In this addition of notes and quotes, we begin to see Satan strike closer to home with John Paton than ever before. Paton had left his comfortable and godly home. He had left his fruitful mission at Glasgow. Now he has arrived on a dreadful island where the natives were constantly fighting among themselves, eating one another, murdering widows, and threatening the lives of Paton and his wife. Nothing could have been more difficult to bear than what was coming. We read…
“My dear young wife, Mary Ann Robson and I were landed on Tanna on the 5th November 1858, in excellent health and full of all tender and holy hopes. On the 12th of February 1859, she was confined of a son; for two days or so both mother and child seemed to prosper, and our island exile thrilled with joy! But the greatest of sorrows was treading hard upon the heels of that joy! She had an attack of ague and fever and then in a moment, altogether unexpectedly, she died on the 3rd March. To crown my sorrows, and complete my loneliness, the dear baby-boy whom we had named after her father, Peter Robert Robson, was taken from me after one week’s sickness, on the 20th March. Let those who have ever passed through any similar darkness as of midnight feel for me…as for all others, it would be more than vain to try to paint my sorrows!” 79
It would be more than vain for him to attempt to paint his sorrows for us indeed. The loss, risks, and sicknesses challenged him and his resolve, but it could not break it. He wrote, “My reason seemed for a time almost to give way. Ague and fever, too, laid a depressing and weakening hand upon me…the ever-merciful Lord sustained me, to lay the precious dust of my beloved Ones in the same quiet grave, dug for them close by at the end of the house; in all of which last offices my own hands, despite breaking heart, had to take the principal share!” 80
Imagine the heartbreak and distress that Paton must have felt? It is a wonder that he did not return to Scotland after such a loss…but the loss could have been part of what anchored him on Tanna and emboldened him with determination to reach the island for Christ. “Whensoever Tanna turns to the Lord, and is won for Christ, men in after-days will find the memory of that spot still green, —where with ceaseless prayers and tears I claimed that land for God in which I had buried my dead with faith and hope. But for Jesus, and the fellowship He vouchsafed me there I must have gone mad and died beside that lonely grave! 80
Lest we think Paton was the only one with such faith and resolve, let us pay careful attention to the words of his beloved Mary Ann, “She fell asleep in Jesus, with these words on her lips: Not lost, only gone before to be for ever with the Lord….It was very difficult to be resigned, left alone, and in sorrowful circumstances; but feeling immovably assured that my God and Father was too wise and loving to err in anything that He does or permits, I looked up to the Lord for help, and struggled on in His work. I do not pretend to see through the mystery of such visitations, —wherein God calls away the young, the promising, and those sorely needed for His service here; but this I do know and feel, that, in the light of such dispensations, it becomes us all to love and serve our blessed Lord Jesus so that we may be ready at His call for death and Eternity.” 85
As we attempt to process all of the pain and suffering that Paton experienced I think it appropriate to end with one more brief quote from Paton: “All trials that lead us to cling closer in fellowship with our Savior are really blessings in disguise.” 89
Until next time….
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