Part 1 (1/2)
The Story of John G Paton
by James Paton
PREFACE
EVER since the story of my brother's life first appeared (January 1889) it has been constantly pressed upon hly prized The Autobiography has therefore been re-cast and illustrated, in the hope and prayer that the Lord will use it to inspire the Boys and Girls of Christendom with a wholehearted enthusiasm for the Conversion of the Heathen World to Jesus Christ
A few fresh incidents have been introduced; the whole contents have been rearranged to suit a new class of readers; and the service of a gifted Artist has been e For _full_ details as to the Missionary's work and life, the COMPLETE EDITION must still of course be referred to
JAMES PATON
GLASGOW, _Sept,_ 1892
THE STORY OF JOHN G PATON
CHAPTER I
OUR COTTAGE HOME
MY early days were all spent in the beautiful county of Dumfries, which Scotch folks call the Queen of the South There, in a se, on the farm of Braehead, in the parish of Kirkmahoe, I was born on the 24th May, 1824 My father, Jawife, Janet Jardine Rogerson, lived on terentleave me his son's nae was soon able to toddle across to the reat pet of the lady there On my visit to Scotland in 1884 I drove out to Braehead; but we found no cottage, nor trace of a cottage, and a that we could discover by the rising of the grassy mound, the outline where the foundations once had been!
While yet a e, e of Torthorwald, about four and a quarter miles from Dumfries, on the road to Lockerbie At that tie, and coe farers and coopers, blacksmiths and tailors Fifty-five years later, when I visited the scenes of e proper was extinct, except for five thatched cottages where the lingering patriarchs were permitted to die sloay,--soon they too would be swept into the large fararden plots plowed over, like sixty or seventy others that had been blotted out!
Froe, and accessible in a walk of fifteen minutes, a view opens to the eye which, despite several easily understood prejudices of mine that may discount any opinion that I offer, still appears to st all the beauties of Scotland At your feet lay a thriving village, every cottage sitting in its own plot of garden, and sending up its blue cloud of ”peat reek,”
which never somehow seemed to pollute the blessed air; and after all has been said or sung, a beautifully situated village of healthy and happy homes for God's children is surely the finest feature in every landscape! Looking from the Bank Hill on a summer day, Dumfries with its spires shone so conspicuous that you could have believed it not h which Nith rolls to Solway, lay all before the naked eye, beautiful with village spires,far, bounded the forward viehile to the left rose Criffel, cloud-capped and majestic; then the white sands of Solith tides swifter than horsemen; and finally the eye rested joyfully upon the hills of cu ses on the southern Solway shores
There, ae life, our dear parents found their ho period of forty years There too were born to the in all a fahters Theirs was the first of the thatched cottages on the left, past the ”arden in front of it, and a large garden across the road; and it is one of the few still lingering to show to a new generation what the homes of their fathers were The architect who planned that cottage had no ideas of art, but a fine eye for durability! It consists at present of three, but originally of four, pairs of ”oak couples” (Scottice _kipples_) planted like solid trees in the ground at equal intervals, and gently sloped inwards till they ed not by rusty iron, but by great solid pins of oak A roof of oaken wattles was laid across these, till within eleven or twelve feet of the ground, and froround upwards a stone as raised, as perpendicular as was found practicable, towards these overhang-wattles, this wall being roughly ”pointed” with sand and clay and lime Now into and upon the roof oven and intertwisted a covering of thatch, that defied all winds and weathers, and thatrenewed year by year, and never allowed to remain in disrepair at any season But the beauty of the construction was and is its durability, or rather the permanence of its oaken ribs! There they stand, after probably not less than four centuries, japanned with ”peat reek” till they are literally shi+ning, so hard that no ordinary nail can be driven into them, and perfectly capable of service for four centuries more on the sa all been rebuilt in reat foundation boulders, piled around the oaken couples; and parts of the roofing alsofound its way thither only in recent days; but the architect's one idea survives, baffling tie--the ribs and rafters of oak
Our home consisted of a ”but” and a ”ben” and a ”mid room,” or chamber, called the ”closet” The one end was -rooe wooden erections, called by our Scotch peasantry ”box beds”; not holes in the wall, as in cities, but grand, big, airy beds, adorned withwith natty curtains, showing the skill of the mistress of the house The other end was -fra with the constant action of five or six pairs of busy hands and feet, and producing right genuine hosiery for the merchants at Hawick and Dumfries The ”closet” was a very s room only for a bed, a little table and a chair, with a diht on the scene This was the Sanctuary of that cottage hoenerally after each meal,our father retire, and ”shut to the door”; and we children got to understand by a sort of spiritual instinct (for the thing was too sacred to be talked about) that prayers were being poured out there for us, as of old by the High Priest within the veil in the Most Holy Place We occasionally heard the pathetic echoes of a tre as if for life, and we learned to slip out and in past that door on tiptoe, not to disturb the holy colloquy The outside world ht as of a new-born s on my father's face: it was a reflection from the Divine Presence, in the consciousness of which he lived Never, in telen, can I hope to feel that the Lord God iswith e roof of thatch and oaken wattles Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of , my soul 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?”
