The late James D. Kidd, Elder, Grafton, New South Wales. James Duncan Kidd was born at Woodford Leigh on the Clarence River on the 21st day of January, 1873, and passed, we believe, to his eternal rest on the 16th day of October, 1959, at the advanced age of 86 years. He was the seventh member of a family of 14. Both his parents were God-fearing, who brought up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The father was one who never forgot the vows he had taken when he received baptism for his children, and when visitors were at the home who had no relish for family worship, he would remind them that the “vows of God” were upon him, and at no time did he neglect his duty. “Families are societies that must be sanctified to God as well as Churches,” says Thomas Manton, the Puritan divine, in his Introductory Epistle to the Westminster Confession of Faith,” and the governors of them have as truly a charge of the souls that are therein, as pastors have of the churches. But, alas, how little is this considered or regarded! . . . They offer their children to God in baptism, and then they promise to teach them the doctrine of the Gospel, and bring them up in the nurture of the Lord; but they easily promise, and easily break it; and educate their children for the world and the flesh, although they have renounced these, and dedicated them to God. This covenant-breaking with God, and betraying the souls of their children to the devil, must lie heavy on them here or hereafter. They beget children, and rear families, merely for the world and the flesh; but little consider what a charge is committed to them, and what it is to bring up a child for God, and govern a family as a sanctified society.”
When he was 14 years of age the family removed to Boat Harbour on the Richmond river. Two or three years later while still in his ‘teens, James Kidd was called by grace. Grace does not run in the blood, although it often runs in the line. All who in a day of the Holy Spirit’s power are enabled to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as freely offered in the Gospel, are said to be born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of men not of God (John I. 13). The means used to bring home to him his accountability to God and his need of mercy was an accident which he had. He was thrown to the ground when the horse he was riding bolted, and as a result sustained a broken leg. It was while reading one of the sermons of the Rev Robert Murray McCheyne of Dundee that he entered in his soul’s experience into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
While still in his early 20’s, he and his brother Alexander who was two years his senior, came to reside on the outskirts of Grafton. In Grafton they had the privilege of being under the faithful ministry of the Rev Walter Scott, who had been inducted to the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation in the year 1895. Mr Scott succeeded the godly Rev John Finlayson, a native of Portree, who was Free Church minister at Coigach, Ross-shire before proceeding to Australia. Mr Finlayson died at Brushgrove in the year 1890, in the forty-fourth year of his age and the tenth of his ministry.
It was at the first communion season after his coming to Grafton that James Kidd made a public profession of his faith in Christ. It was at that communion too, that a lasting impression was made on the mind and heart of his brother Alexander. The word which most affected him was 1 Peter II. 9: “But ye are a chosen generation, etc.” He felt that he was outside the circle of that happy company who were that day showing forth the praises of Him Who had called them from darkness into His marvellous light. He returned home resolved to seek the Lord more earnestly than ever. He did not seek in vain, for from the day of his espousals, Alexander Kidd was a living epistle of Christ, known and read of all men.
It was about this time that Mr James Kidd took classes at a college in Casino, and from there went to the Sydney University to study with a view to entering the ministry. In his third year at the University he had a serious breakdown in his health, which resulted in his having to relinquish his studies. From this breakdown he never fully recovered.
No one would be long in Mr Kidd’s company without realising that he was a man of keen intellect and of liberal education. His knowledge of Church history in Australia was encyclopaedic. He was well versed in the contendings of the Reconstituted Synod, formed by the three ministers of the Synod of Eastern Australia who, in the year 1884, were excluded from the Synod by an act, which the revered Rev Arthur Paul, minister of St. Kilda in the State of Victoria, and editor of “The Presbyter” described as “ecclesiastical lynch law.” In 1891 the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation united with the Reconstituted Synod. What is said of the worthy Mr Hugh Grant, his fellow elder in the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation, is equally applicable to Mr Kidd; “His sense of the wrong perpetrated by this notorious Expulsion Act (as it has been called) which raised a widespread and spirited protest at the time, and which has not since been repented of, remained unaffected by the circumstances which led many of his fellow protesters to return to the Church which they had formerly condemned.” (F.P. Mag., March 1942).
