BY THE REV. D. BEATON, WICK.
(Continued from page 219.)
MRS. WILLIAM VEITCH.
MARION FAIRLIE was born in 1638. Both her parents were eminent for piety, and she received all the privileges of a careful religious training. According to her own testimony it pleased God of His great goodness, early to incline her heart to seek Him and to make her to see that nothing but the righteousness of Christ could save from the wrath to come. She says: “One day having been at prayer, and coming into the room where one was reading a letter of Mr. Rutherford’s (then only in manuscript) directed to one John Gordon of Rosco, giving an account how far one might go, and yet prove a hypocrite and miss heaven, it occasioned great exercise to me. Misbelief said, I should go to hell; but one day at prayer, the Lord was graciously pleased to set home upon my heart that word, ‘To whom, Lord, shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life’ (John vi. 68). And at another time, that word, ‘Those that seek me early shall find me’ (Prov. viii. 17).”
In 1664 she was married to William Veitch, son of Rev. John Veitch who had been ejected from Roberton. It was a marriage, as far as worldly prospects were concerned, which had a very dark outlook, and many of her friends did their utmost to dissuade her from entering into the union. Naturally all this caused her no small anxiety, and in her perplexity she betook herself for counsel to Him who alone can give it in its truest and best sense. And in connection with this matter she records:—”His word in this has been a tried word to me, worthy to be recorded, to encourage me to trust Him for the future; who heretofore has not only provided well for me and mine, but made me in the places where my lot was cast useful to others, and made that word good, ‘As having nothing, and yet possessing all things’ (2 Cor. vi. 10).”
They were scarcely married two years when the storm of persecution broke on their home. It was the period following the rising that ended so disastrously for the Covenanters at the Pentland Hills. The fury of the persecutors was kindled to a white heat. Her husband had joined the Covenanters and was strongly supported in his action by Mrs. Veitch. On the fateful night she entertained some of the officers who had escaped at her house, while in the deepest concern as to the fate of her husband. At last intelligence reached her that he had escaped, and after wandering about for some time he at last escaped into England. After his escape Mrs. Veitch was greatly molested by bands of troopers coming to her house in search of her husband—these visits were usually paid during the night. At last her husband advised her to give up the farm and take up her residence in Edinburgh. In 1672 she went to England to live with her husband, who went from place to place preaching the Gospel to English Nonconformists. In her diary Mrs. Veitch has the following entry bearing on her experiences in England:—”Being deprived of what once I had in Scotland, I renewed my suit to God for me and mine, and that was that He would give us the tribe of Levi’s inheritance, ‘For the Lord God was their inheritance’ (Josh. xiii. 33). When I entered into a strange land, I besought the Lord that He would give me food to eat and raiment to put on, and bring me back to set His glory in Scotland. This promise was exactly made out to me.”
While at Stantonhill Mr. Veitch met with new persecution at the hand of the incumbent, who was a Scotsman. The first attempt to apprehend him failed, but the second was successful. On Sabbath, 19th January, 1679, Major Oglethorpe, with a party of dragoons, in the early morning while the family were asleep, broke in the doors and took Mr. Veitch prisoner. Mrs. Veitch thus describes her own feelings during the scene of disorder and confusion which attended the apprehension of her husband:—”It bred some trouble and new fears to my spirit; but He was graciously pleased to set home that word, ‘He does all things well’ (Mark vii. 37); ‘Trust in the Lord and fear not what man can do’ (Psalm lvi. 11); which brought peace to me in such measure, that I was made often to wonder; for all the time the officers were in the house He supported me, so that I was not in the least discouraged before them, which made Major Oglethorpe say he wondered to see me. I told him I looked to a higher hand than his in this, and I knew he could not go one hair breadth beyond God’s permission. He answered, that He permits His enemies to go a great length sometimes. They took him to prison, where he lay twelve days.” Those were anxious times for Mr. Veitch’s devoted wife. Her husband had already the sentence of death passed upon him for high treason for his participation in the Pentland Rising, and now that he was in the hands of the Government she might well expect that the sentence would be carried into execution. Besides all this she was left with a young family of six children in a strange land with no prospective means of support. In her straits she besought the help of One that is mighty. “I was under much exercise of spirit,” she says, “which made me go to God many times on his behalf. He made that word often sweet to me, ‘He performeth the things appointed for me’ (Job xxiii. 14); and that, ‘He is of one mind, and who can turn Him?’ (verse 13). Much means were used for his liberty, but all to no effect, which bred new errands to God for him and me. But misbelief coming in and telling many ill tales of God, was like to discourage me; to wit, that I was a stranger in a strange land, and had six small children, and little in the world to look to. But He comforted me with these words :—
‘O why art thou cast down, my soul ;
What should discourage thee ?
