Transcription
[Music] Before John Paton was called by the Lord to bring the gospel to the New Hebrides Islands, it was said there were no Christians there, only cannibals. After his years of service, it was noted that there were no cannibals, only [Music] Christians.
The kind of father Mr. James Paton was to John is a pattern worth considering. So, welcome to the hills of Scotland, where it all began, where God's grace, God's mercy, and two faithful parents, realizing God had a need, raise their children like arrows in their hands in the cooling mountains in China. Watchman Nee gave some fellowship about how great children come from great parents, and then he referred to John Paton as one of the greatest missionaries of modern time. Watchman Nee said of John Paton's father, James Paton, that he could think of no father like Paton's father, and that it's difficult to find a father like Paton's father. So, we've come here to Tain, their wall, Scotland, to see the pattern that James Paton left us to raise a great man like John [Music] Paton.
Only after much convincing did John Paton agree to write the autobiography of his missionary life. Throughout this episode, we'll hear in John's own words how thankful he was for his parents, and how by observing their genuine living in their daily lives, they fostered in him a genuine and lasting love for God, the Bible, prayer, and the gospel. We'll start in the mid-1800s, following a path young John would often take on a 15-minute walk from his home to the top of what is still called today Bank Hill. And when he got to the top, this is what he saw: [Music] "At your feet, a thriving village, every cottage sitting in its own plot of garden." And after all has been said or sung, a beautifully situated village of healthy and happy homes for God's children is surely the finest feature in every landscape.
But the walk up Bank Hill was not the only thing that inspired young John. The long walk with his father through town and to the church meetings in Dumfries was also a big encouragement to both him and his other brothers and [Music] sisters. The priest was four miles fully from our Torrie home, but the tradition is that during all these 40 years, my father was only thrice prevented from attending the worship of God. Each of us, from very early days, considered it no penalty but a great joy to go with our father to the church. The four miles were a treat to our young spirits. The company by the way was a fresh incitement. A few other pious men and women of the best evangelical time went from the same parish to one or other favorite minister of Dries. And when these God-fearing peasants, for gathered in the way to or from the house of God, we youngsters had sometimes wear glimpses of what Christian talk may be and ought to [Music] be.
While James Paton consistently brought his family to the corporate church meetings in Dumfries, it was what happened at home in their little stone and wood cottage that impressed young John the most. It was there that young John was very impressed by watching his father walk with God in his normal daily life by bringing everything to the Lord in deep and genuine prayer. This is the place where the old Paton family cottage stood before it was torn down in 1948. Although the Paton cottage no longer stands, right next door, they have preserved the same type of cottage called the "cook house," or as Paton referred to it, an "old button ben." All the genuine prayers, deep impressions, and love for the Lord that James Paton poured out into his children took place in an old cottage like this one.
Her home consisted of a butt and a ben and a mid-room or chamber called the [Music] closet. The one end was my mother's domain, and the other end was my father's workshop. The closet was a very small apartment betwixt the other two, having room only for a bed, a little table, and a chair, with a dim window shedding diminutive light on the scene. This was the sanctuary of that cottage home. The other daily, and often times a day, generally after each meal, we saw our father retiring, shut to 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, as of a newborn smile, that always was dawning 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 nor 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 oak and 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 me back all doubt with a victorious appeal: "He walked with God; why may not I?"
Even with 11 children, there was rarely the need for too much discipline in the Paton house. But when there was, how James Paton would go about it left a lasting and loving impression on his children. 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 for me to bear. I could have defied any amount of mere penalty, but this spoke to my conscience as a message from God. Oh, we loved him all the more, and when we saw how much it cost him to punish us, and in truth, he had never very much of that kind of work to do upon any one of all 11, we were ruled by love far more than by [Music] fear.
