CHURCH HERO

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2334, 27 September 1921, Page 4

CHURCH HERO

JOHN COLERIDGE PATTESON FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY.

Fifty years ago on 20th September, 1871, one-of the Church of England’s greatest heroes and saints, John Coleridge Patteson, Bishop of Melanesia, laid down his life in the island of Nukapu for those whom he loved and sought to sa\'e. . “If any deserved a place in tna Calendar of Saints,” says a writer, “surely John Coleridge Patteson, the missionary and first Bishop of Melanesia, was such a one. His death, which made him famous, was but an incident, though the most memorable one, of his caicei. It was no sudden consecration by martyrdom of an average Christian. It was the climax of a life of constant dedication of soul and body, of intellect, will, and purpose to one end —the enlargement of the Kingdom of God through the exercise of a love which hungered and thirsted for the souls of the lowliest of the Heavenly Father’s children. From first to last the biography of the Bishop is like a holy starway up which the reader seems to see the man climb into the very presence of God.” Educated at Eton and Ballcoe, the Bishop came to New Zealand in 1855 as a helper* to Bishop Selwyn. In 1801, he was consecrated first Bishop of Melanesia, and he spent the rest of his life cruising about the islands that comprised his diocese, working among the natives, by whom he was much beloved. He vainly tried to put a stop to the kidnapping of Polynesians for the purpose of supplying the labour market of Queensland and other colonies, and lost his life in the attempt. Hearing that a vessel was on her way to Santa Cruz Islands, to recruit labourers, he determined to visit the group himself. He arrived at Nukapu on 20th September, 18/1, and, at the request of two savages, and in order to show confidence in their friendliness, got out of his own boat, and went into one of the native canoes in order to land on the island. As soon as he was out of Sight, on his way over the reef to the shore, a volley of arrows was let fly at the English boat, wounding some of the sailors, and the Bishop’s chaplain, who subsequently died. Later on, the natives on shore were seen by those on the Bishop’s vessel to turn a canoe adrift, which was found to contain the dead body of the Bishop, rolled up in a mat. A small branch of cocoannt palm, with five knots in - it, was .stuck tp the mat, supposed to signify that the Bishop’s life had been taken in revenge for five lives of the natives who” had most likely been shot by kidnappers. There were five wounds on his body. After many years it was discovered that the unfortunate Bishop had been clubbed to death in a. hut, the assassins being later banished by the islanders. Bishop Selwyn (John) erected a cross to his memory at Nukaqu, in 1884.