MISS Mary Morrison, Skigersta, Ness, passed to her eternal rest, we fully believe, on the 10th October, 1951, at the age of 71 years. For the period of nearly forty years she was a member in full communion in the Ness congregation, adorning her profession by a life which was a sweet savour of Christ.
Mary Morrison was one who had a deep consciousness of the plague of her own heart. With James Guthrie, who suffered martyrdom in Edinburgh in 1661, she could say, “My corruptions have been many and strong; they have made me to be in all things a sinner, yes, even in following my duty. Therefore, righteousness of mine own I have none.” To be found in Christ as her wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption was her soul’s desire. The late James Finlayson, Ness, speaking at one time to the Question in North Tolsta, gave as a mark of grace that it was a life-work in the case of the true believer to make sure that what he had would stand him for eternity. A Mrs. Graham, a woman eminent for godliness in her day in Tolsta, used to relate afterwards how much she was strengthened and encouraged in hearing this mark from such a worthy as James Finlayson. On another occasion he gave as a mark of growing in grace, as one becoming more and more a worm in one’s own estimation. These two marks were evident in Mary’s profession, but of her it could be said in some measure as of Moses of old, her face shone and she wist it not. The Rev. Finlay Cook, who was the first gospel minister in Ness, said that in his day of professing, Christians were as gold, that in the following generation they would be as silver, in the third as copper, and in the fourth hardly distinguishable from the world. Mary, although in the fourth generation, in which it is to be feared that the making of a profession is more of a fashion than a reality, was what she was by the grace of God. In walk and conversation she was separated from the fashionable profession of the day with its self-complacent assurance which was never the fruit of a living faith. Mary was of the Lord’s afflicted and poor ones who are emptied from vessel to vessel. This she proved by her diligence to be in the means of grace on Sabbath and week-day, and in her love for the Cause of Christ. To this end she was a loyal Free Presbyterian, steadfast and unmoved in her allegiance. It was under a sermon preached on the words, “O, my dove, thou are in the clefts of the rock,” etc. (Songs ii. 15), that she was pierced by the arrow of conviction. Some time thereafter her bonds were loosed and her soul brought into the banqueting house of gospel liberty under a sermon preached at the time of the Stornoway communion by the late Rev. Alex. MacRae, then of Portree. Although ministers left the Church, Mary did not approve of the step they took, as she did not believe that their leaving was of the Lord. The Free Presbyterian Church has had to suffer of late years opprobrium and bitter opposition in connection with the separation of some from the Church in 1938. How Mary Morrison, had she been alive to-day, would rejoice in the vindication of the Synod’s procedure in the Inverness Manse case. The Lord President of the Court of Session upheld the Church’s view of the late Rev. E. MacQueen’s Protest, and declared that his Protest “was plainly a deliberate act firmly insisted upon in face of warning.” Lord Cooper also declared that nothing the Synod “had done or left undone in relation to the Protest of 1938 or its sequels involved on their part any departure or defection from the defined constitution and standards of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland.” From this long drawn-out conflict of strife of tongues and pens of calumny the Church has emerged favourably under the good hand of her God.
An event which greatly cheered Mary Morrison was the gracious change which took place in her mother’s life at the advanced age of 80 years. Mrs. Donald Morrison carried to the end her tall and upright figure with a native dignity. A good mother and a good neighbour, noted for her generosity, she was, although circumspect in life, a stranger to grace and to God. It was some time after she had been confined to her house on account of the infirmities of old age, and unable to attend the means of grace, that she came under soul concern. One night she awoke Mary and said, “Did you hear the voice that spoke to me?” “No,” said Mary, “what voice did you hear?” “I heard a voice saying, ‘Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.'” Mrs. Morrison’s soul that had slept for four score years in the grave of spiritual death was now awakened. Under a sense of her sinnership and weighed down in soul by the spirit of bondage she took to her bed, which she kept for about six weeks. The nature of her complaint was only known to a few. It was while worship was being held at her bedside that deliverance came through the words, “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Soon afterwards she got up rejoicing in the God of her salvation. “I am comparing myself,” she used to say to those who used to visit her, “to the man who had his abode among the tombs, and after the devils were cast out of him was found sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. Although they should beat me with sticks I couldn’t rise out of bed, but when deliverance came no one would need to ask me to get up.” She lived for a number of years after this, clearly evidencing the reality of the change wrought in her soul.
About four years ago Mary was advised to attend hospital in Glasgow when she had an operation for a serious complaint. In hospital she was favoured in soul, but often after returning home she would question whether it was the right thing she had or not. The words of Newton’s hymn, “‘Tis a point I long to know (Oft it causes anxious thought). Do I love the Lord or no? Am I His, or am I not?” gave expression to her state of mind. She made a good recovery from her operation, and until within a few weeks of her end she was able to be in the public means of grace. Last May, although far from strong, she travelled to Uig to attend the opening of the Uig church. Her delight was to seek the advancement of the Cause of Christ. She suffered much towards the end, her old trouble having become active. The opening words of Psalm cxxii., “I joy’d when to the house of God, Go up they said to me” were applied, she confessed, with comfort and strength to her soul. These words, we believe, were her staff and her stay in the valley of the shadow of death, until her soul entered the house not made by hands eternal in the heavens.
To her sorrowing sisters, and to her niece, Mrs. MacRitchie, who devotedly nursed her, our sincere sympathy is extended. May they, too, hear the voice which one loved by them heard and followed, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” Eph. v. 14.—W. M.