The Pioneering Patons

Of the New Hebrides

pROFESSOR George Whitecross

Paton, a member of the Presby

terian Mission Paton family of the

New Hebrides, was appointed Vice

hancellor of the University of Mel

bourne in December.

On that occasion, the Rev. C. Irving Benson wrote for the Melbourne

Herald the following brief history of

the pioneering Patons of NH. rHE Patons go back a long way into Scottish history, but the name that became known throughout the vorld was John Gibson Paton. With his foung wife he went to the New Hebridean island of Tanna in 1858. It vas an island with a nasty notoriety for ts ferocious cannibals.

On the very first night there five or six nen who had been killed in fighting were looked and eaten at a neighboring spring, so that next morning when he vent for water to make tea for breakfast, he spring was so reddened with blood hat it could not be used.

Within four months of landing, his wife lied, and a week later their infant child vas laid beside her. With his own hands le buried them.

The tribes were constantly at war and he victorious warriors feasted on the lain. Fever smote him again and again, ret he carried on his epic struggle, jattling for the souls of the dark slanders.

Facing death in hideous forms, never ure of friend or foe among the fickle slanders, he went steadily on teaching he children, healing the sick and trying o befriend them all.

He might have succeeded if only the sland could have been free from the isits of European traders and black lirders, who did all they could to enrage he natives against the Mission.

A British, warship offered to remove >aton from the island, but he refused. [T takes a hero to understand a hero.

L When the great Bishop Selwyn heard of this decision, he remarked: “Talk f bravery! talk of heroism! The man rho leads a forlorn hope is a coward in omparison with him who on Tanna, thus lone, without a sustaining look or cheer ag word from one of his own race egards it as his duty to hold on in face f such dangers.”

CHE threat to his life was ugly. For a long time he seldom took off his clothes at night, needing to be con- Dantly alert and ready, yet while there r as a glimmer of hope he refused to ;ave.

But a day came when he saw that to scape was the only path of duty. His lible, his precious translations and a pair f light blankets were all that he could ike in a race for life.

What sort of a story had he to tell at of his own experience? The story of lonely grave, of perils and persecutions, f reverse and failure. Yet that was not is message.

His message was a ringing proclamation f the conviction that the New Hebrides mst and would be won for Christianity, because he had come through the test of lilure with freshened faith and added evotion, doors of sympathy and elpfulness began to open.

He went round the world telling his xiry, and returned to the New Hebrides ith a Mission ship, the Dayspring.

He decided to work on the adjoining island of Aniwa in the hope that it might be a strategic base in the effort to win Tanna. The story of his work on Aniwa is told in his Autobiography.

It was the sinking of the well which broke the back of heathenism on Aniwa.

Rain was scarce on this flat, coral island and there was no stream or spring. One day, Paton said that he would sink a well and see if God would send fresh water.

Namakei, the old chief, thought that Missi had gone mad when he dug in the ground for rain. Rain could only come

from the clouds. After spending toil some days in excavation, a delicious spring of water was reached at 30 ft. (Continued next page)

AT first people refused to taste it. When they had been persuaded they shouted, “It is rain. It is indeed rain!” Paton invited them, to look over the edge of the well and see the water springing up. They could not be induced to do this till they had taken firm hold of each other by the hand and placed thpmsplves in a Inns linp tnemseives in a long line.

The foremost man leant cautiously over

and peered down, then passed behind an d took his place at the rear, and so on till all had seen “Jehovah’s rain.”

The peace and prosperity of Aniwa was told on Tanna and Paton saw that the Aniwans were likely to evangelise Tanna.

Thus his prayers and struggles for Tanna ° e sa n .to be answered through Ins work on Aniwa, and he lived to see his son, Prank, and a gallant company of young missionaries established there.

rpHE sons of Dr. John Paton carried JL on his work. The Rev. Fred J. Paton : gave half a century of service to the New Hebrides. The Rev. Frank Paton (father of the new Vice-Chancellor) took up the work on Tanna and was later Director of Oversea Missions of the Presbyterian Church in Victoria.

The daughter, Minnie Paton, married the Rev. John Gillan and they labored together for more than 20 years in the Islands. Another son, John Whitecross Paton, worked in the aboriginal mission at Kunmunya in the Kimberlies.

Of the grandchildren, the Rev. W. F.

Paton did valiant work in the New Hebrides; Mr. Frank Paton, now a master at Scotch College, was an assistant missionary there, and the Rev. J, W. P.

Gillan gave 15 years to the work.

Two sisters of Professor Paton married missionaries—Clara is the wife of the Rev. Hedley Bunton, of China, and Elizabeth (Betty) is the wife of Dr. Frank Ashton, of the LMS Hospital in Hong kong.

There are few families in missionary annals who have given more to the cause of Christianity. The new Vice- Chancellor is a master in his chosen field, a man of character and grace, who will serve in this realm of learning as his fathers did in their high calling.