Mr Kidd’s regard for Mr Scott, who with his congregation continued steadfast to the stand taken in 1884, is evident from the following incident which took place shortly after he had made a public profession. He had been paying a visit to Mr Scott. Before leaving, the weather became showery, and Mr Scott kindly loaned him his raincoat. On reaching home, Mr Kidd removed the coat, and kneeling down requested that Mr Scott’s spiritual mantle would fall on him. His after life to the day of his death gave proof that his request was granted. To the end he showed unswerving loyalty to the Cause of Truth in Australia for which Mr Scott stood and suffered.
Mr Kidd was a man of prayer. His prayers would leave no one in doubt, but here was one who was grieved in soul for the affliction of Joseph and mourned over the desolations of Zion in Australia. It may not therefore, be out of place to give an abbreviated account of the Fast Day which the Brushgrove-Grafton held on Wednesday, the 13th day of November 1907, in connection with the great drought experienced in Eastern Australia that year. The account appeared the following Saturday, the 16th November in the local paper, “The Examiner,” and was reprinted in full in the F.P. Mag. for April 1908. The report runs: “Wednesday last was observed as a solemn fast day, with humiliation and prayer for rain. Public worship was conducted in Brushgrove Church, where a large and representative congregation assembled. After preliminary devotional exercises, the Rev W. Scott announced as the subject of meditation, 2 Chron. VI. 26, 27; VII. 13, 14: the subject being the part of Solomon’s prayer, at the dedication of the Temple, bearing on their own circumstances of drought . . . . Solomon believed in a people praying for rain. They had a memorable instance afterwards in Israel, when Elijah, the prophet, prayed earnestly that it might not rain, so that it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months, and prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit. (James V. 17, 18). Prayer to God, then, in such a strait was their duty and privilege.
“But whilst they had these Scripture principles to guide and encourage them under the Divine correction, it was necessary to recognise that God would not regard the prayer of those who went on in their trespass. The direction in the text had reference to those who prayed ‘towards this place,’ namely, the Temple. That was where the sacrifices for sin were to be offered. Solomon, during his prayer, we are told, ‘stood before the altar of the Lord.’ They were to do the same. Christ was their Altar, their Sacrifice. He was the Way—the one Mediator for them with God, with whom they were to deal. They needed mercy. For this they were to confess their sin and forsake it, that the Tokens of Divine displeasure might be removed. This was made clear to Israel, later on, under Elijah. They had been mixing the worship of Baal with the worship of Jehovah. ‘How long halt ye between two opinions?’ the prophet asked. Before he would pray for rain, the supremacy of the True God and the purity of His worship were recognised and established before the nation in connection with sacrifice. Thus they exclaimed, ‘Jehovah, He is the God.’ This meant the overthrow of human inventions in worship. When a people repent, they turn from such idols to the True God. In the passage before them, when God shut up heaven and there was no rain, the people were to ‘humble themselves, and turn from their wicked ways.’ Hence their own solemn fast. It represented scripturally a day of restraint from worldly business or pleasure, along with an abstinence from the ordinary comforts of life for the time. Such prayer, with fasting in emergent circumstances, had been attended with the Divine blessing: ‘Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.’ (1 Peter V. 6).
“In closing, Mr Scott appealed to the assembled congregation to maintain their loyalty to the Word of God, in its integrity, as their infallible guide, in the face of the infidelity and worldliness all around. He reminded them of the two great pillars of their religion, which it entrusted to them on the highest sanction: ‘Ye shall keep my Sabbath, and reverence my Sanctuary: I am Jehovah.’ (Lev. XXVI. 12). In connection with these, he felt that their community had sinned a great sin. The Sabbath was openly and increasingly desecrated in various forms; the Sanctuary also was profaned by unscriptural practices, whilst many had forsaken the assembling of themselves together. God had permitted the drought and other evils to come upon them, yet there was His promise, ‘If ye keep my Sabbath and reverence my Sanctuary; then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.’ (Lev. XXVI. 2-4). They were but a handful after all, as compared with the population around them, yet it was nothing with God to help whether with many or with them that had no power.”
