BY the removal of Mr. Donald Dunbar, Wick, a notable link with the past has been broken. He had reached the great age of 86 years, and until about a year ago, showed but few signs of the infirmities of old age. His regularity in attending the means of grace was noteworthy. Sabbath after Sabbath, winter and summer, he was in his place three times every Lord’s day. In his younger days Mr. Dunbar, in prosecution of his trade as a joiner, went to Edinburgh, where he had opportunities of hearing some of the eminent men who preached God’s truth in that honoured city, and he often made references to sermons he heard in those days. Latterly, through an accident, Mr. Dunbar had to give up his trade and then turned his attention to the study of architecture. Among the buildings planned by him in recent times, are to be mentioned the Free Presbyterian churches at Strathy, Halkirk, and Wick.
For many years Mr. Dunbar acted as an office-bearer in the Wick congregation; first, as a deacon, and then as an elder. During the whole period of the congregation’s existence he assisted as precentor in leading the praise, and continued doing so up to a few months ago when his strength failed him. The end came quite unexpectedly. He retired to bed on Saturday night as usual, and passed away sometime during the night. He was a man who took pleasure in God’s house and worship. He was a delighted reader of the good old devotional literature upon which so many of God’s people fed in the days of old. His views of divine truth were clear and exact, and giving expression to them at times in the exposition of Scripture, he could do so to edification and the satisfaction of those listening to him. He continually made reference to faith, in its origin as the gift of God and in its various exercises in relation to Christ’s fulness, and both in private conversation, in lecturing or in speaking to “the question,” it was rarely that he missed saying something about faith. Though not ignorant of Satan’s temptations, he appeared to enjoy for most part a humble assurance of his interest in the Saviour.
A friend writes regarding him as follows: “My earliest recollections of Mr. Dunbar go back more than thirty years to the Free Church meeting which was held on Sabbath evenings, first in the South Public School, and then in the Academy. He sat around the desk along with the late Messrs. William Sinclair, William Crowe, James Steven, John Shearer and others, and was often asked to take part in the meeting. Mr. Dunbar impressed me as a man of a deeply reflective cast of mind with exceptional ability to grasp doctrinal truth, and to delineate the experiences and exercises of the Christian in connection with it. His mental cast seldom led him to touch on public questions, or to indulge in practical exhortations to his audience. He was the devout and meditative thinker upon divine themes, who had special pleasure in enlarging upon these as subjects of earnest thought and inward exercise. Tending a little to abstruseness, he was sometimes not quite followed by practical minds, but, for all that, it was plain that he was a spiritually-taught man. He had special delight in handling the grace of faith, and the doctrine of justification, which he did with the skill of a doctor of divinity. I remember an illustration of his which appeared very precious. He was comparing the exercise of the natural eye with that of ‘the eye of faith.’ He said that a friend might take you through the rooms of his house, and show you many valuable things, but, although you saw them, they did not in the least become yours on that account. But it was otherwise, he went on, with ‘the eye of faith.’ The moment you saw Christ by faith, immediately He became yours, with all the benefits of the new covenant. Mr. Dunbar was all along an adherent of the Constitutional party in the Free Church, and when the Free Presbyterians took up their distinctive position he immediately joined them, proved useful in the conduct of meetings, and continued in loyal attachment to the end. He outlived all his old associates of respected memory, but now he has gone to join them in the fellowship of the upper sanctuary where they shall go no more out for ever and ever.” We desire to express the deepest sympathy with his widow, family, and other relatives in their great bereavement. D. B.