Mrs James Hymers, Wick Congregation
Mrs James Hymers, the wife of Mr James Hymers, Achavarn Farm, Calder, Caithness, passed away to be with Christ, on the 10th of June, 1977.
She was born at Ha’ of Durran, Olrig, Caithness, on the 8th of August, 1917, her name being Chrissie Miller. Her father who is retired in Tain, Ross-shire, is an elder in the Free Church of Scotland. Mrs Hymers was brought up in a home where the Bible was given its proper place and she received a Christian example and upbringing from her childhood.
Before her marriage in January, 1948, she was no stranger to the services in the Free Presbyterian Church, Halkirk, and thereafter attended there regularly with her husband. For the last eight years of her life she, with her husband and family, attended the Wick Church regularly.
About ten years ago she began to have trouble in one of her legs and during November, 1969 had to have this leg removed in hospital in Edinburgh. When calling to see her the following day with Mrs James MacKay, Edinburgh, we were much affected by how composed and even bright, Mrs Hymers was in her mind and conversation. And the Lord was in her conversation.
It became more obvious to others at this time and thereafter, that Mrs Hymers possessed the grace given to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and that Christ’s grace was made sufficient for her in a great trial of affliction. During the rest of her life, although greatly handicapped in walking, she attended the house of God regularly on Sabbath and at the weekly prayer-meeting. Her husband assisted her as required. In her case it was made apparent to others that the direction of her affections was towards the Saviour, His gospel and the house of God and fellowship with the Lord’s people.
Mrs Hymers was received as a member in full-communion in the Wick Congregation, by the Kirk Session, in October, 1973. At that time she mentioned that her interest in spiritual things and in the gospel of Jesus Christ, began under the ministry of the late Rev. William Grant, while he was pastor of Halkirk congregation and that later in Wick she obtained from the Lord help and encouragement.
For quite a while her trouble did not increase but later she had to enter hospital in Wick. On visiting her there and suggesting a Scripture reading, she immediately asked that the first portion of the 14th chapter of John’s Gospel be read viz. “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” And when finally laid up in bed at home the aforesame part of the Word of God seemed to be precious to her heart and strengthening to her faith. A fortnight before she died she said “her heart was full of joy because she knew she was going to glory.” On seeing her husband affected visibly in hearing this, she further remarked, “Don’t grudge me to the Lord.” She expressed the hope that all her family might follow her to glory. Her desire was that they would find her Saviour and life everlasting in Him. She died on Friday, 10th June, 1977. On the day of the funeral from the home at Achavarn, many gathered from a wide area, to show their respect for this worthy woman, and to express their sympathy with the sorrowing husband and family and relations. She is greatly missed in the Wick congregation.
“Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him” (1st Thessalonians 4:14).
R.R.S.
Mr Finlay Beaton, Inverness
This worthy man was born in the family home in Corran, Shieldaig, Torridon, the only son of a family of 4, the last surviving sister attaining a ripe old age in America, of God-fearing parents who brought up their children to fear God and keep His commandments. Before the end of the last century, the family moved to Inverness and in the house where the family ultimately settled on Greig Street, our friend continued to reside almost continuously till the day of his death. His education he received in the old Raining’s School at that time under the Rector, Alexander MacBain, who is well known in Gaelic speaking circles for his Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language. Mr MacBain, besides being an erudite Celtic scholar, was a successful teacher who left his mark on a succession of pupils who later occupied important positions in the town and throughout the country. Any promising youth with an inclination for study or an enquiring mind received in this school a thorough training for his future life. There is no doubt that from this period of his life may be traced those habits of concentration, clearness of diction and love of books which followed him through life. Finlay became dux of the school and used the money of the accompanying scholarship, valid, we believe, for the whole Highland area, to further his education.
Lack of funds prevented him from entering the university.
As a youth he trained to be a marine engineer in Glasgow and like many others who came from the Highlands to the city came under the ministry of the late Rev. N. Cameron, St Jude’s. Eternity alone will reveal how many of the youths from the Northern and Western Highlands were moulded in their views and practices by the clear Calvinism of this eminent servant of Christ. After a few years of sea-faring life, he returned to Inverness some time around the outbreak of the First Civil War. He suffered much during the war years for his conscientious scruples over the lawfulness of armed conflict as a means of settling international disputes. He joined the Inverness congregation and in 1925 was elected to the eldership and thereafter his life ran in the quiet and uneventful channels of Church life and service. He was made missionary to the Stratherrick congregation where he went from home each Saturday evening to conduct the Sabbath services and returned on the Monday. This practice he maintained for many years, continuing to do so for some years after the joint congregation of the Strath had a minister of their own settled over them. A man of strongly held views which he could present when he liked with forceable arguments, he lived for the Cause of the Redeemer whom he served with single-hearted devotion, involving himself at times in controversy when he felt it to be his duty to act in defence of the faith of the Gospel. In the painful dispute which broke out in the Inverness congregation, leading to the departure of some of our families and the legal action which followed in the Court of Session, Edinburgh, he played a prominent part. That the congregation of Inverness, though sadly reduced, emerged from this trial with no greater loss or damage was largely due to the work of Finlay Beaton who encouraged the Session and people till a minister was settled over them. Although his health was not at any time very robust, he attained the great age of 90 years. He was unmarried and carefully tended by his sister, Bella, who predeceased him by some 2 years.
