NORFOLK ISLAND by Elder A. J. Read

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 13, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 15.

NORFOLK ISLAND.

By Elder A. J. Read

Social Experiment—No. 3.

THE age in which we live is an age of experiments. This is true not only in the physical world, but also in the social world. To this fact alone a large part of the achievement of this century is perhaps due. Some of the grandest achievements have only been made possible by massing the working forces in one place, and there, where the best possible instruments, machinery, and skill were combined, the material was wrought, and the grandest possible results reached. It is the principle of concentration of labor and effort, bringing about the best results, and the best results leading to future successes, in contrast to the old principle of individual effort and short-lived success. Strange to say, most modern missions lean toward the old plan of individual effort, while they are very slow to see the advantages of concentration which have wrought such wonders in almost every other department. Perhaps the first to give this method a fair trial was the Melanesian Anglican Mission, whose headquarters are now at Norfolk Island.

The diocese of the first Anglican bishop of New Zealand, old Bishop Selwin, extended over 84 degrees of latitude and 20 degrees of longitude, and thus embraced New Zealand, then partly Christianized, and also the New Hebrides, Santa Cruz, Solomon Islands, and neighboring groups, inhabited by a race of cannibals fearfully dwarfed and degraded by long years of sin. Immediately after his consecration as bishop, in 1841, he began to plan for the accomplishment of Archbishop Howley's suggestion at that time, namely, that he should establish an island mission apart from New Zealand.

In 1847 he set sail in Her Majesty's ship Dido, on a tour of inspection. If he was interested before in these degraded people, his interest was only increased by visiting them and seeing their deplorable condition in their island homes. His plans began at once to

take definite shape for the uplifting of these benighted islanders.

He could readily see that to place a white missionary here would be expensive and also hazardous to human life; moreover, if that course were pursued it would not accomplish the desired end, for the natives would look upon their new visitor, if not in their treachery as a dainty morsel for a feast, at least in their indolence as a "heaven-born" wonder, whose good example was to be attributed to his high origin, but scarcely to be imitated by a native. And thus the feeble ray of light which one might shed would soon be swallowed up in heathen superstition and darkness that was worse than night. Evidently he must depart from the usual method of mission operations; and what established him more positively in this conclusion was the fact that the malarious climate was almost sure death to the white man who should attempt to dwell there throughout the year.

With these facts in mind the bishop fitted out his own schooner, the Undine, a little craft of twenty-one tons burden, and in 1849 started for the islands. Notwithstanding his craft was so small for a sea voyage, its very diminutiveness made it suitable for cruising in and out among the dangerous shoals; angels seemed to speed the little vessel on its way, and in ten days from the time she left New Zealand she reached Aneityum, in the New Hebrides, one thousand miles north of Auckland. Here he met with Captain (now Admiral) Erskine, of H. M. S. Havannah, in whose company he proposed to make his trial voyage with the object of taking a few young lads from each group (New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and Loyalty) to Auckland, and there, amid all the enlightening influences of civilization, give them a thorough course of instruction in elementary and biblical studies, which he thought would fit them to return and live among their own people, exerting almost untold influence for good.

Captain Erskine, being a practical man, at once became interested in this plan and agreed to accompany the bishop. With this valuable escort he again visited the islands; the bishop exhibited wonderful skill and tact in winning the wild natives, with beads, mirrors, and bits of hoop iron, and soon he had secured peaceably the young lads whom he wanted for the starting of his school.

In 1851 he made another successful trip, this time in the Border Maid, a schooner of one hundred and sixty tons.

In 1855 the enterprise was joined by John Coleridge Patterson, M. A., a gentleman of fine ability and talent, who came at his own charges.

Mr. Patterson gave himself wholly to the island work, and exhibited wonderful intrepidity and skill in dealing with the savages. He would approach a cannibal island, and when the sailors in the boat would quail at the sight of the wild men dancing in savage expectation on the beach and swimming eagerly toward the boat, Patterson, before anybody knew what he was doing, would pull off his coat, and, regardless of sharks or savages, plunge into the water, and with a handful of beads and bright trinkets swim toward the howling natives. His very bravery and presence among them would have almost a magic effect, and to the astonishment of the sailors as well as the natives themselves he would soon be peaceably on shore with the savages, who readily learned to love him, even though their heathen breasts were so little capable of that emotion.

Patterson was consecrated Bishop of Melanesia in 1861, and in 1867, finding that the climate of Auckland was proving fatal to the natives of the tropical climate, and thus to the enterprise, he removed the headquarters of the mission to Norfolk Island, and their society purchased for them a thousand acres of land at the northwest end of the island, where the native lads could be taught industrial pursuits, and especially agriculture. Here also provision would be less expensive than in Auckland, the climate mild and agreeable, and the influence of the hospitable Norfolk people, whom it will be remembered were originally the world-renowned Pitcairn islanders, would tend to aid the work.

Here, then, for the first time the experiment had a fair trial. As other missionaries joined the enterprise, it was found that they could labor among the islands from April to November, and, returning to Norfolk to avoid the heated term, teach in the school from December to March inclusive.

