affectionate and grateful young Friend,
'J. C. PATTESON, Missionary Bishop.'
Before the first joy of the arrival was over, ere the 'Southern Cross' could make her first voyage among the multitude of isles, a great calamity had fallen upon St. Andrew's. Whether it was from the large numbers, or the effect of the colder climate, or from what cause could not be told, but a frightful attack of dysentery fell upon the Melanesians, and for several weeks suffering and death prevailed among them. How Bishop Patteson tended them during this time can be better guessed than described.
Archdeacon Lloyd, who came to assist in the cares of the small party of clergy, can find no words to express the devotion with which the Bishop nursed them, comforting and supporting them, never shrinking from the most repulsive offices, even bearing out the dead silently at night, lest the others should see and be alarmed.
Still no mail, except during the voyages, had ever left New Zealand without a despatch for home; and time was snatched in the midst of all this distress for a greeting, in the same beautiful, clear minute hand as usual:-
'Hospital, St. Andrew's: Saturday night, 9 P.M., March 22, 1863.
'My dearest Brother and Sister,-I write from the dining hall (now our hospital), with eleven Melanesians lying round me in extremity of peril. I buried two to-day in one grave, and I baptized another now dying by my side.
'God has been pleased in His wisdom and mercy to send upon us a terrible visitation, a most virulent form of dysentery. Since this day fortnight I have scarce slept night or day, but by snatching an hour here and there; others are working quite as hard, and all the good points of our Melanesian staff are brought out, as you may suppose.
'The best medical men cannot suggest any remedy. All remedies have been tried and failed. Every conceivable kind of treatment has been tried in vain. There are in the hall (the hospital now) at this moment eleven-eleven more in the little quadrangle, better, but in as anxious a state as can be; and two more not at all well.
'I have sent all the rest on board to be out of the way of contagion. How we go on I scarce know.... My good friend, Mr. Lloyd, is here, giving great help; he is well acquainted with sickness and a capital nurse.
'I have felt all along that it would be good for us to be in trouble; we could not always sail with a fair wind, I have often said so, and God has sent the trial in the most merciful way. What is this to the falling away of our baptized scholars!
'But it is a pitiful sight! How wonderfully they bear the agony of it. No groaning.
'When I buried those two children to-day, my heart was full, I durst not think, but could only pray and believe and trust in Him. God bless you.
'Your loving Brother,
'J. C. P.
'O Lord, correct me, but with judgment!'
On the 25th, two more were dead, and buried without time to make coffins, for thirteen still hung between life and death, while fresh cases were sent from on board ship. Mr. Pritt and Mr. Palmer cooked nourishing food and prepared rice-water unceasingly; while the others tended the sick, and the Primate returned from a journey to give his effective aid. On the night of the 30th, a fifth died unexpectedly, having only been ill a week, the only scholar from Pentecost Island. One of these lads, when all hope was over, was wrapped in his white winding sheet, carried into the chapel, and there baptized by the Bishop, with choked voice and weeping eyes.
Over those who had not faith enough to justify him in baptizing them, he said the following prayers as he laid them in their graves:-
'Sentences. Psalms from the Burial Service.
'Forasmuch as it hath pleased Thee, O Almighty God, to take from amongst us the souls of these two children committed to our charge, we therefore commit their bodies to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; humbly commending to Thy Fatherly mercy these and all other Thy children who know not Thee, whom Thou knowest, who art the Father and Lord of all things in heaven and earth, to whom be all praise and glory, with Thy Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.
