Quotes and Notes from the Autobiography of John Paton, Part 3

If you have not read the first 2 installments, please search the archives in order to do so now.

As we continue considering the early years of John Paton and the way his father shaped him as a man and missionary we must recognize that John’s father’s ministry was not only to his family.  He was a stocking maker (he ran a very small factory from his home).  He was not a pastor or elder in his church.  Yet, he was a faithful churchman and evangelist.

Paton wrote that, “Dumfries was four miles fully from our Torthorwald home; but the tradition is that during all these forty years my father was only thrice prevented from attending the worship of God—once by snow, so deep that he was baffled and had to return; once by ice on the road so dangerous that he was forced to crawl back up the Roucan Brae on his hands and knees, after having descended it so far with many falls; and once by the terrible outbreak of cholera at Dumfries.  All intercourse betwixt the town and the surrounding villages, during that awful visitation was publicly prohibited; and the farmers and villagers, suspecting that no cholera would make my father stay at home on Sabbath, sent a deputation to my mother on the Saturday evening, and urged her to restrain his devotions for once!”  15

Paton’s father was so faithful to attend Sunday worship he only missed three times in 40 years!  Not even a cholera outbreak could keep him away from worshipping together with the family of God.  Can you imagine how he would feel about missing church for a soccer tournament, baseball game, or even vacation!? 

Paton’s father was a faithful evangelist to his community.  He wrote, 

“For the last twelve years or so of his life, he became by appointment a sort of Rural Missionary for the four contiguous parishes and spent his autumn in literally sowing the good seed of the Kingdom for the Tract and Book Society of Scotland.  His success in this work, for a rural locality, was beyond all belief.  Within a radius of five miles, he was known in every home, welcomed by the children, respected by the servants, longed for eagerly by the sick and aged.”  18

Surely part of what shaped Paton as a man and a missionary was his father’s leadership in the home.  However, his clear devotion to the local church and to spreading the gospel in the area was an influence as well.  Next time we will begin to see Paton’s missionary strategy unfold as he begins his work at the Glasgow City Mission.

Until next time….

Quotes and Notes from the Autobiography of John Paton, Part 2

John Paton’s father was clearly the most influential person in his life and ministry.  He shared much about his early days and the way his father influenced and shaped him as a person and missionary.  I want to share a few more of these quotes today.

“The very discipline through which our father passed us was a kind of religion in itself.  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.  We loved him all the more, 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 the eleven—we were ruled by love far more than by fear.”  (Page 17).  

Sadly, our discipline doesn’t generally reflect the grace, love, and seriousness that Paton’s father’s did.  Yet, how differently would my family look if I patiently and reverently, and with concern for their soul, disciplined my children?  Paton’s father was characterized by faithful and sincere prayer.  It seemed that his prayers pervaded every area of their lives. 

“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 should with tears for the conversation 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 World.”  (Page 21)

The prayers and influence of Paton’s father really welded their hearts together.  As Paton was leaving to go serve at a mission in Glasgow, he recounts the experience of saying goodbye to his father.  It is one of them most moving accounts in his work.

“My dear father walked with me the first six miles of the way. His counsels and tears and heavenly 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 - my father, as was often his custom, carrying hat in hand, while his long flowing yellow hair (then yellow, but in later years white as snow) streamed like a girl's down his shoulders. His lips kept moving in silent prayers for me; and his tears fell fast when our eyes met each other in looks for which all speech was vain! 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!"

Unable to say more, his lips kept moving in silent prayer; in tears we embraced, and parted. I ran off as fast as I could; and, when about to turn a corner in the road where he would lose sight of me, I looked back and saw him still standing with head uncovered where I had left him - gazing after me. Waving my hat in adieu, I rounded the corner and out of sight in instant. But my heart was too full and sore to carry me further, so I darted into the side of the road and wept for time. Then, rising up cautiously, I climbed the dike to see if he yet stood where I had left him; and just at that moment I caught a glimpse of him climbing the dike and looking out for me! He did not see me, and after he gazed eagerly in my direction for a while he got down, set his face toward home, and began to return - his head still uncovered, and his heart, I felt sure, still rising in prayers for me. I watched through blinding tears, till his form faded from my gaze; and then, hastening on my way, vowed 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.” (Pages 25-26)

May we seek to unify our hearts with God and see God, in response, give us the hearts of our children so that we can in turn give those children back to God for the advancement of His Kingdom on earth.  Paton’s father is a shining example to us all!  

Quotes and Notes from the Autobiography of John Paton, Part 1

John Paton became the great missionary that he was, at least in part, due to the godly influence of his earthly father.  He alludes to this in his autobiography in several places, a few of which, I want to emphasize here today.  Below are Paton’s quotes.

“Never in temple or cathedral, on mountain or 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 oaken wattles.  Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, or blotted from my understanding, my mind 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 back all doubt with the victorious appeal, ‘He walked with God, why may not I?’” (Page 8).

How many of our children will be able to look back upon their childhoods and remember their homes and parents in this way?  Would they describe our homes as “sanctuary closets?”  Would they hear the echoes of our cries to God?  Would they recall our lives and be able to say “He walked with God, why may not I?”  I fear that my children, at this point, would not be able to give the same testimony of their home life that Paton gave of his.  He gives more insight into his father’s faith and life.

“And so began in his seventeenth year that blessed custom of Family Prayer, morning and evening, which my father practiced probably without one single avoidable omission till he lay on his deathbed, seventy-seven years of age; when, even to the last day of his life, a portion of Scripture was read, and his voice was heard softly joining in the Psalm, and his lips breathed the morning and evening Prayer, falling in sweet benediction on the heads of all his children, far away many of them over all the earth, but all meeting him there at the Throne of Grace.  None of us can remember that any day ever passed unhallowed thus; no hurry for market, nor rush to business, no arrival of friend or guests, no trouble or sorrow, no joy or excitement ever prevented at least our kneeling around the family altar while the High Priest led our prayers to God and offered himself and his children there.  And blessed to others, as well as to ourselves, was the light of such example!”  (Page 14)  

John Paton’s father was a disciplined, godly, consistent example for his children.  Sixty straight years of morning and evening prayer, worship, and Scripture reading with and over his children.  This is such an indicting testimony of my own parenting.  This morning and evening worship was priority!  There was no rush to market, no rush to business, or arrival of friend or guests, no sorrow or joy or excitement ever prevented at least prayer!  In our day we could say no television program, ball game, or video game ever prevented morning and evening family worship.  

These two simple quotes are quite convicting of my own lax parenting.  They are not meant however to bring condemnation, but repentance.  May we all repent of our neglect.  May we reorder our lives and schedules to correct.  And may we see God honor our efforts, in spite of us, and give us godly, bold, missionary children.  

Until next time...