28 JANUARY 1911, Page 13

JOHN G. PATON.

John G. Paton: Later Years. By A. K. Iangridge and Frank H. L. Paton. (Hodder and Stoughton. 3s. 6d.)—This book, written by a friend and a son of the great missionary, takes up the story told by him in his autobiography, and carries it to the closing scene,—Dr. Paton died in Australia on January 28th, 1907. He worked to the last. "Do you think that I will be well enough to go to the New Hebrides in January, Doctor ? " he asked just a month before his death, and he was then eighty-three. His last visit to the New Hebrides, which had been the great soene of his labours, was paid when he had passed his eightieth birthday. It is not every one who would have made such a voyage in a tramp ste,artier to a harbourless island,—any one who has had to land on such a place knows what this means. It is a fine story of heroism and devotion this, but there is not a little painful reading in it. For years Dr. Paton fought against the slave trade, for such it virtually was, which Queensland carried on, and it was a bitter disappointment to him -when the Government of that Colony gave the traffic another lease of life after it had been condemned. He had the happiness, however, of seeing it brought to an end, as far as British activities were concerned, some time before he died. We are glad to see that his name is commemo- rated by a "John G. Paton Mission Fund," in aid of evangelising work in the New Hebrides. One of the authors of this volume is in part charge of it. A native evangelist can be maintained at the annual cost of 436, and a bed in a mission hospital for £5.