THE Lord who is above is calling to His saints below to gather unto Him. They are said to be “taken away from the evil that is to come.” Many of our people will remember the subject of these lines, who resided at the Mound, near Golspie, for over 46 years, and whose house was a resting place to many who confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims here, and who looked for a city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God.
Her husband was called away in the prime of life, and at a time when the Lord’s people expected that he might be useful in His cause, but their thoughts were not the thoughts of the Lord. He sets the bounds of our habitations, and all must leave when His time comes. But although deprived of her earthly husband, we believe she was enabled through grace to lean upon Him who said, “I will betroth thee unto me for ever.” Before her husband died, the hand of the Lord was on her body in affliction, and she was never after in what is called perfect health, which weakness very often kept her from the public means of grace. But, if prevented from the public means, she sought in private “the beloved” of the Church. Naturally meek, and a woman of peace, the grace of God made her meeker. Her humility and self-denial were very manifest. She would often leave the room where some of the Lord’s people would be, saying shyly, “I am afraid a black sinner like me will drive the Spirit of the Lord from them.” Her words were few, but always exhibiting what she knew herself to be and what the Lord is as He reveals Himself in the gospel.
Her love to the Lord’s people abounded, and at times when none would be expected, she would tell her family to prepare as they might have visitors before long, which often came to pass that very day; and as she sat by them, she was “swift to hear and slow to speak.” She said many times that since James Matheson (Clashnacrabh) died, she could not speak much to any person about the things of the soul. This James was himself sorely tempted and kept down by Satan’s wiles, and could understand and comfort the weak who were, through fear of death, subject to bondage.
We read that “the path of the just is as the shining light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day,” and it was so in her case. Some time before the Lord called her away she would utter the passages of Scripture that would come home to her mind, saying, “I once was afraid, but cannot now keep them back.” At other times she said, “I did not think that one could be so happy here. The Lord is kind to me.” About a year before she ended her course her memory failed her in natural things, but in the Word of God she was at home. A passage she often had was, “I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.” One of the ancient fathers said, “The tranquil God tranquillises all to whom He comes.” Anyone who ever visited her could not but feel that she was one with a tranquil spirit. She followed the Lord’s people as they followed Christ. She was a great lover of the Free Presbyterian Church. Although she never got the strength to become a member in full communion with the Church, she manifested in her walk and conversation that she had fellowship with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. And as she drew near her end, she could no longer hide the light that shone in her. “He is good to me,” she would say, “He has ever been good to me, but I have been a black sinner. I cannot hope in any person or thing but in Himself. Although my body is in the world, my mind is not in it. I am weary in it.” She would try to sing to the very last, and when strength failed, one could see her lips moving, her breath venting what she could not utter in words. The day she died, with eyes no longer able to see (being glazed by death), as the 103rd Psalm in metre was read at her bedside, she put up her hand to feel the reader. Thus in peace she passed away, we believe, to perfect peace above, where His redeemed reign with Christ in glory. Her mortal remains were laid in the grave beside those of her husband in the burying ground at Golspie to await the sound of the last trumpet, when the Lord’s redeemed shall be raised in glory. She was a lover of peace in her life, and in the middle of November last she got a day of peace to her grave.
Mrs. Fraser left a family of two sons and a daughter, to whom we would desire to extend the sincerest sympathy. May the Lord Himself spread His skirt over them, for it alone will protect the sinner from the wrath to come!
E. M.