Solemn intercessory prayer followed, and the service was closed with praise and the benediction—the Psalm being, ‘O God, Thou to Thine heritage didst send a plenteous rain.’ It is further to be recorded that rain began to fall in the evening after the service.
It was Mr Kidd who forwarded to the late Rev Neil Cameron, Glasgow, as Convener of the Foreign Mission Committee, a petition from the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation seeking admission into the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. In the letter accompanying the petition, Mr Kidd says, inter alia, “The majority are putting forth their utmost endeavours to crush our position. The Free Church minister, Rev Mr Henry and Mr Herbert Ramsey, student, are both on the River, and are doing all they can to turn away the people. The majority have elected trustees for our Brushgrove Church and manse and we may lose these.” The Rev Neil Cameron read the petition at the half-yearly meeting of Synod which was held in the Hall of St. Jude’s Church, Glasgow, in November 1911, and moved that the petition be granted. The Rev D. Beaton seconded the motion which was agreed to.
In 1923 sympathisers of the Church in Ballina on the Richmond River applied to the Synod, and were received. Both Mr Kidd and his brother Alexander went then to stay in Ballina, where they conducted the services. In 1951 Mr Kidd returned to Grafton and resided with his widowed sister Mrs Purdie. Mr Alexander was appointed missionary by the Synod for Ballina where he laboured with much acceptance until his death on the 18th day of January, 1955. He had come to the communion services in Grafton which were being conducted by the late Rev Finlay MacLeod, Dornoch. “He attended the services on the Thursday and Friday,” Mr MacLeod tells in his obituary, “but owing to the weakness of the heart he had to keep his bed on the Saturday and on the Sabbath . . . Death did not find him unprepared for he was resting upon the finished work of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” He passed away as stated on the following Wednesday. “He was greatly attached,” Mr MacLeod adds, “to the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, because he found in her the Gospel by which sinners are saved.” The same could be said of his worthy brother Mr James. Both James and Alexander Kidd were outstanding witnesses for Christ in this day and generation. Their labours were not in vain in the Lord. They are still alive who heard the Gospel of their salvation from their lips. They rightly divided the Word of Truth. The poor in Zion got their portion, and sinners were warned to flee from the wrath which is to come, to Christ, the only Refuge. In the midst of abounding apostasy they upheld the testimony on the side of purity of doctrine and purity of worship in Australia, cleaving in the strength of grace to the faithful exhortation which the Rev Walter Scott sent in one of his Pastoral Letters to the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation. “Let me refer you again,” he writes, “to the touchstone of Truth and duty—the more sure word of prophecy—’Let them return unto thee, but return not thou unto them.’ (Jer. XV. 19). ‘Whereunto ye do well that ye take heed.’ The Lord enable the remnant in Grafton to uphold the banner, and to follow on in the footsteps of those who through faith and patience are now inheriting the promises.” Both Mr Kidd and Mrs Scott, the Rev Walter Scott’s widow, were able to attend the services in connection with the dispensation of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper on the 3rd Sabbath of May, 1959. That was their last communion on earth. They are now at the Table above, with their Saviour whom they loved and followed in the midst of a generation abandoned to the sports and pleasures of a godless world. They were in the world, but not of it, but of those to whom Christ says, “Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as My Father hath appointed unto Me.” (Luke XXII. 28. 29).
Some months before his death Mr Kidd had the satisfaction of seeing his youngest brother Richmond who, until recently, had his home at Clunes on the Richmond, elected and ordained to the eldership in the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation.
We extend our sincere sympathy to Mr Kidd’s brother, his surviving sisters, to his relatives, and to Mr Donald Shaw—his fellow elder and nephew, who for years prior to Mr Kidd’s return to Grafton in 1951 conducted the services and bore the burden of the congregation, and who during the last year of Mr Kidd’s life, when at times unable to attend, saw to it though often ill himself, that the door was never shut in Grafton; also to the congregation in the loss of one who sought their highest welfare and who broke the bread of life in their midst. “The first shall say to Zion, Behold, behold them; and I will give to Jerusalem one that bringeth good tidings.” (Isa. XLI; 27).—Wm. Maclean.