WESLEYAN CHURCH.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 29, 9 November 1871, Page 3

WESLEYAN CHURCH.

SERMON ON THE DEATH OF BISHOP PATTESON. Last evening, instead of the usual Wednesday evening lecture, the Rev. J. Buller preached an excellent and most impressive sermon upon the melancholy death of the Missionary Bishop Pattcson and two of his co-workers, the facts of which will he familiar to our readers. Mr. Buller took his text from the 34th verse of the 22nd chapter of St, Luke’s Gospel—“ Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The tragic death of the Bishop, said the preacher, must he regarded as a public calamity, carrying grief to many homes and Churches. The Bishop and his co-workers were not connected with the Methodist Church, and probably would have deemed it no honour to have been so, hut they were fellow-workers in the cause of Christ, and members of his universal Church, and would that all would recognise more than they do this substantial unity. The cause in which these missionary martyrs fell was the cause of Christ, and their martyrdom was a common sorrow in which it was well to weep with those that weep. Bishop Patteson was a man of no common order. Endowed with rare talents and considerable fortune, he dedicated all to the service of the Saviour, and like a true soldier of Christ, died at his post. Mr. Atkin, who perished with him, was a son of the soil of New Zealand, and a man of great promise, and it was one of the inscrutible mysteries of Providence that they should die just as their work was bearing fruit. Bishop Patteson,it appeared felt some forebodings that such an event might occur, in consequence of the nefarious traffic in human flesh which had been carried on in the Polynesian Islands by wicked men for the sake of gain, which had irritated the minds of the heathens, who were not qualified to judge very well perhaps of the guilt or innonocence of those whom they murdered. Those who knew the love and Christian spirit of the Bishop could well imagine him sayiug as the weapons of death were

pointed at him. “ Father forgive them, for they know what they do.” In death as in life the spirit of compassion would. bo breathed by him. The duty of forgiveness was dwelt upon throughout the New Testament, hut this must not he confounded with a spirit of too great ineekness, or with abstaining front justice, although we may criminal, yet he ought not to escape punishment, and that there should be different degrees of punishment was illustrated by it being said that one should be beaten with ninny stripes and another with few stripes, and to whom much is given, of him much will be required. On the hands of those men who were engaged in the nefarious traffic of carrying away in bondage innocent men and women from the islands for the purpose of gain, rested the blood of Bishop Patteson and his fellow martyrs. As the Jews knew not the infinite love and mercy of the Saviour whom they crucified, neilher did these heathens know the love which the Bishop and his fellow missionaries bore to them; but they died in the midst of the great and glorious work in which they were engaged, and their voices being dead yet speak to us, urging us to carry on the noble enterprise in which they were engaged of spreading the great truths of the Gospel throughout the world. At the close of the sermon, which was listened to throughout with the most marked attention by a large, although not crowded, congregation, Mr. Buller announced that on Wednesday evening next the Rev. Mr. Williams will deliver a lecture on “ Martin Luther, the Hero of the Reformation.”