Mission Questions

At a recent seminar we both attended we became intrigued by a larger than life portrait on the wall of the old lecture hall. We also photographed the name plaque at the base of the frame, a Rev. John G. Paton (1824-1907), interestingly a missionary pleader. The internet provided the necessary information, as might be expected, and we discovered an all too familiar story about mission outreach in the nineteenth century. A sad story.

Paton was raised in the strict doctrinal confines of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland and did it really tough to be educated. Every spare moment outside of gruelling work was devoted to serious study. As he reached adulthood he embarked on ten years as a city missionary in Glasgow where he organised outreach in the district and created a needed school. All good so far.

The Reformed Church was searching for missionaries to break new ground in the southern part of the New Hebrides (Vanuatu today) in the tropical Pacific. No one was volunteering so even though he had just married Mary Ann Robson, he offered himself and was accepted. At 33 years of age he was ordained and with his young wife (already pregnant) he left for the South Seas. The young Scotsman with his wife without any experience of the world outside their small community, arrived and settled on a remote island (Tanna) inhabited by naked and painted natives, cannibals, already irritated by the aggression on the part of white traders who occasionally visited. A difficult and foolish move.

A few months later Mary gave birth to their child and tragically both died a few days later. Paton was alone and left for four years to ‘convert’ the Tannese to his way of belief. There is no record of a single conversion and after that period of time he had to escape the increasingly hostile population with just his Bible and some language notes. A sad and foolish loss.

He arrived in Australia where he knew no one but the Australian clerics could see that he was a good preacher with plenty of potential, and God opened the door to the next 45 years of his life. He generated mission interest and built up mission resources that were lacking before this. His experience and knowledge of the New Hebrides allowed him to create a realistic vision, and he was able to communicate this vision well. He was also able to return to Great Britain to encourage additional mission support. A purpose driven man.

He married again at Edinburgh (1864) to Margaret a woman of strong character who shared a passion for the same mission work and of writing about it. They had two daughters and three sons. Two of these sons became missionaries in the New Hebrides. Margaret was a great organiser for the Australian Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union. She died in 1906 two years before John himself. These last years were spent mainly in Melbourne. Mission calling redeemed?

Questions still hover here. Was the original ill-prepared disaster justified? How is God’s call realised in such naive mission passion? Certainly our life, however short or long, is our true ‘work’ here on earth. Our call to live this life is not just career, and has all to do with simply ‘being’ and our ability to discern God’s mysterious call in it. It is just really awful to see lives cut short (one of them just days old) in the context of a call from God’s church to the South Seas, to get there on a wing and a prayer, expecting God’s grace, as we know it, to ‘kick in’.