John G. Paton, missionary to the New Hebrides, volume 3 (of 3) : $b An autobiography edited by his brotherPaton, John Gibson
Religion
John G. Paton, missionary to the New Hebrides, volume 3 (of 3) : $b An autobiography edited by his brother
Paton, John Gibson
Missionaries -- Vanuatu -- Biography; Paton, John Gibson, 1824-1907
The Congregations, on week days not less than on Sabbaths, filled the
largest Public Halls and Churches in each locality; with frequent
overflow Meetings at which I had to speak for fifteen minutes or so, and
then leave them in the hands of others, whilst I drove or ran to the
principal Meeting, now opened and awaiting my Address. During the two
years of my Tour, I addressed very nearly 1400 audiences, ranging from a
few hundreds to five and six thousand each, and in doing so I travelled
over many thousands of miles, on foot and in every kind of conveyance
that is used in the English-speaking world.
The Chairmen at my various Meetings represented every type of Christian
worker, and all social grades, from the godly Tradesman, evangelizing in
his quiet Mission Hall, up through Ministers and Mayors, Provosts and
Members of Parliament, Bishops and Archbishops, to Lords and Dukes and
other Peers of the Realm. Under this rush of the Missionary Spirit, many
conventional barriers were broken down, so that I was, even on Sunday,
invited to give my Address from the very Pulpit in Episcopal Churches,
as for example in the Pro-Cathedral at Manchester. On week days, this
was a not infrequent experience.
These things, and all my opportunities of usefulness, thus unexpectedly
thrust upon me, at the close of a long life of toil and self-denial and
sacrifice for Jesus, I devoutly laid at His feet, and implored Him to
use me only for His glory. And I can truly say that I never felt more
deeply humbled, all my days, than at the close of some of those almost
unparalleled Missionary Meetings, when I was alone with my Saviour after
all was over, and thinking of my lowly Home and all the way by which the
God of my father had led me, from these hours of hardship to this day of
triumph. Fame and influence laid me lower and lower yet, at the feet of
Jesus, to whose grace alone everything was due.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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