John G. Paton – Missionary to the New Hebrides (2 Vols.)

John Paton’s two-volume autobiography is probably the most detailed work available on this notable missionary to the Pacific Islands. (If you know of a more comprehensive treatment, do tell me about it in the comments.) My thanks to Redcliffe College for providing me with copies of these books to scan. These volumes are in the Public Domain.

John Gibson Paton [1824-1907] & James Paton [1824-1907], ed., John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides. An Autobiography, First Part, 6th edn. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1890. Hbk. pp.375. [Click to download complete volume in PDF]

John Gibson Paton [1824-1907] & James Paton [1824-1907], ed., John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides. An Autobiography, Second Part. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1890. Hbk. pp.383. [Click to download complete volume in PDF]

Contents Volume 1

1. Earlier Days
2. At School and College
3. In Glasgow City Mission
4. Foreign Mission Claims
5. The New Hebrides
6. Life and Death on Tanna
7. Mission Leaves From Tanna
8. More Mission Leaves From Tanna
9. Deepening Shadows
10. Farewell Scenes

Appendix

Contents Volume 2

1. The Floating of the Dayspring
2. Face to Face With Heathenism
3. The Light that Shineth More and More
4. Pen Portraits of Aniwans
5. Letters From Aniwa
6. Last Visit to Britain

Preface

Manuscript of this Volume, put together in a rough draft amid ceaseless and exacting toils, was placed in my hands and left absolutely to my disposal by my beloved brother, the Missionary.

It has been to me a labour of perfect love to re-write and revise the same, pruning here and expanding there, and preparing the whole for the press. In the incidents of personal experience, constituting the larger part of the book, the reader peruses in an almost unaltered form the graphic and simple narrative as it came from my brother’s pen. But, as many sections have been re-cast and largely modified, especially in those Chapters of whose events I was myself an eye-witness, for regarding which I had information at first hand from the parties concerned therein, – and as circumstances make it impossible to submit these in their present shape to my brother before publication, – I must request the Public to lay upon me, and not on him, all responsibility for the final shape in which the Autobiography appears.

I publish it, because Something tells me there is a blessing in it.

January, 1889. James Paton

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