And why with vexing thoughts art thou
Disquieted in me ?
Still trust in God ; for Him to praise
Good cause I yet shall have ;
He of my count’nance is the health,
My God that doth me save.’
PSALM xliii. 5.
“At length He helped me to give him freely to Him, to do with him as He pleased; and if his blood should fill up the cup of the enemy, and bring about deliverance to His church, I would betake myself to His care and providence for me and my children. . . . And while I was yet speaking to God in prayer, that word was wonderfully brought into my mind, ‘Abraham, hold thy hand, for I have provided a sacrifice’ (Gen. xxii. 11-12), which comforted me concerning my husband; and that word, ‘The meal in the barrel shall not waste, nor the oil in the cruse, until the Lord send rain on the earth’ (1 Kings xvii. 14), which brought much peace to my troubled spirit concerning my family. I thought I had now ground to believe he should not die; but misbelief soon got the upper hand and told me that it was not the language of faith, which put me to go to God, and pour out my spirit before Him. And He answered me with that word, ‘They that walk in darkness, and have no light, let them trust in the Lord, and stay themselves on their God!’ (Isaiah l. 10), which refreshed me much, and gave me more ground to believe my husband should not die.” New trials were awaiting Mrs. Veitch to try her faith. After having been eleven days in prison, her husband received intimation that he was to be taken to Scotland, to be tried there. Her husband wrote her asking her to come immediately to see him. “When I opened the letter,” she says, “he [i.e., her husband], had that expression, ‘Deep calleth unto deep.’ But He was pleased to send home that word, ‘Good is the word of the Lord,’ which silenced much my misbelief.” In obedience to her husband’s request, she set off at once on horseback to Morpeth where he lay, riding through a severe storm of snow. She reached Morpeth at midnight, but was not permitted to see her husband until next day, and then only in the presence of a guard of soldiers. She had been only a short time with him when the trumpets and drums sounded as signal for the march. Mr. Veitch was carried to Edinburgh, where he was thrown into prison. “All these things,” she writes, “were against me, and conspired to frighten me; but that word being set home wonderfully supported me, ‘Fear thou not the fear of man, but let the Lord be your fear and your dread’ (Isaiah viii. 12-13). I went after to a friend’s house in the town, and wept my fill, and some friends with me. He desired that a day might be kept [for offering up prayers in his behalf] which was done in several places of the country. I went home to my children, having one upon the breast. I was under much exercise about him, and it was my suit to Him, who, I can say is a present help in time of trouble, that he might be kept from the evil of sin; which He was graciously pleased to answer.” Mr. Veitch has left on record an interesting account of the noble way his wife conducted herself in the hour of her great trial. “Trouble and anguish,” he says, “did now compass her about in this darkest hour of her twelve years’ night of affliction. Her soul melteth for heaviness and grief; she is now in deep waters in a foreign land, far from her relations, friends and acquaintances; distress and desolation at home, and destruction and death abroad; the sad report whereof, with trembling, she expects every day, because of the fury of the oppressor. This puts her on a most serious exercise and firm resolution to take God for all. He should be the husband, and He should be the farm; He should be the stock and the crop; He should be the provider, the food and the raiment, the master of the family, and the father of the children; yea, she resolved to cleave faster unto this relation than Ruth did to Naomi, for that which parted them should bring her to the greatest nearness, most inseparable and comfortable communion with her God. Thus, while deep called unto deep, she held by her compass, and followed the precedents of the Word. Her prayer was in this night to the God of her life, and, Jacob-like, she gave it not over till she got a new lease of her husband’s life granted her, which, when she obtained, she wrote an encouraging letter to him at Berwick (the weaning of her child, Sarah, not suffering her yet to visit him), telling him that he should be, like Isaac, with the knife to his throat, near to death; but the Lord would find a sacrifice, and the enemy should be restrained. She wished him also not to be anxious about his family, for the meal and the oil—little as it was—should not fail, not only till he returned, but also the kingdom of heaven. These instances, so clearly and convincingly borne in upon her, gave her good ground to say with the Psalmist, ‘Thy word is my comfort in all my afflictions.’ Her prayers and pleadings were turned to praises, and His statutes were her ‘songs in the house of her pilgrimage,’ and she was persuaded that her night would yet have a day succeeding it wherein He would, as a special favour to her and her family, command His loving-kindness.”
