Download the free eBook based on this biographical sketch of
John Paton. In 1606, a chain of eighty islands in the South
Pacific was discovered by Fernandez de Quiros of Spain. In 1773,
the Islands were explored by Captain James Cook and named the
New Hebrides because of the similarities with the Hebrides
Islands off the Northwest coast of Scotland. In 1980, the New
Hebrides gained its independence from Britain and France and was
named Vanuatu. The chain of Islands is about 450 miles long. If
you draw a line straight from Honolulu to Sydney, it will cut
through Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, two thirds of the way
between Hawaii and Australia. The population today is about
190,000. To the best of our knowledge, the New Hebrides had no
Christian influence before John Williams and James Harris from
the London Missionary Society landed in 1839. Both of these
missionaries were killed and eaten by cannibals on the island of
Erromanga on November 20 of that year, only minutes after going
ashore. Forty-eight year