1889 JOHN G. PATON. Fine Two Volume Biography + Rare Unpublished Letter Regarding His Work among Cannibals

Here is a wonderful little grouping that includes Rev. A. F. Pierson's very crisp, tidy copies of the classic biography of John G. Paton, edited by his brother, and a wonderful letter written it appears to a member of Pierson's Scottish missionary group, Miss Clementine Butler. 

A. F. Pierson was a prominent Pastor from New York who was a notable speaker at missionary conventions from the 1870's through to around 1910. He even spoke at Keswick with H. Grattan Guinness, Gipsy Smith, and others in 1907. Both copies are nicely signed by him on the blank ffep.

Clementine Butler [1820-1913] had been the wife of Methodist missionary, William Butler [d.1899] and was one of the leading voices in the Women's Methodist Missionary societies after their return from Mexico and India. At the time of this correspondence, she would have been 86 years old, and still heavily invested in the mission of God. 

For an extensive biography of them, see here: Butler, William (1818-1899) and Clementina [Rowe] (1820-1913) | History of Missiology

And of course, John G. Paton was the pioneering missionary to the New Hebrides, and successor to John Williams who had in fact been killed and eaten by cannibals in 1839. It was until John G. Paton and his wife set sail to the islands in 1858 that missionaries would again return to reach them.

The decision didn't come without criticism. On one account before leaving, a respected elder chided the couple, "You will be eaten by cannibals!" To which Paton responded,

"Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms."

Grouping includes:

John G. Paton. Missionary to the New Hebrides. An Autobiography. Edited by His Brother. With a Portrait and a Map. Parts I & II [Issued separately; here in matching bindings]. London. Hodder and Stoughton. 1890; 1889.

And,

An original unpublished 1.25 page autograph letter entirely in the hand of an aged John G. Paton addressed to Miss Clementine Butler:

"D***** Manse, Victoria
Australia, 21 April 1906.

Dear Miss Clementine Butler

Let me cordially thank you for your kind sympathetic letter received. I am glad to see that you have a central committee on the united study of missions, which has produced so many interesting books on missions, giving others the benefit of your labours. Besides it must deepen the missionary spirit & influence for good of every member of your committee, by being brought into their reading & study so closely to see the wonderful love, pity, & power of Jesus in leading the benighted heathen of many lands into the light & peace & joys & blessings of civilization which his teaching & service imparts to all brought under its power & influence, even to our savage cannibals on the New Hebrides & such lands, who in their pity & devotion as a Christian converts begin & close every day with family worship in their houses, & invoke the divine blessing on all their meals of food & be example & teaching try to train their children in the fear of god for his service & glory. They also with them attend church regularly - And on my island, Anewa, with the exception of one old man, every adult on the island above seventeen years of age is a member of the church, & that old man now attends church & school regularly - no Christian convert is ever seen on Sabbath morning turning his or her back to the church & going away from it on foot, or on bicycles, of in conveyances to visit friends or spend the day in worldly pleasures & amusements & usually the time between the services is spent reading the Scriptures, singing hymns, & in prayer, or in evangelistic work among the heathen villages. I do not mean to say they are perfect Christians; none on earth as perfect, but considering what they were the change by God's grace is wonderful & the blessed work yet extends among some 40,000 remaining savages on the group - God has given our mission nearly 20,000 converts & the Bible or books of it translated and now read by the natives in 27 of their languages, etc. 

Etc . . . 

Yours in our dear Lord Jesus,
John G. Paton."

Letter complete and clear, though weak at fold.