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[Above: John Paton in old age. public domain]

THE ISLANDERS OF TANNA, New Hebrides, were among the most ferocious cannibals known in the nineteenth-century. John and Mary Paton determined to carry the gospel to them. Sponsored by the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, they sailed in December 1857. Paton was highly regarded after years of plucky work as a city evangelist in Glasgow—a work carried on despite threats and abuse that included having the contents of chamber pots dumped on him.

About a year after the Patons sailed, they arrived on Aneityum, an evangelized island in the New Hebrides. Dr. Inglis, Paton, and Mathieson, another missionary, sailed to Tanna where they purchased land for two mission stations and started construction on homes. The Mathiesons would live at Umairarekar, the Patons at Port Resolution. Back at Aneityum the men gathered their wives, said their goodbyes to other workers, and sailed back for Tanna on this day, 5 November 1858.

We took advantage of a trader to convey us from Aneityum to Tanna. The Captain kindly offered to take us and about thirty casks and boxes to Port Resolution for £5, which we gladly accepted. After a few hours’ sailing we were all safely landed on Tanna.

That night the Tannese held a cannibal celebration. When Paton went for drinking water next morning, none was to be had because he found the spring fouled with human blood. In face of continual threats, John and Mary persisted in learning the language and attempting to share the gospel. Early in 1859, Mary bore a son. Both contracted fever and died. Without human help, John dug their grave. “But for Jesus, and the fellowship He vouchsafed me there, I must have gone mad and died beside that lonely grave!”

John Paton remained on Tanna to translate the Bible. Walking from village to village he told the love of Christ. Again and again he faced deadly situations. Once his dogs saved him from an attack. Another time he frightened off attackers with his empty revolver. (He had vowed never to take a life with it, but they did not know that.) Missionaries who joined him broke under the strain. One literally went mad and died.

Finally, after Paton was robbed of all his supplies, he made his way across the island to the other missionary settlement. Exhausted, he fell asleep. The Tannese surrounded the mission and set an adjacent building on fire. When it appeared that a fence would carry the fire to the house where the missionaries sheltered, Paton ran out with a little hatchet and chopped down the railing. Soon afterward, a tornado whipped across the compound, dousing the fire. The attackers fled in terror. Next day, the trading ship Blue Bell arrived and the missionaries escaped.

After leaving Tanna, Paton made a preaching tour that raised money to support additional mission work and to operate the mission boat, Dayspring. Eventually he remarried and returned to the New Hebrides. On the small island of Aniwa he achieved the success that had eluded him on Tanna. He was able to open two orphanages and a school and to print the New Testament in the Aniwa language.

Paton spent the last years of his life in Melbourne, Australia, dying in 1907. Before his death, he had the joy of seeing missionaries on twenty-five of the thirty main islands of New Hebrides. His own son, Frank Paton, settled on Tanna to renew the work there.

—Dan Graves

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Don and Carol Richardson faced a culture similar to that which Paton dealt with. Find out how the gospel made inroads in Peace Child at RedeemTV

Peace Child can be purchased at Vision Video