A BRIEF MEMOIR OF D. M. PANTON

By  Geo. H. RAMSAY

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D. M. Panton, the Founder and Proprietor, as well as Editor, of Dawn, believed that God gave Dawn into his hands as an instrument for the making known and maintaining doctrines which, though clearly enunciated in the Word of God. have become all but a dead letter to the majority of Christians.

 

There was a time when the great foundation doctrine of Justification by Faith had been all but obliterated from the minds of Christians, till Luther was raised up and commissioned by God to disinter and make known, and to expound and defend it with his life.

 

Similarly, the doctrine of Responsibility and Accountability of every redeemed soul to his Redeemer, naturally arising out of his redemption, has passed from the knowledge of the Church for the most part: certainly, in general, as a living and urgent power over the lives of disciples of Christ.  And the future effect upon the believer of this present relationship to his Redeemer is completely ignored by most; namely, that, as a responsible agent of Christ, he must hand in an account of his stewardship before the Judgement Seat of his Lord; that from his Lord's lips he will receive the sentence due to him, be it good or bad, according as he has been faithful or unfaithful, obedient or disobedient, holy or sinful.  This is almost passed over in the teaching of the Church, and the mere thought of it is hateful to many.  Nevertheless it is as clearly set forth in Scripture as is the doctrine of Justification by Faith, and it is intended to produce, and does produce, the ripened and steadfast and overcoming life of the disciple who watches and waits for the return of his Lord, that he may go out with joy to meet Him and be received by Him.

 

Mr. Panton believed that God put Dawn into his hands for the making known of these doctrines far and wide.  He rejoiced that he was unfettered by financial or other interests, and free to proclaim the whole counsel of God, without thought of any present return to himself.  He was faithful to his charge to the end.  Though practically bedridden, and weak and dependent on human ministrations, though his mind had become almost a blank to many things of the present, he yet was utterly alive to the things of God.  He worked unfalteringly to his time-schedule to produce each issue of Dawn.  When the hitch came with the June issue, and the publisher wired for the copy, he stoutly maintained that he had produced and sent it off, and that he was beginning on the July Dawn next day.  He did not begin on July Dawn next day, nor the next - but he was insistent that the June Dawn was done.  We could not find the MSS. in his heaps of papers, nor could we distress him by hunting too closely, for he was troubled lest we should confuse his papers, which were no jumble to him, though they appeared but a jumble to others.  We had to leave it at last, believing him to be mistaken in supposing that he had got all ready.  The next day he seemed much more like his old self.  He asked for his spectacles to be cleaned and his Testament to be given him, and he read from Paul's Second Epistle for some time.  It seemed he might revive again; but he fell asleep, his Testament lying open where he had been reading, and did not return to consciousness.  And the thoughts which had filled the heart of Paul, that valiant warrior, when he wrote to Timothy just before his death, filled the heart of our beloved warrior as he passed into the presence of the Lord he loved, and had served with his very last ounce of strength: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.  Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing."  The words he had urged upon us during his long life were his own solace in his dying moments.

 

We found, after his departure, that he had indeed produced the June Dawn, and this is it, all but complete!  He had by mistake labelled it May Dawn, and it was lying with the May galley-proofs, so we had not examined it.  We were doing as little as we could to distress him.

 

Who was Mr. Panton?  Doubtless his readers [in this website] would be glad to know.

 

David Morrieson Panton was born in the year 1870 in Jamaica, where his father was the first Archdeacon, a missionary of the Church of England.  His uncle was the Archbishop of the West Indies.  Mr Panton came to school in England in 1885, at the Old Hall, Wellington, and then at St. Lawrence's, Ramsgate, and finally to Caius, Cambridge, where he studied Law, purposing to be a Barrister.  At College, however, he delighted in the company of a godly Tutor, a man from Jersey, Labarestier by name.  From him for the first time he heard the doctrines of the coming Kingdom and glory of Christ, during the last thousand years of earth's existence, and the conditions upon which disciples shall be called to share this special reign.

 

These truths revolutionised his life; they caused him to abandon a legal career; to live in the refusal of all earth's favours and rewards: unmarried, in lodgings, living on a comparative pittance, and pouring forth his entire life and meagre substance in blessing upon all that he touched.  These truths, and the entire range of Biblical doctrine, he expounded and defended in many pamphlets and writings, and then, during the last 31 years of his life, in DAWN.  (This memoir is taken from his last issue.)  He prepared it according to his time-schedule, in time for its usual issue in June, but he was taken to be with the Lord on the 20th of May, before, for some reason or other, it had been sent off, though he thought it had gone.  The delay in its appearing is due to no fault of his.  He accomplished his own work to the very end faultlessly.  He left no broken, unfinished work behind.

 

His friend from boyhood, E. H. Blakeney, formerly Assistant-Master of Winchester, wrote of him thus:

 

To the Memory of D. M. PANTON - PASTOR, EVANGELIST, CRITIC

 

He was also a Poet at heart, and was a man greatly beloved

 

THE POET

 

And the heart of the Poet rejoiced

And he wrought him a noble Psalm,

Crowned with the vision of Love and Hope,

And touched with a sacred calm.

 

To the uttermost ends of the earth,

That the feet of his fellows had trod,

His song went out by way of the years

And rose to the Throne of God.

 

This is no hyperbole - Mr. Panton's writings were sought and cherished by the most earnest Christians from the four quarters of the earth.

 

Here is the last verse of a poem from a small book of poems he wrote and sent to his grandmother when he was 17 years of age:-

 

For Thine all-redeeming mercy

To the race of fallen man;

For the Saviour's love and pity,

And salvation's glorious plan;

For the Church throughout the ages;

And the path the martyr's trod;

For Thine own sweet Gospel's pages,

I thank thee, O my God!

 

Space will not allow me to do more than state that Mr. Panton became Pastor of Surrey Chapel, Norwich, in succession to Robert Govett, Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford (And a member of a well-known ecclesiastical family), who had built the Chapel in 1854, and remained its Pastor till he died in February, 1901.  Mr. Panton succeeded to his charge in October of the same year, and was greatly blessed of God in his ministry.  He continued in full charge till 1924 when DAWN began.  Since then he has ministered in various ways to the very end of his strength, and though stop-gap ministries have filled the years, it is true to say, we believe, that the greatest spiritual influence upon that local Assembly issued from its Pastor-Emeritus, who loved it and its people with all his heart.  Two Pastors in 100 years must be very rare, but by such an unbroken and faithful Ministry, God caused great truths of fundamental importance for the well-being of His Church to be deeply rooted and established, so that from it roots have been struck elsewhere.  The Judgement Seat of Christ alone will reveal how many saints have been separated to a life of devoted obedience and service through his testimony.