MASTER MARINER, WICK, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE,
2ND FEBRUARY, 1902, AGED 91 YEARS.
HIS ship is at the land, he hears not now
Rude seas that war far off the Pentland shore;
Nor mist, nor baffling night can vex his prow,
His light is come, his sun shall set no more.
Pilot and Shepherd of the ransomed! Thou
Right well hast done the thing ordained before;
Across life’s thorny waste, its perilous foam,
Or soon, or late, Thou bring’st Thy loved ones home.
Home now! and well; for us, alas! not well,
We travel late; our sun is shorn and low!
He saw a brighter sun, I heard him tell,
Of heavenly days in Assynt long ago;
What time the holy ordinance befell
Killearnan’s famous saint would sweetly blow
‘The gospel trump. Oh! years of God’s right hand,
Blest days of glory dwelling in the land.
Example fair of brighter days agone
Was he, the man deplored, my heart reveres,
Like Polycarp who saw the apostle John,
And served his Master six-and-eighty years;
So he, down life’s long vista followed on,
And trod the shining path of saints and seers;
Then passed the veil at length and entered in
Where there is no more sorrow, no more sin.
Long since thy choice was made; in early youth
God’s Spirit set his seal upon thy heart;
With awe and beauty of His saving truth,
Allured thee on to choose the better part.
Then drawn to Israel’s God like happy Ruth,
Henceforth thou plied’st the heavenly gleaner’s art
In Christ’s own field, abiding fast till even,
Joying to treasure up the corn of heaven.
Deep in thy fervid Celtic soul had place
The strong sublime theology of Paul;
Thou knewest well the covenant of grace,
And deep had’st weighed the mystery of the fall.
Well would’st thou touch the needy sinner’s case,
Not using feigned or flattering words at all;
Savoury, but short the prayer thou did’st make,
Aye closing “for the Mediator’s sake.”
Thy lot was on the sea; the Norway foam
Thou bravest oft though baffling gales beset thee,
Trading far off beside Czar Peter’s dome,
Or homeward swift as winds and waves would let thee.
Then when at length uprose the light of home,
How warm the smile that at the threshold met thee!
Blest wert thou in the partner of thy youth,
A woman kind who knew God’s grace in truth.
Those locks of flaxen hue in manly prime,
When I beheld them, all were snowy white,
Past then the voyaging to foreign clime,
No more he followed in the sea-bird’s flight.
Serene at home, he sped life’s evening time,
Awaiting calm the coming of the night;
A grand old man, whose speech was frank and free,
As well befits a veteran of the sea.
A character more whole ’tis rare to find;
Sagacious, solid, self-possessed was he,
His upright form a picture of his mind—
His master thought was God’s supreme decree.
His piety was of the wholesome kind,
From vain pretence and grim austereness free ;
On men and things with kindly eye he looked,
And children frolicked round him unrebuked.
Detached from time, as one of God’s elect,
But neighbourlike and human all the while,
In all his ways transparent and direct,
And most remote from Jesuitic guile.
Pure hearted, clean, in manners circumspect,
And never known to injure or revile
His friend or e’en his foe ; this way he trod
The path that leadeth up the hill of God.
Calmly, of yore, he stood when fell the rage
Of equinoctial gales around his deck ;
And when the blustering spirit of the age
Drove many a fair professor’s bark to wreck,
Calmly he rode in Faith’s sure anchorage,
Nor bowed to error’s blast his steadfast neck ;
The noise of godless critics never shook
His constant trust upon God’s Holy Book.
A well-informed, communicative man,
Who viewed the world with thoughtful observation ;
Addicted much the daily press to scan,
To learn how fares the Church, the King, the nation ;
A lofty, patriotic spirit ran
Through all his thinking and his conversation ;
He loved the good old Reformation rule—
The Bible in the State, the home, the school.
Oh ! many a time thy hospitable board—
Thou sitting by—was a fair sight to see,
For friends beloved, and brethren in the Lord
Delighted much to seek thy company ;
And some are gone before to their reward,
And some remain to miss and mourn for thee,
And when they meet again how blank the space ;
How sore the want of thy familiar face !
Oh ! face familiar, hid within the tomb,
Deplored thou art, but not with hopeless sorrow ;
Through the short night rest in thy narrow room,
Assured gladness greets thee on the morrow.
The angel’s trump (to thee no trump of doom),
Restores the form the grave did only borrow,
That manly form, that face instinct with truth,
To shine in vigour of immortal youth.
J. M’N.