PATON, John Gibson, Rev, D.D. (1824-1907)

Person

Assembly memorial minute 1907

In view of the lamented death of our venerated father and friend, the Rev. John Gibson Paton, D.D., on the 28th January last, in his eighty-third year, the Assembly is constrained to place on its permanent records its profound gratitude to Almighty God, the alone source of every good gift, that He gave and continued so long the life of this eminent man, not only to the Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, but also to the furtherance of the kingdom and work of Christ throughout the world. For while Dr. Paton was distinctively a Presbyterian missionary, his influence and his praise have been widespread in all the evangelical Churches of Christendom.

The Assembly recalls with special thankfulness his unaffected simplicity of character and singleness of aim, his ready sympathy with every good work, his loyalty to the simple heroic faith of our fathers, his courage, steadfastness, and self-sacrificing devotion in his own field of Christian enterprise through all vicissitudes, and the splendid influence which he wielded over uncivilised men in the New Hebrides Islands, and over Christians of both the northern and southern hemispheres, being greatly used of God for the promotion of Christlike zeal, and the progress of the evangelising of the world. In all its aspects his life commands, and will continue to command, tributes of unfeigned admiration.

As an advocate of native rights his local knowledge and his transparent honesty gave him weight in the counsels of the nations, and evoked the encomiums of statesmen.

As a Minister of the Gospel, at home and abroad, alike in youth and age, he was signally honoured in the persuasive efficacy of his pathetic eloquence. As a Missionary on the field he won an entire island population to the profession of Christianity. As a pleader for his Master among the Churches he moved not a few able and devoted men to consecrate their lives in the winning of the heathen, and kindled enthusiasm for the maintenance of missions. As an author his autobiography has currency wherever missions are owned as part of Christian duty, and wherever missionaries labour, being a graceful and gracious aid in the great cause, by which he “ being dead, yet speaketh. ”

As a man and Christian his winsome, gentle courtesy and kindness endeared him not less to the young than to the more advanced in life. He created the place for mission work in the Sabbath Schools of Victoria. And the entire Church shares today the sense of bereavement that has fallen on his family. To them the Assembly sends heartfelt condolences, and prays with them that God will speedily manifest Himself in raising up other apostolic men to continue and complete the beneficent, world-blessing enterprises so nobly originated and carried on in the life of their father and his contemporaries.