It may be here related that about this time a Mr. Bell, one of Mr. Veitch’s most inveterate persecutors, met with an awful death. He had been drinking with the curate at Pontiland until about ten o’clock at night, when he expressed his intention of going home. The curate did all that he could to dissuade him, as the night was dark and stormy, and the River Pont, which he had to cross, much swollen with rains. In the hope of detaining him, he took his watch from him and locked up his horse in the stable, but nothing could keep the infatuated man from pressing on to meet his fate. A few days after he was found in the River Pont, standing dead. His hat and his gloves were on, and his boots and gloves were much worn, evidently by the struggles he had been making to get out. In her Diary Mrs. Veitch has the following remarks on this incident:—”The whole country about was astonished at that dispensation, and often said to me these would not trouble my husband again; for they all knew that he was an enemy to my husband. I told them, they that would not take warning from the Word of God would never take warning from that. That Scripture was often borne in upon my spirit, ‘Rejoice not at the fall of thine enemy, lest He see it and be displeased.'” She adds: “I bless the Lord I was not in the least lifted up with it; for His Word was my counsellor. In all my doubts and fears it was as refreshing to me as ever meat and drink were. There are none that study to make the Word of God the rule of their walk, and when grace is master of the house, but they will say, as David said when Shimei railed on him, ‘Let him alone; God hath bidden him; who knows but he will requite blessings for cursings?’ But when corrupt nature is master, it will say, ‘Cut off the head of the dog.’ But I am much in grace’s debt; that kept me back from being of Shimei’s frame.”
Mrs. Veitch did not come north to Scotland with her husband, but on receiving a letter from him, she set her face northwards, leaving her young children behind in England. On reaching Edinburgh she was gratified to learn that there was a prospect of her husband being set free, but these good tidings were followed immediately by others of a more doleful kind. Word came down from headquarters that the sentence of death, passed upon him for high treason, should be put in execution. It was a heavy blow to Mrs. Veitch, but her faith did not fail her; in all her straits her God was a present helper. And in His wonderful over-ruling providence, the sentence was not put into execution, and some time afterwards Mr. Veitch was released from prison.
Driven from place to place, her husband, on receiving a good appointment in America, made up his mind to sail to the New World, where he would have liberty to worship God according to what he deemed the scriptural way. The thought of leaving Scotland—scorched with the fires of persecution, it is true, but still a land highly favoured of heaven—was a sore wrench to Mrs. Veitch. “I thought,” she says, “in my old days I could have no heart for such a voyage, and leave these covenanted lands; but at length I got submission to my God, and was content if He had more service for me and mine in another land. For I had opened my mouth and given me and mine to Him and His service, when and where and what way He pleased, and I could not go back; but if I went there, I would hang my harp upon the willows when I remembered Scotland.” But it was not so to be. She had other trials to undergo, but these were not to be in America.
On the discovery of the Rye house Plot, in which Mr. Veitch had been concerned, an order had been issued for his seizure, so he fled to Holland. While her husband was abroad, her third son took ill and died. The mother, however, had the great consolation that Christ had become all in all to the child. He frequently repeated the words—”Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee.” This was more to Mrs. Veitch, as she testified, “than if he had been made heir to a great estate.” The end was peculiarly affecting. The dying child prayed for all his brothers and sisters; then bade those of them who were present, farewell. At last he put up his hands and closed his eyes. “So we parted,” says his mother, “in the hope of a glorious meeting.”
The day of God’s vengeance was fast approaching when the oppressor was to feel the weight of His judgments. Charles II. was now dead; James was on the throne, and already a plan was being formulated, which in the providence of God was to be successful. In 1688 James was driven from the throne, and Mr. Veitch became minister respectively of Peebles and Dumfries. She died in 1722, aged 84; her husband dying a day after, aged 82. They had been married for fifty-eight years. Their history was checkered by many trials, but He who had carried them safely through saw meet to take them home together to their everlasting rest.
Reference has already been made to the happy outgate her son John had though only a child. Her seventh son, Ebenezer, was educated for the ministry, and afterwards became minister of Ayr. When attending the Commission of the General Assembly at Edinburgh, 1706, he was seized with a dangerous sickness. Feeling his end was near, he called his wife to his bedside, and gave her the parting kiss commanding her to God, “who,” he said, “has been all in all to me.” Then turning to some ministers who were in the room, he said:—”Ye passengers for glory, how near, think you, am I to the New Jerusalem?” One answered, “Not far, sir!” To which he replied, “I’ll wait and climb until I be up amongst that innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect.” His mother makes reference to him in her Diary, as follows:—”It need not be a surprisal to me, for near a year before his death, he preached upon these words, ‘Remember, Lord, how short my time is’; and when he was at home with his family in Ayr, in prayer he would be so transported with the joys of heaven, as if he would have flown away; and his young wife would often say to him, it was a terror to her to hear him so much upon death; but he said it was none to him; so he lived desired, and died lamented.”
Correction.
We regret that a mistaken correction was inserted in the July number. “J.B.” not “F.B.” were the correct initials as appended to poem in the June number, entitled, “The Rising of the Romish Church in Britain.”