The late Miss Margaret S. Grant, Grafton, N.S. Wales
Miss Margaret Sutherland Grant, a lady of unfeigned piety and culture, passed away to her eternal rest on Sabbath, 22nd July 1973, in the Grafton Base Hospital where she had been confined for several months. Latterly she was not able to converse much. A short time before she suffered the stroke which left her unconscious till the end, she exclaimed while the last part of the 8th chapter of Romans was being read to her, “‘More than conquerors through Him that loved us,’ how wonderful!” These were about the last coherent words she spoke in time.
Miss Grant became a communicant-member at the early age of 16 during the ministry of the late Rev. Walter Scott to whom she was devotedly attached. The account of the communion season at Woodford Dale conducted by Mr Scott in October 1907, and also the sermon on the text — “And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared and no small tempest lay upon us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away”. (Acts 27:- 20) preached by Mr Scott on Sabbath 12th November 1905 in the Brushgrove Church after the absence of three months from his pulpit by a very severe illness were written by Miss Grant. They appear in “The Footsteps of the Flock. A Memorial to the late Rev. Walter Scott”.
Miss Grant’s parents were eminently godly people. Her father, Mr Hugh Grant, an elder in the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation, passed away at a patriarchal age in January 1942. His obituary, written by the late Rev. Donald Beaton, appeared in Vol. XLVI of the Magazine. Mr Grant was born in Swordale in the parish of Creich, Sutherlandshire. A friend of long standing wrote a beautiful tribute to him which Mr Beaton incorporated in his obituary. The concluding part of it is as follows:— “In Australia he cast in his lot with those ministers of the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia, who in 1884 were excluded from the Synod by an act of gross ecclesiastical tyranny. His sense of the wrong perpetuated by this notorious Expulsion Act (as it has been called) which raised a widespread and spiritual protest at the time, and which has not since been repeated or remained unaffected by the circumstances which led many of his fellow-protestors to return to the Church which they had formerly condemned. To the end he continued faithful in his convictions in the matter evidencing thorough-going sincerity and consistency in face of many difficulties. The same discriminating and loyal attachment to principle characterised his relationship to the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland ever since he became associated with it. From the beginning of the Church’s separate existence his interest and sympathies had been warmly engaged, nor did the many trials which both he and the Church had to undergo in connection with maintaining their testimony inviolate serve to alienate or even abate these.”
Miss Grant’s mother was born on the Hunter River, N.S. Wales in 1848 and passed away at Brushgrove on the Clarence River in July 1935, having thus attained the ripe age of 87 years. In her young days she learned the whole of the Shorter Catechism in Gaelic. Her obituary, written by the late Rev. J.P. MacQueen, London appeared in Vol. XL of the Magazine. “It was under the ministry of the late Rev. Walter ‘Scott,'” Mr MacQueen writes, “that Mrs Grant came to know herself as a lost and ruined sinner before God, and Jesus Christ as an Almighty and All-sufficient Saviour. After her first Communion Mrs Grant had such a manifestation of Christ as her own personal Saviour vouchsafed to her soul that she thought at the time and for days afterwards that it would never again be possible for her to question her saving interest in Christ. Though of a quiet and meek temperament she showed uncompromising firmness in refusing to cross the threshold of any other denomination than that of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, despite the years of intervals between the visits of our deputies. She adhered to the end unswervingly loyal to the distinctive Scriptural testimony of the noble church of her love. She was not of the softly effeminate and sentimental type who would confuse and blur Scriptural denominational distinctions, reducing separate denominational positions to a ridiculous farce. In this connection she would heartily approve of the logical and Scriptural attitude of the late godly and faithful Rev. Thomas Matthew, O.S. Church, Kilwinning whose statement regarding this important point was:— “If it is no sin to worship occasionally with a Church from which we are denominationally separate, it is no sin to worship with that Church always, and if it is no sin to worship with that Church always then the sin lies in being denominationally separate at all, thus causing a needless and un-Scriptural rent in the visible Church of Christ” (abbreviated). Miss Grant unflinchingly and as a matter of conscience maintained to the end the convictions held by her worthy parents.
