A Father's Blessing to His Son
Poem★★★★When John G. Paton, who afterwards became the great missionary, was leaving home, there lay before him a walk of about forty miles.
His father walked with him for about six miles, and then they parted. The father and son loved each other dearly, and the parting was full of sorrow sweetened by deep affection. “God bless you, my son! Your father’s God prosper you and keep you from all evil,” said the tenderhearted father.
After going some dis- tance, John climbed a high piece of ground, to see if his father was still watching him. At the same moment his father climbed the dyke to see his boy. John watched him climb down. “I watched,” he said, ‘“‘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 to act so as never to grieve or dishonor such a father and mother as He had given me.”
The point
John G. Paton's farewell to his father: after his father turned back watching him go, John climbed high to see him one last time. That final vision of his father gazing back vowed him to honor his parents all his life.