Mutiny of the Bounty and story of Pitcairn Island, 1790-1894

by Rosalind Amelia Young

POINT LOOKOUT.

The last mentioned family was amongst the first that had decided upon returning, and had taken the first steps in preparing to return; but the fact that the passage fare by the first vessel was not paid out of his own money had enough weight with Simon Young to decide his waiting until he was able to defray the expense of the passage for both himself and family.

Having had some little experience in teaching children in the week-day school, besides being for years a Sunday school teacher, he was greatly concerned also about the welfare of the young people that had preceded him to the old home, and the thought of their need, as well as his own deep-seated love of home, seemed to urge him to take the present step. In vain did relatives and friends place before the parents the question of the future welfare of their children; their decision was made, the passage already engaged, and the thought of again withdrawing was not to be allowed.

Nor were their relatives alone opposed to their going. In a letter sent to the wife of Simon Young Mrs. Selwyn expressed, not her opinion only, but the opinions of both Bishop Selwyn and Bishop Patteson as well, in regard to the ministration of the word of God, and the ordinances attending thereon. Speaking of the “important news” that reached them in New Zealand, she says: “I will not conceal that it has made me very, very sorry. I never, like all the rest of us, had but one opinion about the return to Pitcairn’s Island, and you know full well what that opinion is; and I am more concerned than I can say to find that your family are to be foremost in the next departure. To both the bishops and to myself does it seem a very serious responsibility for anyone voluntarily to put himself and his family out of the reach of all the means of grace appointed by our Lord himself as necessary to us. It is a very different matter if he find himself bereft of them through no fault or design of his own, as you all were in the old days of Pitcairn.”

Writing on the same subject, Bishop Patteson thus expresses himself in a letter to Simon Young: “I fear that you do not feel the real importance of this point on which I so greatly insist,” i. e., “the most essential thing of all—the authorized ministration of the word and sacraments.” “You may or may not think that the ministrations of Bishop Selwyn, or me, or Mr. Nobbs, are edifying—that is not to the point. It is Christ himself, who by the hands of His ministers, regularly appointed, gives to His own people His own blessings. If you willfully, and by your own act, deprive yourself and family of this blessing, how shall you receive the blessing? Christ gives it in His own appointed way; what right have you or anyone to neglect His way, and yet think to receive the blessing?

“And if you are not doing right in going away from such privileges, you may be sure that you will not be doing good to others. You will be encouraging them in a course that is not right. You ought to be using whatever influence you have to keep others from going from the blessings which you have at Norfolk Island, and will not have at Pitcairn Island.

“And with reference to what you say about the ‘path marked out by God.’ My dear friend, often-times a man makes up his mind really on some point, though he is hardly willing to allow to himself that he has done so; and then, with a design already settled in his mind—seeks for advice and direction.... Now if you have any doubt about the course you propose to follow, and you must have doubts, you must see that it cannot be right to leave the blessings I have spoken of—you cannot make what is wrong appear right by any other process than one of self-deception.

“Your object is to do those who have gone some good. But if God’s blessing go not with you, you cannot and will not do them good; and if it be wrong to go, it is wrong to encourage others to go. Why are you ‘sorry that they went’? Not only because they have left their friends, but you are, I hope, sorry because they are living on apart from the regular ministrations of the church. But you cannot supply that want; you add only to the number of those who are in want. You disapprove their conduct, and yet follow it. But you think you go to help them. No, my friend, by doing what is at least doubtful, if not wrong, you are very far from helping them. You injure yourself and your family, and you encourage those that are gone to think lightly of the error they have committed.