Two of Miss Grant’s four brothers were office-bearers in the Brush-grove-Grafton congregation. John, a young man of great promise, who was Clerk of the Deacons’ Court and precentor, fell in action in France in August 1916. When news of his death reached Woodford-Leigh his father was in hospital suffering from pneumonia. When he was informed of the sad news, he said calmly and solemnly: “No son or brother ever gave greater comfort, but the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.” His obituary, written by the late Rev. Duncan MacKenzie, is in Vol. XXI of the Magazine. Her brother, Aird Grant, a worthy elder in the congregation here passed away in January 1969 in his 81st year. As an elder he faithfully discharged the duties of his office, and adorned his profession by a life in keeping with the Saviour’s character of those who are his disciples indeed, in the world but not of it, pilgrims and strangers seeking a better country, that is an heavenly.
To Miss Grant’s sisters-in-law, nephews and nieces we extend our sympathy in the loss of one whose prayer and desire for them was that of David for his son Solomon. “And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind; for the Lord searcheth all hearts and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts; if thou seek him he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.” (1 Chron. 28: 9.)
W.M.
Supplement to above Obituary
For the benefit of the rising generation in our midst here, we do not deem it inappropriate as a supplement to Miss Grant’s obituary to advert briefly to the Expulsion Act of 1884 and the Protest made against it which in course of time led the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation to identify itself with the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. An account of the events leading up to the Expulsion Act written by the late Rev. Arthur Paul of the Free Presbyterian Church of Victoria is given in “In the Footsteps of the Flock” etc. (chapter 10).
Mr Paul described the Expulsion Act as “ecclesiastical lynch law”. The Rev. Duncan MacInnes of the MacLean congregation and Clerk of Synod wrote a vigorous denunciation of the Expulsion. “It is certain,” said Mr MacInnes, “that something extraordinary has taken place, namely the expulsion of three ministers from their seats in the Synod. I think I can show that the laws of Christ and the laws of the Church were transgressed. Not only was there the reading of the document that passed through no Committee on Bills, without leave of the Synod, and in spite of protests of parties present, but there was also the strangeness of getting the names to the document secretly before the Synod met. The laws of the Church were clearly broken. According to the laws of the Church no one is allowed to vote unless he hears the pleadings at the bar, but here there were no pleadings at all.” Subsequently the Synod declared the Rev. Duncan MacInnes was no longer a member of Synod and that his name be removed from the Roll and his Church declared vacant. The expelled ministers met to reconstitute the Synod now defunct, and from then on became known as “The Reconstituted Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia”.
The Rev. Walter Scott was inducted to the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation on the 23rd September 1884. The Brushgrove-Grafton congregation had identified itself with the “Reconstituted Synod”, and throughout Mr Scott’s ministry in Australia he unwaveringly maintained and defended the testimony of the “Reconstituted Synod”. This Testimony outlined by the Rev. John S. MacPherson is given in “In the Footsteps of the Flock” etc. (Chapter XI). Section 3 reads: “It has ever been strongly held by this Church, that the obligations of the Fourth Commandment are binding, not only on the individual conscience of all professors of religion, but also that it is the duty of all her ministers and office-bearers, by precept and by example to discountenance the use of Sabbath trains, trams and other forms of Sabbath desecration, whereby the sanctity of the Lord’s Day is either directly or indirectly assailed. Sorrowfully, we have to acknowledge that prevailing loose views on these points have affected the opinions and practice of some within our borders. But hitherto, the Synod and Subordinate Courts, with the members thereof, have in the pulpit and press, and by personal example, lifted up a testimony against the prevailing lax observance of the Fourth commandment.”
