John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides: An Autobiography, Vol. 3 (Classic Reprint)

Autobiography of my brother. Dr. John G. Paton has now, at ray urgent entreaty, been continued by him, and carried on to the present year. It tells the Story of the Life during the twelve years that have elapsed since Part First and Part Second were completed by the A uthor, and separately given to the world. The following words from the Preface to an early Edition of the Autobiography are equally applicable to present circumstances: The Public hailed it from the first with a welcome so uncommon, and God has in many ways so signally owned and blessed it, that it would be no modesty, but sheer stupidity, on my part, to fail in recognizing that it has been voted a Missionary Classic by the great and free Community of Readers. I have therefore spared no pains in making it as perfect as it is in my power to do, with the help of many minute corrections from friends here and abroad, and also happy suggestions as to matters of detail from the honored Missionary himself. In the original Preface when the book was first published in 1889, I said: The 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 labor 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 brothers pen. But, as many sections have been re-cast and largely modified, especially in those Chapters of whose events I was myself an eyewitness, or 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 shap
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)