Abandoned to God – The Life of John G Patton, Missionary to the Cannibals
Amongst many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, “The Cannibals! You will be eaten by Cannibals!” At last I replied, “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.”
With these words, a young Scottish preacher gave up the comforts and accolades of a successful and growing work in Glasgow, rejected the appeals of those who urged him to consider a more reasonable course of life, and set his gaze toward reaching the heathen on the islands known as the New Hebrides. His ministry to these islands would last for over forty-three years during which time he would bury a wife and at least one child, suffer great afflictions and illnesses, endure shipwreck and the dangers of the deep, experience both the anguish of the indifference of God’s people back home as well as the betrayal of friends and converts on the field, and grieve over co-workers martyred in the mission. He would also know the deep and lasting joy of seeing an entire culture transformed by Christ.
The story of this remarkable man and his even more remarkable labor for the Lord has been preserved for us in his own words in his autobiography, John. G. Patton: Missionary to the New Hebrides. First published in 1889, a more recent and updated edition was produced in 1994 by Banner of Truth publishers and is easily available through the special order department of most Christian bookstores.
Paton’s interest in foreign missions started when as a child he listened to the prayers of his godly father. “How much my father’s prayers at this time impressed 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 . . . As we rose from our knees, I used to look into 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 world.” He went on to study at Glasgow for a number of years through a teaching scholarship awarded to him by the heads of his denomination, and upon graduation was accepted as one of the ministers of the Glasgow City Mission. He started a small inner city “Sabbath school” in order to reach the urchins and the downtrodden that had come to Glasgow to seek their fortunes, and his first school quickly bore spiritual fruit. Eventually he would go on to start several such schools and others would join him in this ministry seeing scores come to know the Lord. His labors were abundantly blessed by God and he soon came to the attention of the leadership of his denomination.
However, God was stirring Paton’s heart and he would not long remain in Glasgow. During the annual meeting of his denomination, a moving appeal was made for volunteers to join the Rev. John Inglis in his missionary endeavors to the islands of the South Seas. After listening to the debate and seeing no decisive response to the call that had been extended by the leadership of the denomination, John felt the Lord move upon him in an unusually powerful way. “The Lord kept saying within me, ‘Since none better qualified can be got, rise and offer yourself!” After a brief but intense struggle over the thought of leaving his successful and beloved ministry in Glasgow, Paton surrendered in obedience to God and was accepted as a missionary to the South Sea islands of New Hebrides where he would spend over forty years reaching the Cannibals who lived on these islands. He would face the dangers of hostile Indians, warring tribes, disease, the death of co-workers, and perhaps hardest of all, the indifference of Christians back home. However, through all of this, he remained faithful. His account is full of delightful and stirring details such as the time he was presented to Charles Spurgeon who dubbed him “King of the Cannibals!” By the end of his ministry, an entire culture would be reached for Christ. Men who once ate one another out of hatred would come to sit down together to worship the true God of Heaven.
One of the most valuable sections of the book consists of a brief explanation of the methodology he and his co-workers employed in reaching a culture for Christ.
“It is easy to raise the shallow cry that the New Hebrides Mission is overmanned, as compared with India, China, and Africa, as some . . . are persistently doing. We might answer by retort, -- Your own towns and villages are overmanned; why not resign your charges, and go to the millions of Heathendom? But we leave that retort to others, and reply: There are differences in all these fields of enterprise, which demand specific adaptation of means to ends, and we fearlessly declare, in the face of all Christendom, that God Himself has approved our system by the almost unparalleled results. We plant down our European Missionary with his staff at a given Station. We surround him with Native Teachers, who pioneer amongst all the Villages within reach. His lifework is to win that island, or that people, for God and Civilization. He masters their language, and reduces it to writing. He translates and prints portions of the Bible. He opens schools, and begins teaching the whole population. He opens a ‘communicants class’ and trains his most hopeful converts for full membership in the Church. And there he holds the fort, and toils, and prays, till the Gospel of Jesus has not only been preached to every creature whom he can reach, but also reduced to practice in the new habits and the new religious and social life of the community.”
Paton goes on to exort,
“Plant down your forces in the heart of one tribe or race, where the same language is spoken. Work solidly from that center, building up with patient teaching and life-long care a Church that will endure. . . Rush not from land to land, from people to people, in a breathless and fruitless mission. Kindle not your lights so far apart, amid the millions and wastes of Heathendom, that every lamp may be extinguished without any of the others knowing, and so leave the blackness of their night blacker than ever. The consecrated common sense that builds for eternity will receive the fullest approval of God in time.”
His closing comments are both memorable and should serve to stir us up to such abandonment to Great Commission living. Here is how he summed it all up at the end of his life’s ministry.
“Oh that I had my life to begin again! I would consecrate it anew to Jesus in seeking the conversion of the remaining Cannibals on the New Hebrides. But since that may not be, may He help me to use every moment and every power still left to me to carry forward to the uttermost that beloved work.”
 | Order from ChristianBook.com John G. Paton- Missionary |
