Paton on His Father's Prayers

In his autobiography the missionary John Paton tells the story of his father's prayer time: "Our home consisted of a kitchen, a living room and a mid-room -- or chamber -- called the 'closet.' The closet was a very small compartment between the other two, having room only for a bed, a little table, and a chair, with a diminutive window shedding an extremely small amount of light on the scene. This was the sanctuary of that cottage home. Daily, and many times during the day, generally after each meal, we saw our father retire, and shut the door. We children got to understand, by a sort of spiritual instinct (for the thing was too sacred to be talked about), that prayers were being poured out there for us, just as in the days of old by the High Priest within the veil in the Most Holy Place. We occasionally heard the pathetic echoes of a trembling voice, pleading as if for life. We learned to slip in and out past that door on tiptoe, so as not to disturb the holy colloquy. The outside world might not know, but we knew whence came that happy light, like that of a newborn smile, that always was dawning on my father's face. It was a reflection from the divine Presence, in the consciousness of which he lived. Never, in temple or cathedral, in mountain or glen, can I hope to feel the Lord God more near, more visibly walking and talking with men, than he did under that humble cottage roof of thatch and oak framework."