James Paton gathered his whole family together every morning and every evening for what he called a "family altar," where they would have a simple time together, enjoying a short verse, a little prayer, some singing, and then some interesting and mutual talk about the day's events. He would also often mix in some inspiring news and stories from missionaries abroad. But the family would always look forward to some special times together every Lord's Day, or what they called Sabbath evenings. We had two special Bible readings on the Lord's Day evening: mother and children and visitors reading in turns with fresh and interesting question, answer, and exposition. How he would entice us to help him to recall some idea or other, rewarding us when we got the length of taking notes and reading them over on our return. How he would turn the talk ever so naturally to some Bible story or some Marty reminiscence or some happy allusion to "The Pilgrim's Progress," and then it was quite a contest which of us would get reading aloud, while all the rest listened and further added here and there a happy thought or illustration or anecdote. It's been an amazing thing to me occasionally to meet with men who blamed this catechizing for giving them a distaste to religion. Everyone in all our circle thinks and feels exactly the opposite. It led the solid rock foundations of our religious life. Of course, if the parents are not devout, sincere, and affectionate, if the whole affair on both sides is task work, or worse, hypocritical and false, well, results must be very different indeed. I can remember those happy Sabbath evenings, a holy, happy, entirely human day for a Christian father, mother, and children to spend. Now, others must write and say what they will and as they feel, but so must I. There were 11 of us brought up in a home like that, and never one of the 11, boy or girl, man or woman, has been heard or ever will be heard saying that Sabbath was dull and wearisome for us. But God help the homes where these things are done by force and not by [Music] love.
All of this not only left a lifelong impression on John, it also sparked an aspiration in him from a very early age to be just like his father, and if possible, to do what his father was never able to do: to become a missionary to a faraway [Music] land. "How much my father's prayers at this time impress me, I can never explain, nor could any stranger understand. 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 world to the service of Jesus, and for every personal and domestic need. We all felt as if in the presence of the living Savior, 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, hoping that in answer to his prayers, I might be privileged and prepared to carry the blessed gospel to some portion of the heathen [Music] world."
When John became a young man in his 20s, he was clearly called by the Lord to study the Bible and to learn how to serve the Lord in Glasgow, over 80 miles away. Not knowing if he would ever return, leaving his family and home was difficult, but the care of his father and walking with him to say goodbye became a shepherding to John that he would never [Music] forget. "My dear father walked with me the first six miles of the way. His counsels and tears and heavily conversation on that parting journey are fresh in my heart as if it had been but yesterday, and tears are on my cheeks as freely now as then whenever memory steals me away to the scene. For the last half mile or so, we walked on together in almost unbroken silence. We halted on reaching the appointed parting place. He grasped my hand firmly for a minute in silence, and then solemnly and affectionately said, 'God bless you, my son. Your Father's God prosper you and keep you from all evil.' I watched through blinding tears till his form faded from my gaze, and then hastening on my way, though 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. The appearance of my father when we parted, his advice, prayers, and tears, and then walking away head uncovered, have often, often all through life risen vividly before my mind, and do so now while I'm writing, as if it had been about an hour [Music] ago."
While carrying out a prevailing gospel work in Glasgow, and against much of the advice he was receiving from those around him, John felt the Lord was strongly calling him to serve in the most dangerous gospel field: a group of islands inhabited by cannibals in the South Sea. Missionaries serving there had been killed and devoured not long ago. Both the threat and the calling were very real. Seeking clarity, he wrote to his parents and received this response: "Here too, we feared to bias you, but now we must tell you why we praise God for the decision to which you have been led. Your father's heart was set upon being a minister, but other claims forced them to give it up. When you were given to them, your father and mother laid you upon the altar, their firstborn, to be consecrated if God saw fit as a missionary of the Cross, and it has been their constant prayer that you might be prepared, qualified, and led to this very decision, and we pray with all our heart that the Lord may accept your offering, long spare you, and give you many souls from the heathen world for your hire." From that moment, every doubt as to my path of duty forever vanished. I saw the hand of God very visibly not only preparing me for, but now leading me to the foreign mission [Music] field.
[Music] As I must, however, leave the story of my father's life, much more worthy in many ways of being written than my own, an altogether beautiful and noble episode of human existence having been enacted amid the humblest surroundings of a Scottish peasant's home, through the influence of their united love, by the grace of God, and in this world or in any world, although children will rise up, but mention of their names and call them blessed. At the age of 77, James Paton finished his course and was laid to rest here with his wife Janet in 1868. James and Janet had all together 11 children, many of whom were very useful to the Lord. Psalm 127 says, "Behold, children are the heritage of Jehovah; the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them; he will not be put to shame when he speaks with enemies in the gate." God still has a great need today, and our children can be raised up to help meet that need if we care for them not just as children in our homes, but like arrows in our [Music] hand. [Music]