INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
BY ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D.
The avidity with which Part I. of Mr. Paton’s remarkable life-story was received by the public in England has been no surprise. Before this second part was issued from the press, three thousand copies were already sold; and the entire edition of five thousand was so soon exhausted that it has been impossible to cope with the demand.
We have no hesitation in pronouncing this second part the most fascinating narrative of missionary adventure and heroism and success that we have ever met. This volume abounds in poetry and pathos, dramatic incident and thrilling experience, lit up by the golden rays of a delicate and unique humor. It reminds one of a varied landscape with bold mountains and modest valleys, where snow-crowned summits look down on summer gardens; where cascades fall into quiet streams, and where all the marvels of light and shade at once relieve and diversify the scene. The twenty-two miles’ gallop through the Australian Bush on the back of Garibaldi, which made the inexperienced rider drunk with excitement and fatigue; the Aniwan woman who, judging clothes an evidence of a new heart, approved her decided conversion by coming into chapel having her person grotesquely adorned with every article of male attire which she could beg or borrow, may illustrate the comical side of this charming story. The three years of progress among cannibals, in laying foundations of Christian families, schools, churches, and even social order, may serve as one of the greatest vindications, through all history, of that Gospel which is still the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation.