Lately, I've been reading through John Piper's "Swans" series and today, I as I was reading about John G. Paton, missionary to the cannibalistic natives of the New Hebrides I was struck by what Paton wrote about the impact of his father on his life. Though lengthy, Piper's record brought me to tears.

The time came for the young Paton to leave home and go to Glasgow to attend divinity school and become a city missionary in his early twenties. From his hometown of Torthorwald to the train station at Kilmarnock was a forty-mile walk. Forty years later Paton wrote:

My dear father walked with me the first six miles of the way. His counsels and tears and heavenly conversation on that parting journey are fresh in my heart as if had been but yesterday; and tears are on my cheeks as freely now as then, whenever my memory steals me away to the scene. FOr the last half mile or so we walked on together in almost unbroken silence--my father,as was often his custom, carrying hat in hand, while his long flowing yellow hair (then yellow, but in later years white as snow) streamed like a girl's down his shoulders. His lips kept moving in silent prayers for me and his tears fell fast when our eyes met each other in looks for which all speech was vain! We halted on reaching the appointed parting place; he grapes my hand firmly for a minute in silence, an then solemnly and affectionately said: "God bless you, my son! Your father's God prosper you, and keep you from all evil.

Unable to say more, his lips kept moving in silent prayer; in tears we embraced, and parted. I ran off as fast as I could; and when about to turn a corner in the road where he would lose sight of me, I looked back and saw him still standing with head uncovered where I had left him--gazing after me. Waving my hat in adieu, I rounded the corner and out of sight in an instant. But my heart was too full and sore to carry me further, so I darted ion the side of the road and wept for a time. Then, rising up cautiously, I climbed the dike to see if he yet stood where I had left him; and just at that moment I caught a glimpse of him climbing the dyke and looking out for me! He did not see me, and after he gazed eagerly in my directions for a while, he got down set his face toward home, and began to return--his head still uncovered, and his heart, I felt sure, still rising in prayers for me. I watched through blinding tears, till his form faded from my gaze; and then, hastening on my way, vowed deeply and oft, by the help of God, to live and act so as never to grieve or dishonor such a father and mother as he had given me."

May the Spirit of God make me such a prayerful father.