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
Never for one moment have I had occasion to regret the step then taken.
The Lord has so used me, during the five-and-twenty years that have
passed over me since my farewell to Tanna, as to stamp the event with
His own most gracious approval. Oh, to see a Missionary, and Christian
Teachers, planted on every island of the New Hebrides! For this I
labour, and wait, and pray. To help on the fulfilment thereof is the
sacred work of my life, under God. When I see it accomplished, or in a
fair way of being so, through the organization that will provide the
money and call forth the men, I can lay down my head as peacefully and
gratefully as ever warrior did, with the shout of victory in his
ears,—“Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace!”
* * * * *
For the present, my pen is here laid aside. I shall wait to see what use
the Lord makes of Part First of my autobiography, before I prosecute the
theme. If the Christian public seems not to find in it the help and
quickening that some friends think it likely to bestow on those who
read, the remainder need not be written. Part Second, if called for,
will contain a record, in many respects, an utter contrast to all that
has gone before, and yet directly springing therefrom, as will be seen
by all who look beneath the surface. I am penning these words in 1887,
and five-and-twenty years lie betwixt this date and my farewell to
Tanna. These years, if ever published, will tell the story of my
visiting all the Colonial Churches, and collecting the purchase money of
our white-winged Mission Ship, the _Dayspring_; my return to Scotland,
visiting all the home congregations in 1864, and securing several new
Missionaries to follow me to the New Hebrides; my second marriage, and
settlement on Aniwa, with her whom the good Lord still spares to me, the
mother of our happy family, and my God-given helpmeet in all the work of
the Gospel; the conversion of that whole island of Aniwa from idolatry,
and the planting there of a Church and Congregation of Christ, from
which have since gone forth many Native Evangelists and Teachers. Then
there will fall to be recorded my call from the Islands in recent years
to revisit all the Colonial Presbyterian Congregations once again,
telling them the story of the Conversion of Aniwa—the sinking of the
well, and other incidents, which turned an entire people from idols and
from cannibalism to the service of the living and true God—whereby the
Churches, and especially the children, were led more and more to make
the New Hebrides their own very harvest field in the Heathen world. And
finally, I will have to tell how I was again sent home to Scotland in
1884 to raise money for the purchase or building of a steam-auxiliary
Mission Ship, now urgently required in the interests of the Mission,
both because of the great increase in the number of the Missionaries and
the necessities of so many families; and also and chiefly to avert the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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