The Story of John G. Paton; Or, Thirty Years Among South Sea CannibalsPaton, John Gibson
Religion
The Story of John G. Paton; Or, Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals
Paton, John Gibson
Missions -- Vanuatu; Paton, John Gibson, 1824-1907
I knew then, when too late, that our work had been entered on too near
the beginning of the rainy season. We were both, however, healthy and
hearty; and I daily pushed on with the house, making things hourly more
comfortable, in the hope that long lives were before us both, to be
spent for Jesus in seeking the salvation of the perishing Heathen. In
our mutual inexperience, and with our hearts aglow for the work of our
lives, we incurred this risk which should never have been incurred; and
I only refer to the matter thus, in the hope that others may take
warning.
Stunned by that dreadful loss, in entering upon this field of labor to
which the Lord had Himself so evidently led me, my reason seemed for a
time almost to give way. Ague and fever, too, laid a depressing and
weakening hand upon me, continuously recurring, and reaching oftentimes
the very height of its worst burning stages. But I was never altogether
forsaken. The ever-merciful Lord sustained me, to lay the precious dust
of my beloved Ones in the same quiet grave, dug for them close by at the
end of the house; in all of which last offices my own hands, despite
breaking heart, had to take the principal share! I built the grave round
and round with coral blocks, and covered the top with beautiful white
coral, broken small as gravel; and that spot became my sacred and
much-frequented shrine, during all the following months and years when I
labored on for the salvation of these savage Islanders amidst
difficulties, dangers, and deaths. Whensoever Tanna turns to the Lord,
and is won for Christ, men in after-days will find the memory of that
spot still green,--where with ceaseless prayers and tears I claimed that
land for God in which I had "buried my dead" with faith and hope. But
for Jesus, and the fellowship He vouchsafed me there, I must have gone
mad and died beside that lonely grave!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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