'And we must consider the qualifications of one's native clergy in relation to the work that they have to do. They have not to teach theology to educated Christians, but to make known the elements of Gospel truth to ignorant heathen people. If they can state clearly and forcibly the very primary leading fundamental truths of the Gospel, and live as simple-minded humble Christians, that is enough indeed.
'Perhaps this is as likely to make the Bishop understand my notions on the subject as any more detailed account of the course of instruction. I really have not time to copy out some ten or twelve pages of some older lad's note-book. I think you would be satisfied with their work. I don't mean, of course, the mere writing, which is almost always excellent, but there is a ready apprehension of the meaning of any point clearly put before them, which is very satisfactory. I am now thinking of the twenty or thirty best among our 145 scholars. This is a confused, almost unintelligible scrawl; but I am busy, and not very fresh for work.
'Yours very truly,
'J. C. PATTESON.'
A letter to Bishop Abraham was in hand at the same time, full of replies to the information in one newly received from this much valued friend. After deploring an attack of illness from which Mrs. Abraham had been suffering, comes the remark—
'You know what one always feels, that one can't be unhappy about good people, whatever happens to them. I do so enjoy your talk about Church works in England. It makes the modern phraseology intelligible. I know now what is meant by "missions" and "missioners" and "retreats."
'I was thinking lately of George Herbert at Hereford, as I read the four sermons which Vaughan lately preached there, one on the Atonement, which I liked very much indeed. The Cathedral has been beautifully restored, has it not? Then, I think of you in York Minster on November 20, with that good text from Psalm xcvi. I read your letter on Tuesday; on which day our morning Psalms in Chapel are always chanted, xcv., xcvi., xcvii. The application seems very natural, but to work out those applications is difficult. The more I read sermons, and I read a good many, the more I wonder how men can write them!
'Mind, I will gladly pay Charley ten shillings a sermon, if he will copy it out for me. It will do the boy good. Dear old Tutor used to fag me to write copies of the Bishop's long New Zealand letters, as I wrote a decent hand then. Don't I remember a long one from Anaiteum, and how I wondered where on earth or sea Anaiteum could be!
'I want to hear men talk on these matters (the Eucharistic question) who represent the view that is least familiar to me. And then I feel, when it comes to a point of Greek criticism, sad regret and almost remorse at my old idleness and foolish waste of time when I might have made myself a decent scholar. I cram up passages, instead of applying a scholarly habit of mind to the examination of them. And now too, it is harder than ever to correct bad habits of inattention, inaccuracy, &c. I am almost too weary oftentimes to do my work anyhow, much less can I make an effort to improve my way of doing it. But I must be content, thankful to get on somehow or other, and to be able to teach the fellows something.
'It is quite curious to see how often one is baffled in one's attempts to put oneself en rapport with the Melanesian mind. If one can manage it, they really show one that they know a good deal, not merely by heart, or as matter of memory, that is worth little; but they show that they can think. But often they seem utterly stupid and lost, and one is perplexed to know what their difficulty can possibly be. One thing is clear, that they have little faculty of generalization. As you know, they seldom have a name for their island, but only names for each tiny headland, and bay, and village. The name for the island you must learn from the inhabitants of another island who view the one whose name you are seeking as one because, being distant, it must appear to them in its oneness, not in its many various parts. Just so, they find it very difficult to classify any ideas under general heads. Ask for details, and you get a whole list of them. Ask for general principles, and only a few can answer.