Almost the first experience after settling in at St. John's College was a sharp attack of fever that fell on Kerearua, one of the Bauro lads. Such illnesses, it seemed, were frequent at home and generally fatal. His companion Hirika remarked, 'Kerearua like this in Bauro ah! in a few days he would die; by-and-by we go back to Bauro.' The sick boys were always lodged in Coley's own room to be more quiet and thoroughly nursed. Fastidiousness had been so entirely crushed that he really seemed to take pleasure in the arrangement, speaking with enthusiasm of the patient's obedience and gratitude, and adding, 'He looks quite nice in one of my night-shirts with my plaid counterpane, and the plaid Joan gave me over it, a blanket next to him.'
The Melanesians readily fell into the regular habits of short school, work out of doors, meals in hall and bed-time, and they were allowed a good deal of the free use of their limbs, needful to keep them happy and healthy. Now and then they would be taken into Auckland, as a great treat, to see the soldiers on parade, and of course the mere living with civilization was an immense education to them, besides the direct instruction they received.
The languages of Nengone and Bauro were becoming sufficiently familiar to Mr. Patteson to enable him to understand much of what they said to him. He writes to Miss Neill (October 17):—
'I talk with them about common things, and learn a great deal of their wild savage customs and habits, but I can do but little as yet in the way of real instruction. Some ideas, I trust, they are beginning to acquire concerning our Blessed Lord. Is it not a significant fact that the god worshiped in Gfera, and in one village of Bauro, is the Serpent, the very type of evil? I need not say that these dear boys have won their way to my heart, they are most docile and affectionate. I think some will really, if they live, leave their own island and live with me at Norfolk Island, or here, or wherever my dwelling may be whenever I am not in the "Southern Cross."
'But of course I must not dwell on such notions. If it come to pass that for some years I can retain a hold upon them, they may be instructed sufficiently to make them teachers in their turn to their own people. But all this is in the hands of God. My home journal will tell you particulars of our voyage. Don't believe in the ferocity, &c., of the islanders. When their passions are excited, they do commit fearful deeds, and they are almost universally cannibals, i.e. after a battle there will be always a cannibal feast, not otherwise. But treat them well and prudently, and I apprehend that there is little danger in visiting them, meaning by visiting merely landing on the beach the first time, going perhaps to a native village the next time, sleeping on shore the third, spending ten days the fourth, &c., &c. The language once learnt from the pupils we bring away, all is clear. And now good-bye, my dear Miss Neill. That I think of you and pray for you, you know, and I need not add that I value most highly your prayers for me. When I think of my happiness and good spirits, I must attribute much, very much, to God's goodness in accepting the prayers of my friends.'
After the old custom of telling the home party all his doings, the journal-letter of the 27th of November goes through the teaching to the Bauro boys:—
'I really think they comprehend thus much, that God, who made all things, made man, Adam and Eve, very good and holy; that Adam and Eve sinned, that they did not listen to the word of God, but to the Bad Spirit; that God found them out, though they were afraid and tried to hide (for He sees and knows all things); that He drove them out of the beautiful garden, and said that they must die; that they had two sons, Cain and Abel; that Cain killed his brother, and that all fighting and killing people, and all other sins (I mention all for which I have names) came into the world because of sin; that God and man were far apart, not living near, no peace between them because men were so evil. That God was so good that He loved men all the time, and that He promised to save all men who would believe in His Son Jesus Christ, who was to die for them (for I can't yet express, "was to die that men might not go down to the fire, but live for ever with God "); that by and by He sent a flood and drowned all men except Noah and seven other people, because men would not be good; that afterwards there was a very good man, named Abraham, who believed all about Jesus Christ, and God chose him, and his son Isaac, and his son Jacob, and his twelve sons, to be the fathers of a people called Jews; that those people alone knew about God, and had teachers and praying men: and that they killed lambs and offered them (gave them to God as a sign of Jesus Christ being one day slain and offered to God on a cross) but these very men became wicked too, and at last, when no man knew how to be happy and good, Jesus Christ came down from heaven. His mother was Mary, but He had no father on earth, only God the Father in heaven was His Father: the Holy Ghost made Mary to be mother of Jesus Christ.
'Then I take two books, or anything else, and say, This one is God, and this is man. They are far apart, because man is so bad and God is so good. But Jesus Christ came in the middle between them, and joins them together. He is God and He is Man too; so in(side) Him, God and Man meet, like the meeting of two men in one path; and He says Himself He is the true Way, the only true Path to God and heaven. God was angry with us because we sinned; but Jesus Christ died on the cross, and then God the Father forgave us because Jesus Christ gave His life that we might always live, and not die. By and by He will come to judge us; and He knows what we do, whether we steal and lie, or whether we pray and teach what is good. Men of Bauro and Gera and Santa Cruz don't know that yet, but you do, and you must remember, if you go on doing as they do after you know God's will, you will be sent down to the fire, and not see Jesus Christ, who died that you might live.
'I think that they know all this, and much in the exactly equivalent words. Of course I find difficulty in rendering religious ideas in a language which contains scarcely any words adequate to express them, but I am hopeful enough to believe that they do know so much at all events. How far their hearts are affected, One alone knows. It is indeed but little after they have been with us four months; but till I had them on shore, I could get very little work done. The constant boat work took me away, and anywhere in sight of islands, of course they were on deck in eagerness to see the strange country. Then I could not work with energy while my leg would not let me take exercise. But it is now beginning to be a real pleasure as well as duty to teach both Nengone and Bauro people. Enough of the language to avoid most of the drudgery has been got over, I hope, though not near enough for purposes of 'exact and accurate translation.'
I have given at length this account of Patteson's fundamental teaching, though to some it may seem to savour of the infant school, because in spite of being hampered by imperfect knowledge of the language, he has thrown into it the great principle both of his action and teaching; namely, the restoration of the union of mankind with God through Christ. It never embraced that view of the heathen world which regards it as necessarily under God's displeasure, apart from actual evil, committed in wilful knowledge that it is evil. He held fast to the fact of man having been created in the image of God, and held that whatever good impulses and higher qualities still remained in the heathen, were the remnants of that Image, and to be hailed accordingly. Above all, he realised in his whole life the words to St. Peter: 'What God hath cleansed that call not thou common,' and not undervaluing for a moment Sacramental Grace, viewed human nature, while yet without the offer thereof, as still the object of fatherly and redeeming love, and full of fitful tokens of good coming from the only Giver of life and holiness, and needing to be brought nearer and strengthened by full union and light, instead of being left to be quenched in the surrounding flood of evil. 'And were by nature the children of wrath,' he did not hold to mean that men were objects of God's anger, lying under His deadly displeasure; but rather, children of wild impulse, creatures of passion, swayed resistlessly by their own desires, until made 'children of grace,' and thus obtaining the spiritual power needful to enable them to withstand these passions. An extract from the sermon he had preached at Sydney may perhaps best serve to illustrate his principle:—