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When at Norfolk Island one

books of the Old Testament. Christmas Day, he was awoke by a party of some twenty Melanesians, headed by Mr. Bice, singing Christmas carols at his bedroom door. "How delightful it was !" says he; "I had gone to bed with the Book of Praise by my side, and Mr. Keble's hymn in my mind; and now the Mota versions, already familiar to us, of the Angels' song, and of 'the Light to lighten the Gentiles,' sung too by one of our heathen scholars, took up, as it were, the strain. Their voices sounded so fresh and clear in the still midnight, the perfectly clear sky, the calm moon, and the warm genial climate. I lay awake long afterwards, thinking of the blessed change wrought on their minds, thinking of my happy happy lot, of how utterly undeserved it was and is, and losing myself in God's wonderful goodness, and mercy, and love."

We must hasten on to his last voyage to the Santa Cruz archipelago. The kidnapping vessels from Queensland were haunting the islands for the purpose of forcibly taking away the natives to work at their plantations. Some of the islands were nearly depopulated. Five men had been taken from Nukapa by the Queensland men. As the Bishop's vessel approached the island, they saw four canoes hovering about the coral reef. The Bishop, feeling a regard for these poor people, ordered the boat to be lowered. He entered it with four other men. On approaching the canoes, the Bishop entered one of them, in which there were two chiefs, who had formerly been friendly to him. The canoe made for the shore, on which the men in the ship's boat saw the Bishop landed, and then lost sight of him.

The boat remained with the other canoes. A native suddenly started up from a canoe, and shot off one of his

CHAP. XII.

Death of the Bishop.

yard-long arrows at the men in the boat.

351

Others did the

same. The boat was pulled back rapidly, until it was out of range; but not before three out of the four men had been struck. But what had become of the Bishop? He had been murdered on shore. Two canoes were observed approaching; one full of natives, the other apparently empty. The natives went back in their canoe, the other, with a heap in the middle, drifted onwards. The boat from the ship met it, and the sailor, looking at the canoe, said, "Those are the Bishop's shoes." The canoe was brought alongside, and the body was taken up, rolled in a native mat. When the mat was taken away, there was the Bishop, with the placid smile upon his face. There was a palm-leaf fastened over the breast, and when the mat was opened, there were five wounds, and no more.

"The strange mysterious beauty," says Miss Yonge, "of these circumstances, almost makes one feel as if this were the legend of a martyr of the Primitive Church." There were none of those who loved and revered him, who did not feel that such was the death he always looked for, and that he was always willing to give his life for doing his duty. It was certain that he was killed from revenge. Five men had been stolen from Nukapa by the wretched Queensland freebooters; and this was the result!

The sweet calm smile of the Bishop's face preached peace to the mourners who lost his guiding spirit, but they could not look on it long. On the next morning, the body of John Coleridge Patteson was committed to the waters of the Pacific. He went to his rest, dying, as he had lived, in his Master's service. His end was peace.

Not many years after, in 1875, the island of Santa Cruz was visited by Commodore Goodenough, of Her Majesty's ship Pearl. He was anxious to see the scene of the

Bishop's death; though he was warned against doing so, on account of the treacherous character of the natives. Nevertheless he landed on the island. The people appeared at first to be friendly. He landed again, but their behaviour appeared so suspicious, that he ordered his men at once to the boats.

In a letter-the last he ever wrote-he describes the scene. "I saw a native to the left fitting an arrow to a string, and in an instant, just as I was thinking it must be a sham menace, thud came the arrow into my left side. I shouted, 'To the boats!' pulled the arrow out, and leaped down the beach, hearing a flight of arrows whiz past me. On reaching the boats the surgeon came at once and dressed the wound, burning it well with caustic." Five days after, he adds, "I am exceedingly well; my only trouble is a pain in my back, which prevents me sleeping. I don't feelHere the words cease. He could not end the letter.

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He was seized with tetanus, and all hopes of his living were relinquished. He received the intelligence of his dangerous state with the perfect calm of a man whose whole life had been one long preparation for death. He caused himself to be carried on deck, and while his men gathered around him in speechless grief, he spoke to them lovingly and tenderly, and besought them to follow in his footsteps. He passed away to his rest peacefully and quietly, and his body was committed to the deep. Thus perished a man whom England could but ill spare. He was a noble specimen of a true sailor and a Christian gentleman.

We have not space to mention the heroic deeds of other Christian missionaries of the Jesuits in Japan, China, and North and South America; of the Moravians in Greenland, the United States, and Africa; of John Elliot, the first missionary among the American Indians, and of David

CHAP. XII.

Jonathan Edwards.

353

Brainerd, and Jonathan Edwards,* who followed him; of Martyn, Heber, Carey, and Marshman, in India; of the Judson family in Burmah; of Charles Frederick Mackenzie, the martyr-missionary of the Zambesi; and of Samuel Marsden, the patriarch of Australian Christianity.†

All honour to you, noble Christian heroes, known and unknown; to all who give their time and their labour to spread abroad the knowledge of that which alleviates, comforts, and saves; to those who give their lives for the faith; and to all who help the poor, the struggling, and the uncivilised, to reach to higher blessings than those of this very transitory life!

* When President Edwards was driven from his church at Northampton, Connecticut, because of his attempt to reform the morals of his congregation, he went on a mission to the Indians at Stockbridge, to preach to them the gospel. He remained among them for six years, greatly helped by his wife; and during that time he composed his profoundest and most valuable works. The reason of his dismission was as follows:-Some young persons of his flock had procured some obscene publications, and propagated them for the infection of others. Edwards called the leading members of his charge together, and told them of these doings. He mentioned the names of the persons who were implicated. It appeared that almost all the families in the town had some relation or other concerned in the matter. The heads of the congregation set their pastor at defiance with the greatest insolence and contempt; and he was eventually dismissed by a majority of two hundred against twenty. Such was the cause of his missionary life among the Indians. An admirable account of these missionaries is to be found in Miss Yonge's Pioneers and Founders.

CHAPTER XIII.

KINDNESS TO ANIMALS.

He who feels contempt

For any living thing, hath faculties
Which he has never used.-WORDSWORTH.

The wanton troopers riding by,

Have shot my fawn, and it will dye.

Ungentle men! they cannot thrive,

Who killed thee. Thou ne'er didst alive

Them any harm: alas! nor could

Thy death yet do them any good.—MARVELL.

There is in every animal's eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them, and claiming the fellowship of the creature, if not of the soul.-RUSKIN.

WHA

́HAT an enormous amount of cruelty is perpetrated upon dumb animals,-upon birds, upon beasts, upon horses, upon all that lives. The Roman gladiators have passed away, but the Spanish bull-fights remain. As the Roman ladies delighted to see the gladiators bleed and die in the public amphitheatre, so the Spanish ladies clap their hands in exultation at spectacles from which English warriors sicken and turn away. "It must be owned," said Caballero, "and we own it with sorrow, that in Spain there is very little compassion shown to animals among the men and women; and among the lower classes, there is none at all."

But we are not clean-handed. Not long ago, bullbaiting was one of our public sports; cock-fighting and badger-drawing were common until our own time. The

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