J. B. PATON.
J. B. Paton, D.D. By James Merchant. (James Clarke and Co. 4e. 6d. net.)—The story of this "Educational and Social Pioneer" is well worth reading. Dr. Paton was educated for the ministry at Springhill College, Birmingham, where he had among his fellow-pupils R. W. Dale and others who have risen to eminence in Congregational Churches. How curiously diverse from the ordinary College must be a place where a student of seventeen has already a reputation as a preacher ! These conditions cannot be wholesome for all natures, but they certainly go to make a man of finer clay strenuous. Strenuous Dr. Paton has always been. A great part of his life has been spent at an institution of the same kind as Springhill,—the Nottingham Congregational Institute. He became Principal at its first opening in 1863, and held the post for thirty-five years. He had previously been a pastor for nine years, his ministerial jubilee being celebrated in 1905, so that he was no immature occupant of the pulpit. We rannot attempt to give an account of Dr. Paton's social and religious activities, or of his work as a theologian. One character- istic comes prominently forward, the breadth of his sympathies, a breadth which be showed with no little courage. He was naturally a leader in a movement started some forty years ago for reform in the Congregational Colleges. Among the reforms which he, with two like-minded colleagues, formulated was the removal of one of the Colleges to Oxford. "This was peremptorily rejected as dangerous and chimerical. It is now afait accent/Ai."
Previous page