He has left a detailed account of his unusual conversion. At the age of 14 in July 1897, on a bright sunny day he with 3 companions was playing on the banks of the Caledonian Canal where rafts of huge square cut logs, imported from Norway, lay in the basin of the Canal, waiting to be removed to the sawmill. While attempting to cross over on the logs, he lost his footing on the slimy surface and slipped into the water. He felt that the end had come and the whole past of his life came vividly before him, in a swift panorama all the sins of his life came flooding in. “My sins stood between me and heaven,” he says, “the sky was blood-red and all my sins were written in letters, some large and some small, but I read them all, quicker than lightning. My conscience was saying, ‘These are your sins’.” He assented to the righteousness of the sentence if he were sent to a lost eternity for his sins. The cold water numbed and paralyzed him but somehow he managed to grasp the hand of one of the boys and was pulled out of the water to safety. This experience had shaken him and he heard his companions exclaim, “Look at him, you would think that he had seen a ghost, he is so white.” Looking back years later, he could see that the black writing against a blood-red sky typified the blood of Jesus Christ which lay between his sins and God. He had to wait many years before he obtained the relief which he sought, but at length the words in John xvi, verse 24 came with power and convictions: “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name; ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” These words were blessed to his soul and brought the deliverance of the Gospel. His joy was indescribable, accompanied by a profound sense of sorrow. “I got joy with it. Oh, what joy. Just overwhelming joy and immediately behind it I saw that my sins were the cause in part of the Son of God suffering on Calvary’s tree. I was on my knees, weeping and mourning.” The words of this passage which brought such consolation were confirmed to him about this time in a sermon preached by the late Rev. N. Cameron. It was his conviction, born of this harrowing experience, that evangelical faith always precedes true repentance.
He was an inveterate and steady reader of books, rising at an early hour in the morning that the first hours of the day might be given to uninterrupted study. He gathered information from every source, the Press, Commentaries, Church History, books of Economics, Local History, of which he was an expert, but mainly he made the daily prayerful study of the Bible his chief business. And he read with the pen in his hand that he might mark and with copious notes fix and retain in his memory the most important matters which appealed to him. He was, therefore, ready with full information to discuss doctrines of theology, or abstruse subjects of the Bible in any company which made him an interesting companion in the home or travelling by the wayside. His interest in unfulfilled prophecy was well known for, having made a careful, life long study of the prophetic books of the Bible, he was at times inclined to dwell inordinately in his public exercises upon the calculations of Daniel or the highly symbolical language of Revelation. On the doctrines of the faith, however, he was always fresh and full, and at communion seasons was listened to with interest by our people in his public prayers and at the Fellowship Meetings.
He was a man of wide sympathies. His interests were not confined to the service of his own Church but he was ready to aid the Cause of the Redeemer on all occasions. For some years he acted as Secretary of the old Scottish Sabbath Observance Committee covering the North of Scotland. The great gatherings at Inverness in the cause of the Sabbath were organised by our friend, at which well known speakers were invited to give an address. His journeys in the defence of the Sabbath brought him often to London to consult the Northern M.Ps. when some fresh attack upon God’s Holy Day was being prepared in Bills coming before the House of Commons. On one occasion he was called unexpectedly to address a meeting of the Northern Members and others in a room of the House of Commons, as a member of a delegation, and left a deep impression because unlike other members, he kept close to the facts and realities of the Sabbath problem. The flood of Sabbath desecration of modern times saddened him, but not more so than the deep, stolid apathy which has penetrated the country, even in the evangelical districts of the Highlands.
He continued to do what he could as strength permitted to serve his Master to the end. He was one of the last links with the early days of the Free Presbyterian Church, as he knew personally Rev. D. MacFarlane and Rev. D. MacDonald and most of the Constitutionalists who took part in the events of 1893 and was not an uncritical observer of their actions. In 1971, at the age of 88, he went as a member of a visiting party to the Holy Land and was particularly interested in the spot where Stephen was stoned to death and “the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet whose name was Saul.” Three weeks before the end, he went to his old congregation of Stratherrick and delivered his last address on part of the 7th chapter of Revelation, verses 12-17, concentrating especially on the last 2 verses: “They shall hunger no more neither thirst any more . . .” The liberty and unction with which he spoke impressed the hearers with the conviction that his own soul was enjoying the foretaste of the heavenly blessedness and glory which await the saints. His death so soon afterwards heightened this conviction. He was about to enter our Ballifary Home of Rest at Inverness, when on the morning of 5th December 1974 in Raigmore Hospital, he heard the summons to go up higher. He will be greatly missed. His memory will be cherished by many. “The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance” — Ps. cxii, verse 6.
A.F.M.