Neither the present Free Presbyterian Church of Australia, nor the Free Church of Scotland with which it is affiliated would homologate the above section. The Rev. Walter Scott when addressing the Synod of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in 1909 said in connection with the Expulsion party — “the local press recently taunted them with the nullity of their testimony on behalf of the Sabbath wherein like the larger Churches they allowed their communicants even to use Sabbath trains and cars”! How thankful we should be in this dark day of apostasy and permissiveness that the Synod of our Church “declares in accordance with former resolutions, that Church privileges, admission to the Lord’s Table and Baptism are not to be given to any who engage in Sabbath work (other than works of necessity and mercy) and who travel by trains or cars run in systematic disregard of the Lord’s Day”!
In defence of the Word and the Sacraments the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland also holds under the hand of God a position which is unique. She asserts, maintains and defends the historic view that the two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are in general seals of the covenant of grace, and that as such they are equally valid, but that they do not specifically seal the same measure of privilege; that the qualification for baptism and for full communion are not identical, that many may be properly admitted to the former, who are not prepared for the latter. That, at one time, was the almost universal view and practice of the Churches of the Reformation, the Presbyterians on the Continent of Europe, in Scotland, England, Ireland and America and also of most Protestant Churches. They acted on the principle that every baptised person not excommunicated being a member of the visible Church has a right to have his child baptised.
The view which denies this distinction, and equates qualification for baptism with qualification for the Lord’s Supper made alarming inroads into the Free Church particularly in the South of Scotland in the last century. Against this innovation and other innovations in doctrine or worship Dr Kennedy of Dingwall faithfully and fearlessly witnessed.
“A parent seeking baptism for his child is already a member of the visible Church, and on no grounds,” writes Dr Kennedy, “can the baptism of his child be refused that will not justify the Church in excommunicating him or suspending him. The fact of his not being a communicant is held in the South to be sufficient reason for refusing the baptism of his child. If it be so, it must be a good reason for at least suspending from the enjoyment of all the privileges of his status, as a member of the Church. To refuse baptism is but to take that suspension for granted, when there is no such Act of the Church to which to refer. And the strange thing is, that the very man who would be punished, to the extent of disallowing his membership altogether, would be at the very same time, rewarded with both the sacraments, if he would take them! The one, which demands the larger exercise of charity in its administration is refused, but both would be given him at once!
“The Ross-shire fathers had no difficulty in regarding the Sacrament of the Supper, as intended by the Lord, specially to seal something other and higher than that which is especially sealed in baptism. They called it, with Maastricht, “sacramentum nutritionis“, as being intended to be an occasional feast to believers during all their wilderness journey. They beheld in the symbols of Christ’s body and blood the clearest and closest manifestation of the glory of the Lord, and in the exercise of those who partake of them the nearest approach to the Lord that can be on earth. They regarded the guests at the Table as having the most conspicuous connection with the cause and glory of Christ. They saw the Church pointing the eye of the world to a communion table, to inform them whom she accredited as the true people of God. On these accounts they felt that they were specially called to guard the passage to the table of the Lord, and to subject to the closest scrutiny all who would approach it.” (The Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire by Dr Kennedy. Chapter IV.)
It would appear to be fashionable in church and in so-called evangelical circles at the present either to come forward with some novel and naive attack on the authorised Version, or to advance and laud in books, articles and manifestoes stream-lined with sanctimoniousness and pedantry, the unhistoric and unfounded view of the Sacraments exposed and rejected by Dr Kennedy. They make a fine show in the flesh but the view they would have us adopt and practise is a sectarian deviation from the Scriptural catholicism of the Confession which teaches that “Infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptised”, and not infants only of communicant-members or professedly members of the invisible church. What a sop this view of the Sacraments is to the conscience of the unregenerate to go forward to the Lord’s Table! What a disregard of the fence wherewith the Lord has fenced His table! — “And let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.” (I Cor. 11: 27, 28.)