IT is easier for some of us to think about the Lord’s people, when they are removed from our midst, than speak or write about them. They are a peculiar people—as we read in Exodus xix. 5-6—”Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.” We say it is not easy to begin to chronicle the history of the humblest member even of the royal family of heaven.
The late Mrs Matheson, Totaig, Glendale, was one of the peculiar people mentioned above, and it was with real sorrow of heart that we learned, on the 14th July last, that our dear friend had passed away the previous day. It makes and leaves such a deep blank in the mind that shall not be filled on this side of the grave. Mrs Matheson was from infancy privileged in the kind providence of the Lord by being brought up in a family that filially and reverentially feared the Lord. However, she lived for many a day without God, and without hope in the world; and in her heart and mind went after its vanities, careless and indifferent to the claims of God and her conscience. Yet, she used to tell us, how she would have at times to leave her playmates and seek a secluded place to pray the Most High that He would keep her from dropping into hell! And she often added, “And the Lord kept me,” meaning, we believe, in that He kept her from certain sins that otherwise she would commit if it were not for His loving care over her. This was only the terrors of the law that demands obedience, perfect obedience in thought, word, and action from all the race of Adam.
She would be about 28 years of age when the Spirit of the Lord began to quicken her dead soul to a real and genuine repentance towards God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Her husband, who predeceased her, was a lay missionary of the Church, and at this time was resident in the Island of Scalpay, Harris, when our friend passed from death to life, and from the power of the devil into the kingdom of the Son of God. It was a real change. The Lord uses His own means and instruments to bring His people out of Egypt. Mrs Matheson was deeply concerned about her state before an endless eternity, for the mere assent of the corrupt will to revealed truth would not satisfy her awakened conscience. The devil was constantly suggesting to her mind that it was absolutely useless for her to go to the public means of grace; and through spiritual weakness she was giving too much heed to the father of lies. On an evening at this time, a service was being conducted quite near her home, but the temptation was so strong that she remained at home, the enemy saying to her that it was no use going, that she was to be in hell, and that there was no mercy in God for her. She began to ask the Lord for a token for good if He had a purpose of mercy towards her. There was a dove resting near where she was sitting, and she said, “Now, if the Lord has a purpose of mercy towards me let that dove come and rest in my lap!” The words were scarcely uttered, when the dove flew into her lap, and she rose and made for the above-mentioned service, and before the service ended she felt what it was to be pardoned through the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
She used to relate to us that, at this time, she actually thought in herself that this joy, peace, and heavenly-mindedness would never cease. It could be said of her as Paul said of the Thessalonians i. 6—”And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost.” Mrs Matheson soon after this felt the deep dregs of original sin, for although the warlike tribes of Canaan were overthrown, and many slain never to rise again, yet there were still left in the land serpents and other poisonous creatures that would destroy the soul for ever, if it were not for the precious blood of the Lamb. Oh! how sweet the precious atonement is to poor, guilty sinners! None can in truth feel the infinite preciousness of the blood but sinners, and our friend was conscious of her sin to the last and, as she often said—”Oh! how I need to be born again!” It was her conscious feeling of how sinful sin had made her before the infinite majesty of heaven. She is quite clean now. From the first to the last moment the prayer of God’s people is—”Purge me with hyssop.”
Her husband was missionary at Strond, Harris, when the Free Church of Scotland was broken up by the reactionary party in 1893. Mr and Mrs Matheson most heartily cast in their lot with the remnant that stood by the Word of God; and through His sovereign grace they were enabled to remain faithful to the end. The first time we met her after the last four ministers had left the cause of God in connection with the Church of Christ among us, she said—”It leaves one trembling and weak to find that some whom we thought would never leave us are now gone from us. Oh! how we should be continually examining ourselves, whether we have the ‘faith’ that shall stand at last or not.” We have no doubt but that she had the faith, as we read in Mark xiii. 13—”But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” On Monday of the Glendale Communion (last) Mrs Matheson met us a few yards from the door of the church, and with a countenance beaming with delight, said—”Oh! something is near me; what can it be? For I was not so happy at a communion season since I can remember.”
But little did we think it was the last time she would commemorate the death of the Lord Jesus in the church below. She was preparing to attend the Lord’s Supper at Flashadder when the call came to her to leave this tabernacle of clay for the “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” She is now at the everlasting communion above, where death, pain, and parting are eternally unknown.
She had to go through an operation a year before the end came, and derived considerable benefit and comfort by it, but never felt strong again. The efforts she was making to attend the public means of grace were simply extraordinary. We never saw nor met her equal in that respect. The Lord did not keep her long waiting in her last illness, and she had a most happy and comfortable end. The truth she loved and followed, because it was applied by the Holy Spirit, now became sweet to her soul, like living and refreshing waters, enabling her to sing in the night watches, particularly Psalm xvi. 6-7—”The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel; my reins also instruct me in the night seasons.”
Mr and Mrs Matheson had a family of eight—seven sons and one daughter. One of the sons died at Dingwall during the war. The rest of the family are still spared; and one of them, Donald J. Matheson, is studying in our Church, and may the Lord enable him, and the others to follow, and seek the Lord God of their godly parents. We have no doubt at all but their parents could say on the borderland of eternity—after passing through the wilderness with Moses, and with all the Lord’s people before and since—”For their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.”
We extend to the bereaved family our deepest sympathy in mourning the loss of their worthy parents.
J. MacL.