MARTYRED MISSIONARY

Taranaki Daily News, 22 September 1931, Page 5

MARTYRED MISSIONARY

DEATH OF BISHOP PATTESON. SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY. Sunday was the sixtieth anniversary of the murder of Bishop John Coleridge Patteson and two of his companions by savage natives in the island of Nukapu in tho Santa Cruz group. He fell a victim to the revenge of the natives for the cruelties and treachery practised upon them by white slave traders, who at times would adopt the guise of missionaries to further their designs. Bishop Patteson’s body was found at sea floating in a canoe covered with palm fibre matting and with a palm branch in. hi, hand. It was thought that the five wounds in his body were made to signify that his life had been taken in retaliation for the murder of five natives by Europeans. Bishop Patteson was born in 1827 and came out to New Zealand to join Bishop Selwyn in the very early days of tho colony. Ten years before his death he was appointed first Bishop of Melanesia, Among his many qualifications for hi» arduous work was an exceptional linguistic capacity, and it is recorded of him, that he spoke 23 languages with ease. His memory still lives fragrant In Auckland, and reference to the anniversary of his martyrdom was made in a number of Anglican churches on Sunday.