John G. Paton, missionary to the New Hebrides, volume 1 (of 3) : $b An autobiography edited by his brotherPaton, John Gibson
Religion
John G. Paton, missionary to the New Hebrides, volume 1 (of 3) : $b An autobiography edited by his brother
Paton, John Gibson
Missionaries -- Vanuatu -- Biography; Paton, John Gibson, 1824-1907
Having, as above recorded, consecrated our lives anew to God on the
first day of January, I was, up till the sixteenth of the month,
accompanied by Mr. Johnston and sometimes also by Mrs. Johnston on my
rounds in the villages amongst the sick, and they greatly helped me. But
by an unhappy accident, I was laid aside when most sorely needed. When
adzing a tree for house-building, I observed that Mahanan the war
Chief’s brother had been keeping too near me and that he carried a
tomahawk in his hand; and, in trying both to do my work and to keep an
eye on him, I struck my ankle severely with the adze. He moved off
quickly, saying,—“I did not do that,” but doubtless rejoicing at what
had happened. The bone was badly hurt, and several of the blood-vessels
cut. Dressing it as well as I could, and keeping it constantly soaked in
cold water, I had to exercise the greatest care. In this condition
amidst great sufferings, I was sometimes carried to the villages to
administer medicine to the sick, and to plead and pray with the dying.
On such occasions, in this mode of transit even, the conversations that
I had with dear Mr. Johnston were most solemn and greatly refreshing. He
had, however, scarcely ever slept since the first of January, and during
the night of the sixteenth he sent for my bottle of laudanum. Being
severely attacked with ague and fever, I could not go to him, but sent
the bottle, specifying the proper quantity for a dose, but that he quite
understood already. He took a dose for himself, and gave one also to his
wife, as she too suffered from sleeplessness. This he repeated three
nights in succession, and both of them obtained a long, sound, and
refreshing sleep. He came to my bedside, where I lay in the ague-fever,
and said with great animation, amongst other things,—
“I have had such a blessed sleep, and feel so refreshed! What kindness
in God to provide such remedies for suffering man!”
At mid-day his dear wife came to me crying,—
“Mr. Johnston has fallen asleep, so deep that I cannot awake him.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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