Old Paths In Portrait

“For it is a fixed point in the faith of every missionary, that the more any church or congregation

interests herself in the heathen, the more it will be blessed and prospered at home.

“One of the surest signs of life,” wrote Victorian Christian Review, “is the efforts of a church to spread the gospel to the Aborigines, to the Chinese in this Colony, and to the New Hebrides, came to this church from God. In a great crisis of the New Hebrides, they sent one of their number to Australia for help, and his appeal was largely owned by the Head of the Church. The children, and especially the Sabbath schoolers of the Presbyterian Churches, became alive with missionary enthusiasm. The Congregations were roused to see their duty to God and their fellow-men beyond these Colonies, and a new missionary spirit took possession of the whole church.”

-From John G. Paton Missionary to the New Hebrides

Edited by his brother James Paton

First Published 1889

Reprinted by The Banner of Truth Trust

Carlisle, PA, 2002

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Old Paths In Portrait

“He would probably have lived longer and done better work, had he been more careful of his own bodily needs. There was but one burning passion of his soul, and that was to foster the great causes to which he had give his life. An insight into Rice’s prayer life may be had by a reference to his habits, contained in a letter to a brother minister:

I have adopted it as a rule to observe, as generally as circumstances will permit, seasons of prayer seven times a day. At midnight, and at daybreak, private, before breakfast with the family {with whom he might be staying}, at twelve o’clock and at evening twilight, private, after supper with the family; just before going to bed, private. Also observe the first and third Mondays in each month as days of fasting, humiliation, and prayer; the second and fourth as days of thanksgiving and praise. The monthly concert of prayer for missions the evening of the first Monday in every month, the concert of prayer for Sabbath schools, the evening of the second Monday in every month; and I have concluded to appropriate a season in the evening of the third Monday in every month for special prayer for Columbian College, and for a revival of religion in Washington especially and in other cities in the District, and in the country round about. Some of the objects for which he regularly prayed are indicated in his diary:

Make it a point to pray for every family where I tarry a night, or call in the day, for every person individually who makes a contribution for any object for which I receive funds; for everyone I converse with in the day; for every person I see during the day; all as particularly as practicable. I think this course tends to keep alive religion in the soul.”

- About Luther Rice   An American missionary to India and founder of Columbia College, Washington, DC  (1783–1836)

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Art

Paul the Missionary

Art

The Missionary Paul

Old Paths In Portrait

“The guilt of any sin is not in the least degree lessened by the agency of the Divine Providence in directing and overruling it to serve the purpose of the Divine wisdom. Those who crucified the Lord of Glory did nothing but what God had foretold by the mouth of His holy prophets, nothing but what God saw expedient to be done for the accomplishment of our salvation. The murderers of Jesus

Christ had no intention to exercise the will of God; they rejected His counsel against themselves. They were under no compulsion but fulfilled the desires of their own hearts, yet they did nothing but what God’s hand and counsel determined before to be done; and by doing it, they justly brought upon themselves the most fearful curses denounced against the enemies of God in the volume of inspiration.

4. The consideration of this truth should teach us how to regulate our thoughts and affections under all the awful events that take place in the world. The men who bring them to pass are the instruments of that Providence to which all reverence and praise is ever due, and they have done nothing which will not be overruled by Him to the accomplishment of His own purpose. We repeat that it is indeed true that the guilt of wicked men is not in any degree lessened by the use which God makes of them, and therefore are they the just objects of abhorrence. It is likewise true that the changes wrought by them may

be attended with great misery to nations, to our nation perhaps, and to ourselves, amongst others who are effected by them. But the Lord is righteous in all the evil things that come upon us and our fellow men. We are sinners, as well as those by whom God takes vengeance of our sins.

Why then should we indulge our angry passions without restraint? Ought we not rather to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, to learn righteousness from the Divine judgments? Whatever loss we sustain in our accommodations and comforts, if we behave dutifully to God and with a right temper towards men who are the instruments of our correction, the advantage derived from the most awful events will greatly counterbalance the loss. Give no place to desponding fears, either on your account or on account of the interest of Christ’s Church. Let the children of God remember that He is their heavenly Father who loves them, whose tender mercies infinitely exceed compassions of any earthly parent toward their children, and that His power is equal to His grace. The mightiest of your enemies are in his hand, and they can do no more harm than He sees necessary for your good. When God sent the Assyrians against the Jews, fearlessness justly surprised the hypocrites of Zion; but remember what He said to the faithful remnant of that day: see Isaiah 10:24, 25.”

-George Lawson from “The Divine Agency in War, Jeremiah 51:20”

Taken from Studies In The Scripture by A. W. Pink (1886–1952)

Old Paths In Portrait

An Act Of Deprecation

“Look down, O Lord our God,

from Thy lofty dwelling-place, and from the

Throne of Thy Glory.

Thou, Who dwellest on high, and beholdest the humble,

Look down upon us, and destroy us not;

Yea, rather deliver us from evil.

From all evil and misfortune, deliver us.

As of old time Thou disdst deliver our fathers, deliver us.

By whatsoever is dear to Thee, or beloved

by Thee, deliver us.

In all our straits, deliver us.

From the evils of the future state,

From Thine anger,

But yet more from Thy ceasing to be angry,

from everlasting damnation,

from all the terrors of the life to come,

from the wrathful countenance of the Judge,

from being placed on the left hand,

from the hearing of that dreadful and terrible voice,

DEPART FROM ME,

from being cast into outer darkness, from eternal chains

under darkness,

from the lake of fire and brimstone, where the smoke of

their torments goeth up,

forever and ever, deliver us.

Spare us, O Lord, have mercy upon us.

Deliver us; and let us never be confounded.

From spiritual evils;

from blindness and hardness of heart,

which leads to impenitence;

from softness and from hardness of forehead,

from a seared conscience, and ceasing from penitence after sin,

from a reprobate mind,

from the contempt of Thy threatenings,

from the sin unto death,

from the sin against the Holy Ghost,

have mercy upon us and deliver us, O Lord!

That I be not parched among the tares and stubble,

nor grieve among those that are on the left hand,

not withered by the tempest,

nor lament in the fire that is never quenched,

nor be condemned in the flames,

nor suffer shame in Gehanna,

nor waste away among the overflowings of Belial,

nor weep in chains of darkness,

nor gnash the teeth in the banishment of the reprobate;

being miserable, thrice miserable,

with the fiends in darkness, downward

in the abyss, which even Satan dreadeth

and abhorreth.

[On the one hand]

Is the vision of God:

[on the other]

the hiding of His face.”

-Lancelot Andrewes (1555–1626) from The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes