My cousin Rob Blackaby introduced me to this marvelous, mostly forgotten book. It is a challenging read for several reasons. First, it is written in an old-fashioned style from the mid-1880s. Second, it describes a great deal of suffering and anguish. It is difficult to read about how cruelly people can act toward each other. Finally, it portrays in stark detail what true surrender and commitment to Christ looks like, throwing into painful contrast the anemic Christianity so many Christians have embraced.
Paton sailed to the New Hebrides in 1858 to minister to cannibals. The cannibals were depraved in every sense of the word. They craved human flesh, even digging up recently buried corpses to devour. They routinely beat their wives. When a man died, his widows were strangled and buried with him. The people regularly lied and were untrustworthy. Even those considered friendly would usually act out of their own self-interest. Compounding the situation were the rampant and often lethal diseases. Paton’s wife and only child soon became ill, and Paton nearly succumbed to disease as well. To make matters worse, the native witch doctors blamed every hardship on the Christian missionaries and convinced the people that the missionaries must be killed. The various cannibal tribes often warred with each other, and when they did, the missionaries were pressured to takes sides. The English traders are not portrayed as good people either. They sold weapons and alcohol to natives in hopes that they would destroy themselves. At one point, a ship sent out four young men with measles to begin a lethal epidemic that would sweep across the islands. Reading about Paton and the constant dangers, heartache, and loss he faced challenges one’s own faith to the core.
One of the most powerful parts of the book is Paton’s description of his father, a godly layman. Born in a small cottage in Scotland, Paton’s house had three bedrooms for 11 children. He claims, “The ‘closet’ was a very small apartment betwixt the other two, having room only for a bed, little table, and a chair, with a diminutive window shedding diminutive light on the scene. This was the Sanctuary of that cottage home. Thither daily, and oftentimes a day, generally after each meal, we saw our father retire, and ‘shut the door’; and we children got to understand by a sort of spiritual instinct (for the thing was too sacred to be talked about) that prayers were being poured out there for us, as of old by the High Priest within the veil in the Most Holy Place. We occasionally heard the pathetic echoes of a trembling voice pleading as if for life, and we learned to slip out and in past that door on tiptoe, not to disturb the Holy Colloquy. The outside world might not know, but we knew, whence came that happy light on my father’s face: it was a reflection from the Divine Presence, in the consciousness of which he lived. Never, in temple or cathedral, on mountain or in glen, can I hope to feel that the Lord God is more near, more visibly walking and talking with men, than under that humble cottage roof of thatch and oaken wattles. Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, or blotted from my understanding, my soul would wander back to those early scenes, and shut itself up once again in that sanctuary closet, and, hearing still the echoes of those cries to God, would hurl back all doubt with a victorious appeal, ‘He walked with God, why may not I?’” (11). Regarding discipline, Paton recalls: “The very discipline through which our father passed us was a kind of religion in itself. If anything really serious required to be punished, he retired first to his closet for prayer, and we boys got to understand that he was laying the whole matter before God; and that was the severest part of the punishment to bear! . . . we loved him all the more, when we saw how much it cost him to punish us” (25).
Paton describes their morning and evening family devotions this way: “When on his knees and all of us kneeling around him in Family Worship, he poured out his whole soul with tears for the conversion of the heathen would to the service of Jesus, and for every personal and domestic need, we all felt as if in the presence of the living Saviour, and learned to know and love Him as our Divine Friend. As we rose from our knees, I used to look at the light on my father’s face, and wish I were like him in spirit . . .” (34). Paton’s father would urge his children, “O my children, love your heavenly Father, tell Him in faith and prayer all your needs, and He will supply your wants so far as it shall be for your good and His glory” (35). Paton recounts in touching detail the event of his leaving for college. His father walked with him for six miles and continually prayed for him. Before leaving, his father blessed him: “God bless you, my son! Your father’s God prosper you, and keep you from all evil!” (41). Of their parting, Paton writes this: “I watched through blinding tears, till his form faded from my gaze; and then, hastening on my way, vowed deeply and oft, by the help of God, to live and act so as never to grieve or dishonor such a father and mother as He had given me” (42).
Paton records the numerous challenges he faced as he went to school and sought employment. Describing how he eventually chose to serve as a missionary on an extremely dangerous mission field, he observes, “. . . nothing so clears the vision, and lifts up the life, as a decision to move forward in what you know to be entirely the will of the Lord” (88). When Paton sought his parents’ advice on his missionary endeavor, they told him that his father had felt called to enter the ministry but had been prevented from doing so. Nevertheless, he had dedicated his children to the Lord and asked that they might respond to God’s call. Even though their son was leaving, and they might never see him again, they rejoiced and said, “we pray with all our heart that the Lord may accept your offering, long spare you, and give you many souls for your hire” (93).
Paton’s missionary endeavors are deeply moving. He shares his own doubts and fears as well as his determination to remain faithful to his Lord. Seeing how deeply into depravity people had sunk is heartbreaking. He notes that many of the white sailors encouraged depravity in the natives. He says, “for they have learned all of their vices and none of their virtues” (142). Paton soon lost both his child and his wife. He was repeatedly deceived and betrayed. Incredibly, some people criticized his ministry from the safe confines of their Scottish homes. But Paton declared that, though many people were seeking to kill him, he felt himself immortal until God’s work through him was complete (335). Paton’s situation eventually became so difficult that he had to flee for his life. Nonetheless, he continued to devote his life to missions and ultimately evangelized another island.
This book is challenging to read, as I shared. Yet we as twenty-first century Christians owe it to our spiritual forebears to hear their story and to be inspired to live our lives at the same consecrated level.
Rating: 4
