WE regret to record this month the death of Mr. John Auld, senior, Dunlop Street, Tollcross, near Glasgow, which event took place on Sabbath evening, the 14th January. Mr. Auld, who was eighty-three years of age, was a native of the village of Tollcross, where his ancestors for several generations resided. Having come under serious impressions of divine things when a young man of twenty years or so, he went here and there for a time with a view to get spiritual satisfaction, but was not satisfied. At length he heard the fame of the late Rev. Jonathan Ranken Anderson, of John Knox’s Church, Glasgow, who had shortly before—in 1852—left the Free Church. Mr. Auld went to hear Mr. Anderson, then preaching in the Railway Hall, Bridge Street, South-side, was deeply impressed with what he heard, and from that day became a close and attentive hearer of Mr. Anderson, until the latter’s death, in 1859. After that date he still closely adhered to Knox’s Tabernacle, and walked every Sabbath there from Tollcross, a distance of four miles. For the last fifteen years, while retaining all his old sympathies, he was an adherent of the Free Presbyterian Church, and when unable to walk on Sabbath, came to the week-day services in connection with the Communion occasions in John Knox’s congregation. There can be no doubt that Mr. Anderson’s testimony and preaching left a deep impression on Mr. Auld’s mind and spirit—an impression that continued fresh and powerful to the end. The weighty doctrine that he heard in those early years, was evidently applied by the Spirit of God to his soul, and gave that peculiar gravity and solemnity which marked his thoughtful utterances about divine things as well as his general bearing at all times.
No one could be intimately acquainted with Mr. Auld, and hear him engaged in religious exercises but would be impressed with the fact that he was a man who lived and walked in the fear of the Lord—a Christian of the old, solid, godly stamp, too few of which are to be met with in the present day. Though daily and deeply exercised about his own soul, he was not by any means forgetful of the souls of others, but took a practical interest in the spiritual welfare of his neighbours. When prevented by the infirmity of advanced years from ordinary toil, he might be seen slowly moving about Tollcross, distributing sound evangelical tracts and Protestant literature. One of the last things he did was to procure a number of copies of Willison’s Mother’s Catechism, and to circulate them among friends and people in general. He was much grieved with the iniquity of the times, and often rebuked in a gentle but firm way the sin of Sabbath-breaking.
Mr. Auld was six weeks or thereabout on his death-bed, and was on the whole maintained in a composed and comfortable frame of mind. While not assertive of his faith and hope, as he had never been, he manifestly possessed “a good hope through grace.” He said that he had considerable liberty in prayer before the trouble began, and thought that something unusual was near. One day the writer called to see him, his subject of meditation was, “They looked unto Him and were lightened” (Psalm xxxiv. 5). He remarked that these words were not an exhortation to look, but the account of an actual thing that took place—”they looked unto Him and were lightened.” And on being questioned as to what he thought about them in relation to himself, he replied in his own slow, deliberate, impressive way, “I was enabled to hope that I was enabled to look.” Another day he was asked, “What shall we read?” “Read,” he answered, “the seventeenth chapter of John, which I have often read with a grievous enjoyment.” The wise will understand what a “grievous enjoyment” is in reading the Scriptures. On one of the last occasions on which the writer visited him, he exclaimed in an evident rapture of soul while prayer was being offered: “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.” He passed peacefully away on the date mentioned, and his removal is a loss to the community, where he was much respected, and to the Church of God on earth. Much sympathy is felt for his widow, family, and friends in their great bereavement. “Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.”
J. S. S.