A VETERAN MISSIONARY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13813, 29 January 1907, Page 5

A VETERAN MISSIONARY.

DEATH OF REV. DR I'ATON

frtS3 Aisociatiou—By Teiejraph—Copyright.

MELBOURNE, January 28, (Received Jan. 28, at 11.36 p.m.) 'ihe Rev. Dr Pal on, the veteran New Hebrides mi.'sionary, is dead.

The Rev. John 0. Paton lmrdly looked forward, during oaviier jjfo, to a peaceful end'jn age and honour. "The cannibals! i'o» will ho eaten by cannibals!" spoke dissuading friends in 1856, when, afloipuiuiiu and difficulty years, h.i hud titled himself for Iho ministry only to refuse a Clusgow manse in favour of work for those FiU-cIl and dangerous islanders. The young mail answered, with a- plain-spoken allusion tp the more common lot, "It will make no dmerencc to mo whether I am catena bv cannibals or by worms. - ' His first iinpressions of Iho island work, however, at" Port Kesoluiion, Tanna, lie lias confessed droyo hnn to Iho verge of utter dismay. It seemed impossible Hint civilisation could touch, or oven Christianity "a'in control over till! savage nature. In the midst of the first difiicullipa and dangers, his wife and yosujif child died. Ho himself laid iiH'm in their resting p'aco, built round awl round with coral blocks, and covered at, tlio top will) coral broken email as gravel—and but; for strong faith, ami the fellowship in sorrow that reached him thoio, might have gone nuul or died beside tnat lonely gravb, Shortly after Mrs latons dentil, Bishop Sehryn, >vith t.ho Kev. .1. (I. Patleson, called at l'ort Eesoktion m the mission_ ship. They had known I lie, wife of the l'rn.sliylerian missionary tue year before, in her buoyant hope anil health. " Standing with me beside the grave of mother and child, 1 weeping aloiuj on his oiio hand, ami P«ilie^on —■ afterwards the martyr Jhsliqp of Xakupu—sobbing- silently on the oilier. Iho codlv Bishop Seiwyn |K>ure.({ out bw heart io (iocl amidst soh< and in 3 r. 1( d ur j Ilg which } w ] u j t j \ m <k on ni) head, and invoked heuven's richest eonsolatirtiis and. blessings on mo and my 1 k\m\v*. The viifi|o t.f j|iaf; |cii]d . oi episcopal consecration J did and do most warmly appreciate!" Tanna. at last became impossible, 'nut. Mr Paton retired only io codec!; funds for a mission vessel, the bayspring, to interest a wide public in Hie cniiaß of Ihfi Xflw Hebrides mission, and 0 fat le. again not on Tanna ilsolf, but on U|e adjuinnm island. nin\i. which became for iho next 15 years |h 0 heart and centre <>t Ins .porsonal hilwius in Ihe mhiou field. -All early im-nlenl; on Anhyu was "the, mil,tele of the speaking bit of wood"—a chip written upon by the missionary, which convoyed to thn native mind a first idea, of rendm?. and incidentally led to bis making tin; fiu,t convert. A beautiful story Irom (Jib island, too, concerns (lie minion well, sunk in spile of all native protest' tipit rain conies from above, and on|v a madman could expect io see it coining til) from the cariii. tint ihe water eaO;, and Willi it so yreid a faith in the white man*:? knowledge of hidden things that ''the -ink- ;».? of the well," as"Dr Paton's auiol.hisrapby hy-s recorded,' " liroko the liauk 01 heathenism on Aniwa." '