A selection from the book “John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides: An Autobiography.”Note: Lately I have been reading from the book mentioned above, which has proven to be a great inspiration. It is definitely one of the best books I have read in a long time. I thought I would post this selection from the book. The first chapter of the book is about Paton’s childhood, and he tells of how his parents were very devout and godly. He certainly rises up and calls them blessed. His father was an excellent example of what godly Christian manhood looks like.
[My mother] had gone with her high spirits and breezy disposition to gladden, as their companion, the quiet abode of some grand- or great-grand-uncle and aunt, familiarly named in all that Dalswinton neighborhood “Old Adam and Eve.” Their house was on the outskirts of the moor, and life for the young girl there had not probably too much excitement.
But one thing had arrested her attention.
She had noticed that a young stocking maker from the “Brig End,” James Paton, the son of William and Janet there, was in the habit of stealing alone into the quiet wood, book in hand, day after day, at certain hours, as if for private study and meditation.
It was a very excusable curiosity that led the young bright heart of the girl to watch him devoutly reading and hear him reverently reciting (though she knew not then, it was Ralph Erskine’s “Golden Sonnets,” which he could say by heart sixty years afterwards, as he lay on his bed of death); and finally that curiosity awed itself into a holy respect, when she saw him lay aside his broad Scotch bonnet, kneel down under the sheltering wings of some tree, and pour out all his soul in daily prayers to God.
As yet they had never spoken.
One day she slipped in quietly, stole away his bonnet, and hung it on a branch near by, while his trance of devotion made him oblivious of all around; then, from a safe retreat, she watched and enjoyed his perplexity in seeking for and finding it! A second day this was repeated; but his manifest disturbance of mind, and his long pondering with bonnet in hand, as if almost alarmed, seemed to touch another chord in her heart – that chord of pity which is so often the prelude of love, that finer pity that grieves to wound anything nobler or tenderer than ourselves.
Next day, when he came to his accustomed place of prayer, a little card was pinned against the tree just where he knelt, and on it these words:
“She who stole away your bonnet is ashamed of what she did; she has a great respect for you, and asks you to pray for her, that she may become as good a Christian as you.”
Staring long at that writing, he forgot Ralph Erskine for one day!
Taking down the card, and wondering who the writer could be, he was abusing himself for his stupidity in not suspecting that some one had discovered his retreat and removed his bonnet, instead of wondering whether angels had been there during his prayer – when, suddenly raising his eyes, he saw in front of old Adam’s cottage, through a lane amongst the trees, the passing of another kind of angel, swinging a milk pail in her hand and merrily singing some snatch of old Scottish song.
He knew, in that moment, by a Divine instinct, as infallible as any voice that ever came to seer of old, that she was the angel visitor that had stolen in upon his retreat – that bright-faced, clever-witted niece of old Adam and Eve, to whom he had never spoken, but whose praises he had often heard said and sung- “Wee Jen.”
I am afraid he did pray “for her,” in more senses than one, that afternoon; at any rate, more than a Scotch bonnet was very effectually stolen; a good heart and true was there virtually bestowed, and the trust was never regretted on either side, and never betrayed.
-Selection from “John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides: An Autobiography,” Elibron Classics Series, 2005, pages 12-13.
Paton’s father and mother married, lived a long happy, faithful life together, and enjoyed the blessings of having five sons and six daughters. They were both God-fearing parents who prayed for their children regularly.
For those interested in reading more about John G. Paton, who himself was a great man of faith, I encourage them to read John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides: An Autobiography.
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