But it was not Bishop Patterson's plan to have the work in the islands carried on by the white missionaries; they were to serve as overseers, to visit the old students who had returned to the field and encourage them in their work, or, as the bishop himself expressed it, borrowing the figure from the native mode of fishing, "The white corks are to float the black net."

He labored extensively in the Banks Islands, New Hebrides, Solomon Islands, and Santa Cruz groups.

Though some of his graduates from the school proved untrue and returned to their former heathen customs, yet for the most part, upon their return to the islands, they lived among their people and exerted a powerful influence for good, teaching to hundreds what they alone had learned at the mission, and in many cases after laboring a few years, presenting themselves for an advanced course and bringing with them others who desired to attend the school.

Of course all these movements among the islands required the constant attendance of a mission vessel, and it was found necessary, owing to the uncertainty of the winds and the danger from hidden reefs and unknown currents, to have auxiliary steam power.

One great obstacle to the success of the missionaries was the work of the labor vessels among these groups. These vessels visit the islands and entice the natives away to work on plantations in other groups of the South Pacific, with promises of plenty of hatchets, guns, tobacco, and rum, and a safe return home in three or four years; sometimes these natives are used as well as could be expected, but more frequently they are put under a cruel taskmaster and made to do service little better than slavery.

Such visitors, the unfaithfulness on the part of the labor men, and the reports brought back by the natives of the treatment they had received, have proved a serious hindrance. It was after the visit of one of these agencies of Satan that good Bishop Patterson in attempting to land at Nakapu, in the Swallow group, was greeted with a shower of poisoned arrows from the natives on the shore, and himself and two other missionaries were fatally wounded. He was martyred September 20, 1871, in the cause he was so nobly serving, and it is stated by those who were with him that he died with a sweet smile on his face, entertaining only feelings of love for those who had so rudely and treacherously taken his life. We personally met, at Norfolk Island, and conversed with two individuals who were with him in the boat at the time, and who minutely described the touching scene from beginning to end. The bishop's remains were near the place of his martyrdom, adrift on a small float with two palm leaves crossed on his breast (a sign of peace), placed there by the savages, who had discovered their mistake in wreaking upon their benefactor the revenge intended for their enemies.

The feelings of his colaborers may perhaps be best expressed in the words of one of them:—

"And yet we dare not nourish hate Toward those who wrought with fatal power. He loved them, though so sad his fate, And sweetly smiled in death's dark hour.

"The shattered tenement of clay Erelong was sought by loving eyes; And thus they found him as he lay Unsheltered 'neath the burning skies. "No earthly ground contains his grave, No tomb confines the martyr's breast; Beneath the broad Pacific's wave They gently laid him down to rest."

Strangely enough there is now attending the school at Norfolk the son of the man whose hand sent the fatal arrow, and, as he expressed it when we were there, he can hardly understand why they are all so kind to him, when, according to the customs of his native island, he would expect to receive only their hatred and revenge.

After the death of Bishop Patterson, Dr. Codrington continued the work till 1877, when Rev. James R. Selwin, M. A., son of old Bishop Selwin, was consecrated bishop of Melanesia.

He possessed a large share of the paternal tact and ability, and from the time of his consecration he prosecuted the work successfully, till two years ago, when he was obliged to return to England for medical treatment. The work however still goes on, and at the time of our visit was in the charge of Revs. Chas. Bice and C. Comins. These gentlemen received us very kindly and invited us to spend a day at the mission, which we did, and were thus enabled to become familiar with the details and internal workings of the enterprise.

The buildings consist of a neat chapel built in memory of Bishop Patterson, elegantly ornamented outside and in, and furnished with a pipe organ (the only grand organ in the South Pacific save that recently procured by King George Tubou, of Tonga), a small, one-roomed building for a printing office, the old chapel building, which now makes a spacious school room and two recitation rooms, a long dining hall, where missionaries and students take their meals, eight or ten comfortable cottages for the missionaries and their families, and a number of small cottages for the native students and their young wives, whom they bring with them to the school.

The following simple program is observed, Saturdays and Sundays excepted: 6 A.M., rise; 7, chapel; 7:30, breakfast; 8 to 9:30, Bible history, arithmetic, and English language, on alternate days; 9:30 to 12:45, manual labor in the mission garden and about the mission premises; 1 P.M., dinner; 2-3, writing; 3-6, optional to the students for working in their own gardens, doing errands, supplying their families with food by fishing, etc.; 6, tea; 6:45, chapel; 7-8, session of school for Bible history and singing on alternate evenings; 9, retire and lights out.

The very regularity of habits thus taught the natives is itself beneficial, and in a measure clings to them after returning to their native islands.

The Melanesian Mission is now firmly established; it has a vast field before it, and with an annual income of over $32,500 it will probably continue its work year by year, till its present success in the few places where it has operated has reached many another obscure place, and may we not hope till its successful methods have become more generally known, and thus furnish an important factor for the success of modern missions.

Papeete, Tahiti. December, 9, 1892.