Archibald Robertson, Missionary, Tain
Archibald Robertson reached the age of 81 on the 5th February 1971, and six weeks later passed to his rest and reward. In Psalm 90 God warns men that the normal limit of their life is 70 years and that whatever more time may be granted is likely to be labourious and sorrowful. This was certainly the case with Mr Robertson; his last years were marked by much weakness and discomfort, and with sorrow too. Yet it has also to be recorded that the close of his life was distinguished by inward peace and an overwhelming desire to praise God in Christ. His very last words were, “He is the Prince of life.” His outstanding Christian character and long service as a lay-missionary are worthy of remembrance. In this outline of his life we shall refer to him mainly as “Archie”, for it was as “Archie Robertson” that he was known far and wide, even by some who never met him.
Archie Robertson was a native of North Uist, born at Baileshare on the west side of that Hebridean isle in 1890 on the date given above. His father, Donald Robertson, was twice married, and Archie was the older of two sons by the second wife, Catherine MacIasaac. Looking back on his childhood years, Archie had to acknowledge that he received little instruction in spiritual things. The only impression he gained was a dread of the day of judgment, yet this was to play its own part in later causing him to use the means of grace. As the years of boyhood and youth passed, so did he become increasingly forgetful of God, and plunged ever deeper into the ways of sin and vanity. The Bible was a neglected book, and he was 20 years of age before he again made use of it. We say “again”, for his only previous recollection of deliberately reading it for his soul’s sake, was when a severe thunderstorm drove him to it and to prayer.
Again a storm was the divine means employed to make Archie fear for his soul. He had joined the army as a piper and was on his way to India by troopship. A severe gale alarmed him so much that he sought a corner where he could pray to be spared. This experience sobered him so much that he vowed to lead a better life, but his attempted reformation did not last long. Like the morning cloud and early dew it speedily passed away, yet one effect of his alarm did remain. He felt an impulsion to read the Bible. In India he was as careless as his comrades, and, as he later confessed, had little more knowledge of eternal realities than the heathen who there surrounded him.
In August 1914 his battalion of the Cameron Highlanders was brought back for service in France and Flanders. Exposure to danger had no softening effect upon him. In providence, most of 1915 was spent at the Camerons’ headquarters at Invergordon, and it was here that the Lord drew him from sin to Himself. Archie believed that the first definite step towards conversion lay in the acceptance of a pocket Testament on condition that he carried it always and read at least a chapter per day. He signed an agreement to do this and quickly found that he had shouldered an uncongenial yoke. Yet he felt that he must keep his word, so he continued to read his daily portion. Strangely, he felt, the more he read; the more he felt impelled to read. So the process went on; the blind was being led by a way he knew not. As the reading of good books was added to the reading of the Scriptures, and as attendance at church was added to the reading of good books, and the seeking of the company of a godly man added to that; so did a sense of sin increase, and then his mother’s sudden death set him on seeking the Lord in real earnest. Sometime in the spring of 1916, Archie was made willing to embrace the Saviour, and the summer of that year was a summer indeed to his soul.
He became dissatisfied with the services of the Established Church to which he belonged, and found the Free Church services at Invergordon more to his taste. But though he knew practically nothing as yet about the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, he was in various ways drawn towards it, and at last sought an interview with the late Rev. Donald MacFarlane at Dingwall. As a result of this meeting, and a fuller acquaintance with the preaching and fellowship within the denomination, he decided to become a Free Presbyterian. He never changed his mind on this subject. He first communicated within the denomination at the November communion at Dornoch. Spiritually it was high summer; winter set in almost at once.
Archie was sent to Salonica where he tasted loneliness, danger, and unsatisfied hunger for Church ordinances, and the grief accompanying discoveries of heart sin. Two and a half years this lasted, but many mercies were mingled with it. He endeavoured to be of some spiritual help to comrades who would consent to his taking worship with them, and at last he had such a powerful urge to tell others of the way of salvation, that he vowed that if God would spare him, he would give himself to his service.
