It is with a keen feeling of our loss that we write this small tribute to maintain in our own recollection and that of our readers the name of one who shall be in everlasting remembrance. The Holy Ghost says:—”The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour, and the righteous cry and the Lord heareth them.” In this prayerless generation the removal of one righteous, praying person is a cause both for grief and alarm.
“The righteous man perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, no one considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.”
Alexander Matheson was born of parents of irreproachable moral character at the Poles, near Dornoch, in the year 1833. As a boy and young man he was quiet, honest, careful, sober and industrious. He lived a very inoffensive life towards men, but was without God and without hope in this world. He continued in this state till he was about 41 years of age. As he was a most reticent man about everything pertaining to himself, very little is known about the mental conflict through which he passed at that time. It is known, however, that the writings of John Bunyan and Thomas Boston, along with the Word of God, were, in the hand of the Holy Spirit, the means by which he not only saw himself a lost sinner but saw also the way of salvation through Christ crucified. He held these two great men of God in the highest veneration, and accounted their works to be of great value. He said to a friend:—”I believe if ministers are not faithful they will not be used as instruments for taking a soul from darkness to light, and if any change came over myself it was by reading the works of great and worthy authors.”
When he felt constrained to profess Christ publicly, he passed through a great conflict. A mother in Israel—the widow of Gustavus Munro—said to him:—”If the lepers stayed where they were, they would certainly have died; but when they ventured to go to the camp of the Syrians they got plenty for themselves, and brought good news to the king’s house.” He was from that day more afraid to stay back than to go forward. There were some known to him in after life of whose godliness he had no doubt, and who refrained from professing Christ before the world, to whom he said more than once:—”Ah, will not His love constrain you?”
In 1893 he cast in his lot with the Free Presbyterian Church. He must have felt his position very keenly, as he was of a modest, humble and unostentatious disposition, and had to separate from a man of the late Dr. Aird’s position and popularity in the Church, and more especially in his own congregation. He told us that the lecture which Dr. Aird delivered to his congregation in 1892 helped him very much. He thought the Dr. gave a very faithful warning to them at that time, and pointed out the revolutionary nature of the doctrines and principles of the Declaratory Act in so convincing a manner that no way was left but separation should the Church adopt it. The Dr. changed his mind, but Alexander Matheson would not change his. He had a well balanced mind—a comprehensive intellect, sound judgment, and tender conscience—and when he saw the path of duty, he concluded that it was the right way, and was more conscientious than to abandon it.
Taking the Word of God as a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path, he was kept from swerving to the right hand or to the left. He was a very serious man, but most enjoyable and free from rigidity in the company of the Lord’s people. While speaking to his fellow-sinners about the great concerns of their souls, he was most solemn and grave. The tenderness with which he would, on the Friday, appeal to the young to make good use of their valuable time and opportunities, and to consider their accountability to God for all, was often very affecting. He was a true lover of the godly; but his great interest in the young, his kindness to them, and the delight it gave him to see them attentive on the means of grace, was noticeable to all who knew him. As an office-bearer he was prudent, tender, but very firm, and never consulted with flesh and blood about the affairs of God’s house. He went down to the grave deploring the ruin of the Free Church of Scotland. He often said to a friend:—”How thankful ought we to be as a people, and weak Church as we are, that we have gospel ministers, not hirelings.”
Two years ago serious symptoms betokening organic disease of the heart caused his own family and the few friends to whom it was revealed a good deal of anxiety. He was quite resigned and composed though realizing the danger, and looked after his business to the last. The last thing he did in the world was about the cause of Christ. He went to a neighbour’s house to write notices to the people that the following day was to be observed as a thanksgiving day for the harvest, came straight home, and complained to Mrs. Matheson that he felt pain about the heart. She hastened to procure hot appliances, but was hardly out of the room when he struck his hand across his breast and expired in the arms of his own son. The summons was very sudden at last, but his anchor was within the vail.
He left a widow and a large family to mourn his loss. They have many sympathisers both in the north and south, for Alex. Matheson was a man greatly beloved. May the Lord take the sons instead of the father, and make them noble princes in the earth!