'Your loving Brother,
'J. C. PATTESON.'
The birthday letter of February 11 is a happy one, though chiefly taken up with the business matters respecting the money required for the Mission, of which Sir John was one trustee. Life was pleasant then, for Patteson says:-
'I do feel sometimes that the living alone has its temptations, and those great ones; I mean that I can arrange everything-my work, my hours, my whole life-after my own pleasure a great deal more than probably is good for me; and it is very easy to become, in a manner, very self-indulgent. I think that most likely, as our work (D.V.) progresses, one or two men may be living with me, and that will supply a check upon me of some kind. At present I am too much without it. Here I am in my cosy little room, after my delicious breakfast of perfect coffee, made in Jem's contrivance, hot milk and plenty of it, dry toast and potato. Missionary hardships! On the grass between me and the beach-a distance of some seventy yards-lie the boys' canvas beds and blankets and rugs, having a good airing. The schooner lies at anchor beyond; and, three or four miles beyond the schooner, lies Eangitoto, the great natural breakwater to the harbour. With my Dollond's opera-glass that you gave me, I can see the master and mate at their work refitting. Everything is under my eye. Our long boat and whale boat (so-called from their shapes) lie on the beach, covered with old sails to protect them from the sun. The lads are washing clothes, or scrubbing their rooms, and all the rooms-kitchen, hall, store-room, and school-room. There is a good south-western breeze stirring-our cold wind; but it is shut off here, and scarcely reaches us, and the sun has great power.
'I have the jolliest little fellows this time-about seven of them- fellows scarcely too big to take on my knee, and talk to about God, and Heaven, and Jesus Christ; and I feel almost as if I had a kind of instinct of love towards them, as they look up wonderingly with their deep deep eyes, and smooth and glossy skins, and warm soft cheeks, and ask their simple questions. I wish you could have seen the twenty Banks Islanders as I told them that most excellent of all tales-the story of Joseph. How their eyes glistened! and they pushed out their heads to hear the sequel of his making himself known to his brethren, and asking once more about "the old man of whom ye spake, is he yet alive?"
'I can never read it with a steady voice, nor tell it either.'
Sir John had thus replied to the tirade against English conventional luxury:-
'The conventional notions in this old country are not always suited to your country, and I quite agree that even here they are carried too far. Yet there are other people than the needy whose souls are entrusted to the clergy here, and in order to fulfil that trust they must mix on some degree of equality with the gentry, and with the middle classes who are well-to-do. Then again, consider both as to clergy and laity here. If they were all to lower themselves a peg or two, and give up many not only luxuries, but comforts, numbers of tradesmen, and others working under them, aye, even merchants, manufacturers, and commercial men of all sorts, would be to some extent thrown out of employ. The artificial and even luxurious state of society here does really prevent many persons from falling into the class of the needy. All this should be regulated in its due proportion. Every man ought so to limit his expenses as to have a good margin for charitable purposes of all sorts, but I cannot think that he is doing good by living himself like a pauper in order to assist paupers. If all men did so, labour of all kinds would be overstocked with hands, and more paupers created. True it is, that we all are too apt as means increase, some to set our hearts upon them, which is wickedness; some to indulge in over much luxury, which is wicked also; there should be moderation in all things. I believe that more money is given in private charities of various kinds in helping those who are struggling with small means, and yet not apparently in the class of the needy, than the world is aware of; and those who do the most are precisely those who are never heard of. But do not mistake me. I am no advocate for luxury and idle expenditure. Yet I think you carry your argument a little farther than is just. The impositions that are practised, or attempted to be practised, upon charitable people are beyond all conception.' The following is the answer:-
'April 23, 1860.
'My dearest Father,-Thank you for writing your views about luxuries, extravagant expenditure, and the like. I see at once the truth of what you say.
'What I really mean is something of this kind. A high degree of civilisation seems to generate (perhaps necessarily) a state of society wherein the natural desires of people to gratify their inclinations in all directions, conjoined with the power of paying highly for the gratification of such inclinations, tends to call forth the ingenuity of the working class in meeting such inclinations in all agreeable ways. So springs up a complicated mechanism, by which a habit of life altogether unnecessary for health and security of life and property is introduced and becomes naturalised among a people.
If this is the necessary consequence of the distinction between rich and poor, and the course of civilisation must result in luxury and poverty among the two classes respectively (and this seems to be so), it is, of course, still more evident that the state of society being once established gradually, through a long course of years, no change can subsequently be introduced excepting in one way. It is still in the power of individuals to act upon the community by their example- e.g., the early Christians, though only for a short time, showed the result of the practical acceptance of the Lord's teaching in its effect upon society. Rich and poor, comparatively speaking, met each other half way. The rich man sold his possessions, and equal distribution was made to the poor.
'All that I contend for is that, seeing the fearful deterioration, and no less fearful extravagance, of a civilised country, the evil is one which calls loudly for careful investigation. Thousands of artisans and labourers who contribute nothing to the substantial wealth of the country, and nothing towards the production of its means of subsistence, would be thrown out of employment, and therefore that plan would be wrong. Jewellers, all kinds of fellows who simply manufacture vanities, are just as honest and good men as others, and it is not their fault, but the fault (if it be one at all) of civilisation that they exist. But I don't see why, the evil being recognised, some comprehensive scheme of colonisation might not be adopted by the rulers of a Christian land, to empty our poor-houses, and draft off the surplus population, giving to the utterly destitute the prospect of health, and renewed hopes of success in another thinly-inhabited country, and securing for those who remain behind a more liberal remuneration for their work by the comparative absence of competition.
'I hardly know what to write to you, my dear Father, about this new symptom of illness. I suppose, from what you say, that at your time of life the disease being so mild in its form now, will hardly prove dangerous to you, especially as you submit at once to a strictness of diet which must be pretty hard to follow out-just the habit of a whole life to be given up; and I know that to forego anything that I like, in matters of eating and drinking, wants an effort that I feel ashamed of being obliged to make. I don't, therefore, make myself unnecessarily anxious, though I can't help feeling that such a discipline must be hard. You say that in other respects you are much the same; but that means that you are in almost constant pain, and that you cannot obtain entire relief from it, except in bed.