Discharged from the army in July 1919, Archie had first to settle the question whether the Lord was calling him to the ministry. He decided that he did not have that kind of call, and almost at once his decision seemed to be confirmed by a request that he go to Plockton as a lay-missionary. He did, and thus commenced a work in which he continued for over fifty years. From Plockton he was transferred to Ullapool, then to London, and to Stoer where he met the young woman who became his wife. February 1925 saw him back in Plockton where he served faithfully until a serious illness necessitated his removal to Invergordon Hospital in 1930. He did not return to Plockton, but after his recovery was appointed to be missionary at Tain in April 1931. There he spent the next 40 years expounding the Word and caring to the utmost of his ability for the people who had been placed in his charge. He was a thoughtful and greatly exercised man; he read much and prayed much; so that the congregation of Tain had no cause to complain that their souls were neglected, nor that they were being served with superficial teaching. Out of the abundance of his large and varied spiritual experience, Mr Robertson was able to speak to the needs of others. He had a quiet dignity and expressed himself clearly and accurately, moving surefootedly amidst the facts and doctrines of the Scriptures. In private he was most pleasant and hospitable, but his manner and conversation were marked by seriousness and an obvious preference for spiritual topics.
Archie Robertson passed through many trials in his long life. He experienced hardship and had his own share of sorrow. Illness and constant weakness made the last four years of his life burdensome, and yet more sorrow bowed him low. Yet he continued in the way of faith and love, humbly acquiescing in God’s will and patiently waiting the call of his Redeemer to leave the place of winter and rain, and go to the land where He says there is perpetual summer. (Song 2 v. 10-13). When his body was so weak that he could scarcely leave his bed, Satan delivered one last onslaught of strong temptations over a period of some weeks. In God’s kindness that passed, and his latter end was great peace of mind and heart, resting on the infinite merit and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. He died in faith.
The very large and representative attendance at the funeral revealed how much Mr Robertson had been esteemed and respected. The loss to the Burgh of Tain itself was expressed in a town council tribute which spoke of his “long and faithful service as a witness and preacher of the Word of God”. The Church on earth is the weaker for the passing of this man of prayer.
Mrs Robertson who was of one mind with her husband all their married life, shared with him fully the joys and sorrows of his pilgrimage, and was able to nurse and care for him at home until the end. For her we would express our sincere sympathy and desire that the Lord would be her Comforter and Helper through the remainder of her life. Our sympathy we also extend to the sons and daughters, desiring for them all that the example and instruction of a godly father may be blessed as means to their own salvation.
A.McP.
John MacLeod, Deacon, Stornoway
The subject of this brief obituary was so well known throughout our congregations particularly in the Outer Isles and Skye that we think it fitting that his passing from time to Eternity should be noted in the pages of the magazine.
John was born on the Island of Scalpay, Harris, and his associations with the Free Presbyterian Church began when as a young man he came to Glasgow for employment and in the Divine Providence was attracted to St Jude’s Church. There he came under the preaching of the late revered Rev. Neil Cameron and others of the early fathers of the church who from time to time preached from the same pulpit. Of them he was wont to speak with affection and, judging from the way he regarded this period of his life, it would seem that it was then that he passed from death to life. It was, however, after settling in Stornoway and during the pastorate of the late Rev. Malcolm Gillies that he became a member in full communion being received in February, 1938. A year later he was elected a Deacon and the duties of that office he discharged faithfully to the end, his figure standing at the Stornoway church door, over the years become very familiar to those who worshipped there. Even when overtaken by the frailties of old age he was still most exemplary in his attendance on the public means of Grace, his place never empty if it was at all possible for him to be present. Not possessed of any great ability as far as public speaking was concerned, he nevertheless, excelled in prayer, the manner in which he addressed his Maker revealing how conscious he was of being but dust and ashes in His presence, and some of the choice expressions and petitions to which he was then wont to give utterance will long be remembered by those who were privileged to hear him. That his voice is now silent in the church below is a great loss to the Stornoway congregation and to the church and community at large, for the “effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much”. His latter end was peace. On the 9th January 1970, at the age of eighty two he passed away, departing, we believe, “to be with Christ; which is far better”. His wife predeceased him by about fifteen years. To his only daughter and her family we would desire to express our sincere sympathy, with the prayer that his God would be their God forever and ever and their guide even unto death.
J.McL.