CHAPTER II
OUR FOREBEARS
A FEW notes had better here be given as to our ”Forebears,” the kind of stock fro My father's mother, Janet Murray, claiht and suffered for Christ's Crown and Covenant in Scotland's ”killing tiious developrandfather, Willia and romantic career, before he settled down to be a douce deacon of the weavers of Duang to serve on board a British man-of-war, he was taken prisoner by the French, and thereafter placed under Paul Jones, the pirate of the seas, and bore to his dying day the mark of a slash froht disrespect or offense Deter with two others to escape, the three were hotly pursued by Paul Jones's men One, who could swim but little, was shot, and had to be cut adrift by the other tho in the darkness swahts and a day the rage of their pursuers My grandfather, being young and gentle and yellow-haired, persuaded so him out in female attire, and in this costu ained with the captain of a coal sloop to stow hist his black diamonds; and thus, in due time, he found his way home to Dumfries, where he tackled bravely and wisely the duties of husband, father, and citizen for the remainder of his days
The save zest to the talks round their quiet fireside, and that, again, was seasoned by the war wife, her lips ”dropping grace”
On the other side, erson, had for parents a father and erson, her father, was one of reat force of character, quite worthy of the Border Rievers of an earlier day Indeed, it was in soh the dear old lady in after days was chary about telling the story She was a girl of good position, the ward of two unscrupulous uncles who had charge of her s school she fell devotedly in love with the tall, fair-haired, gallant young blacksuardians, doubtless very properly, objected to the ”connection”; but our young Lochinvar, with his six or seven stalwart brothers and other trusty ”lads,” all mounted, and with some ready tools in case of need, went boldly and clai at his side, was borne off in the light of open day, joyously married, and took possession of her ”but and ben,” as the mistress of the blacksmith's castle
Janet Jardine bowed her neck to the self-chosen yoke, with the light of a supreentler ways, her love of books, her fine accoeneral air of ladyhood, that her lot had once been cast in easier, but not necessarily happier, ways Her blacksmith lover proved not unworthy of his lady bride, and in old age found for her a quiet and modest home, the fruit of years of toil and hopeful thrift, their own little property, in which they rested and waited a happy end Arave stood, aerson, clergyland, who, for many years thereafter, and till quite recently, was spared to occupy a distinguished position at ancient Shrewsbury and has left behind him there an honored and beloved naerson, a bright-hearted, high-spirited, patient-toiling, and altogether heroic little woman; who, for about forty-three years, , and self-reliant life for her fahters, as constrains ht of all I have since seen and known of others far differently situated, alh spirits and breezy disposition to gladden as their corand-uncle and aunt, fahborhood, ”Old Adam and Eve” Their house was on the outskirts of the irl there had not probably toohad arrested her attention She had noticed that a young stocking- End,” James Paton, the son of Willia alone into the quiet wood, book in hand, day after day, at certain hours, as if for private study and meditation It was a very excusable curiosity that led the young bright heart of the girl to watch hih she knew not then, it was Ralph Erskine's _Gospel Sonnets_, which he could say by heart sixty years afterwards, as he lay on his bed of death); and finally that curiosity awed itself into a holy respect, when she saw him lay aside his broad Scotch bonnet, kneel down under the sheltering wings of some tree, and pour out all his soul in daily prayers to God As yet they had never spoken What spirit moved her, let lovers tell--was it all devotion, or was it a touch of unconscious love kindling in her towards the yellow-haired and thoughtful youth? Or was there a stroke of , which so often opens up the door to the most serious step in all our lives? Anyhow, one day she slipped in quietly, stole away his bonnet, and hung it on a branch near by, while his trance of devotion made him oblivious of all around; then, from a safe retreat, she watched and enjoyed his perplexity in seeking for and finding it! A second day this was repeated; but hiswith the bonnet in hand, as if almost alarmed, seemed to touch another chord in her heart--that chord of pity which is so often the prelude of love, that finer pity that grieves to wound anything nobler or tenderer than ourselves Next day, when he came to his accustoainst the tree just where he knelt, and on it these words: ”She who stole away your bonnet is ashareat respect for you, and asks you to pray for her, that sheat that writing, he forgot Ralph Erskine for one day!
Taking down the card, and wondering who the writer could be, he was abusing hi that some one had discovered his retreat and reels had been there during his prayer,--when, suddenly raising his eyes, he saw in front of old Ada of another kind of angel, swinging aso He knew, in that moment, by a Divine instinct, as infallible as any voice that ever cael visitor that had stolen in upon his retreat--that bright-faced, clever-witted niece of old Adam and Eve, to whom he had never yet spoken, but whose praises he had often heard said and sung--”Wee Jen” I am afraid he did pray ”for her,” in more senses than one, that afternoon; at any rate, ood heart and true was there virtually bestowed, and the trust was never regretted on either side, and never betrayed