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James Gordon (missionary)

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James Douglas Gordon (1832 – 7 March 1872[1]) was a Scottish-Canadian missionary to the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). Gordon was born in Alberton, Prince Edward Island, the younger brother of George N. Gordon. James followed his brother to Erromango after the latter was martyred in 1861.

Gordon arrived in the New Hebrides in 1864, and served as a missionary with the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces and then the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales before becoming an independent missionary in 1870.[2] He translated the Book of Genesis and the Gospel of Matthew into the Erromanga language.

Gordon was killed by a native man in 1872. He is usually regarded as a Christian martyr.[3][4]

A. K. Langridge called him "a man of tremendous energy and force of character."[5] J. Graham Miller suggests that "few missionaries have so soon won the hearts of the heathen as James Gordon."[6] Miller notes, however, that Gordon was a loner, and that his move toward a dispensational view of biblical prophecy "increased his sense of isolation" from his missionary colleagues.[7]

References

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  1. ^ David Roe and Jerry Taki, "Living with stones: people and the landscapes in Erromango, Vanuatu," in Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape: Shaping Your Landscape, p. 416.
  2. ^ Gordon, James Douglas, Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
  3. ^ A. K. Langridge, Won By Blood: The Story of Erromanga, the Martyr Isle, p. 97.
  4. ^ David Stanley, South Pacific Handbook, p. 656.
  5. ^ Langridge, Won By Blood, p. 88.
  6. ^ J. Graham Miller, Live, Volume 2, p. 57.
  7. ^ Miller, Live, Volume 2, p. 58.
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