Trials and hairbreadth escapes strengthened my faith, and seemed only to nerve me for more to follow; and they did tread swiftly upon each other’s heels. Without that abiding consciousness of the presence and power of my dear Lord and Saviour, nothing else in all the world could have preserved me from losing my reason and perishing miserably. His words, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” became to me so real that it would not have startled me to behold Him, as Stephen did, gazing down upon the scene. I felt his supporting power, as did St. Paul, when he cried, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”

John G. Paton, The Autobiography of the Pioneer Missionary to the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), 117.