HOW the Israel of God in these last days are dispersed abroad, even to the ends of the earth! Thus may even the Scottish Israel be said to be everywhere scattered. The writer was much impressed with this in connection with the Australian colonies. It was an encouraging experience to find here and there over that great continent that the Lord had His hidden ones in dark corners of the world—those who, like the cloud of witnesses of old, “were persuaded of the promises, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”
When the writer was first settled on the Clarence River, New South Wales, he came in contact with an intelligent and pious widow from Badenoch, Scotland, Elizabeth Macpherson or Jones. She had attached herself to his Grafton congregation at his induction there. One of the meek of the earth, she kept rather in the background; but she welcomed him to her humble yet
comfortable home, provided for her by a dutiful son, whose own occupation kept him mostly at a distance away. She was tall, like her parents, whom she described as “big people,” from Lochaber and Argyllshire respectively. She had a corresponding energy and decision of character, chastened, as these were, with a lowliness of mind and reverence for divine things which impressed one. As a fearer of God, she made her influence felt—notably in connection with her sacred regard for the Sabbath. The desecration of the Lord’s Day around her so affected her with grief, that she got the front of her cottage specially enclosed for greater privacy. She loved the house of God, and hailed the advent to the district of what she termed a more serious and spiritual service. It gave her joy in the interest of the young especially, for whom she said it would at least be a counteractive against the prevailing levity and irreverence around. Advanced in years, she was now becoming less able than willing for public duty, hence our more frequent visitation—the intercourse at which was often suggested by her home recollections.
It was only during her last illness, however, that she ventured to communicate the deeper facts of her religious life. The rise of true religion in her soul was an experience which only came to her some years after she had left Scotland; yet in the ordering of God, there had manifestly been much paving of the way beforehand for such a change. Her early life was identified with the “Ten Years’ Conflict,” then in progress—memories of which, and especially of their consummation in the Disruption of 1843, she loved to recall. How deeply that movement had affected the Highlands, and how it had stirred the then rising generation even in remote parts, she was able to testify from her own experience. It was doubtless a time of blessing, even if the bread, being cast upon the waters, might not, for her, be found till after many days. She was only in her twenty-second year, but she was present at the first General Assembly, held in Inverness in the end of the Disruption year. It seemed long to look back to, yet she remembered having seen Dr. Chalmers and Dr. M’Donald, the Apostle of the North, walking arm in arm in the streets of the Highland capital. The former she described as tall and spare, with a bend; and the latter as a stout, big man. Although unconverted herself, her sympathies were not with the “Moderates.” Badenoch, she said, had then a “lifeless minister”—referred to in the Fathers of Ross-shire as having been found dead in bed. Dr. M’Donald favoured them with visits in their desolation. In his compassion for them, as sheep not having a shepherd, the first thing he would say from the pulpit was that he had the care of their parish as much on his mind as the case of his own flock. It all remained vividly in her own mind. Yet, notwithstanding her opportunities, and the awakening influences with which she was then in contact, she continued a stranger to experimental religion. And she had heard the great preacher about a hundred times!
Even so, the word preached did not profit her—not having been mixed with faith. Dr. M’Donald’s voice, she said, was like thunder; still she slept on in her sins—her conscience was undisturbed. That she had hardened her heart in the midst of such years of the right hand of the Most High, made it the more wonderful to her that she had obtained mercy. As, soon after, she had had to leave Scotland altogether, it had rather seemed at the time that for her the harvest was past and the summer ended, whilst yet she was unsaved.
When it came that she had to go more out into the world, she had at least the rare advantage of such early training in the ways of God. She passed a few years in England—first in connection with the domestic management of St. John’s College, Yorkshire; and then in the family of a son of the Duke of Sussex. As, however, it transpired that, by the rules of the house, every domestic had to communicate in the Church of England, she lost her position. Mentioning this, she said she could not in conscience take the Sacrament as required. Apart from other considerations, she knew that, as still unconverted, she was not fit. To one fresh from the Highlands during such a period of reviving, going to the Lord’s Table was not the mere form which it had become in England. With the subject of this sketch, it was easier to forfeit a situation than to face such a solemnity unprepared.
Refusing thus to conform against her conscience, her whole circumstances became changed. Instead of being moved by such disappointments in providence to return north, she now went further than ever from the Church of her fathers. She had not yet learned to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And so, attracted by what she had heard of the Australian colonies, she, about the year 1850, embarked for Sydney. Yet a merciful God was to find her there, as He had “found Jacob in Bethel” (Hosea xii. 4). So she recognised herself, as, looking back from the threshold of eternity, she rehearsed what God had done for her soul.
It was within three days of her end. Fully conscious that she was in the dark valley, she sought comfort by looking to the foundation of her faith, and reassuring herself as to the beginning of her confidence. Thus the Patriarch found consolation at the last in the recollection that God Almighty had appeared to him at Luz and blessed him. In Sydney she had engaged herself with a relative of Lord Clive’s. Proceeding as her strength permitted, she stated that she was married out of that house to the gardener in 1854. A few years later they went to Bridewood to the diggings. She was very lonely there—away from Church and all spiritual influence. Yet it was there in the wilderness that she went after Him—”in a land that was not sown.” It was no thundering voice of the preacher that moved her. There was none there to care for her soul. But she had the Word of God. In her solitude she heard the still small voice there as she had never done before. The Holy Spirit convinced her of sin as she
read in the 22nd Psalm and in the fourth Gospel the account of the sufferings of Christ. In particular, these words arrested her—”They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” That text she indicated as having been made the turning point with her. It was the thought, she said, that the Saviour had come so low, and that He had come through all that for her! It overwhelmed her. “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. viii. 8). Thus awakened, she could not sleep at nights. She sought to a lonely place away from her family—to an orchard they had. And there she found peace. “I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me; refuge failed me.” Yet there God met her. “I cried unto thee, O Lord; I said, thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.” It was the time of her espousals. “And for forty years,” she added, “I have known the Lord.”
As she thus recounted the past, two things specially troubled her: first, that on her sick-bed she could not love or think of Christ as she should. Her mind was not so active, she said. She could not get Christ loved according to His worth. And, second, that she was without sensible experience of His love to her. To these, however, she immediately added, “But I am trusting in Him.” The writer interjected, “What if you had to begin to prepare for death now?” Instantly she exclaimed, “I couldn’t—I could not do it.” Again reverting to the past, she went on, “He’s been very good to me; He’s been with me these forty years, and—(with solemn emphasis)—surely He won’t leave me now.” She had embraced the promise, and under death’s shade she was seeking to be still persuaded of its verity. She then repeated slowly the words of the Psalm—”Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free Spirit.” Endeavouring to hold to her the candle of the Lord as she entered the dark waters of Jordan, the writer read to her the latter part of the seventeenth chapter of John, and as he proceeded, she herself finished the verses, one after another. The Bible had been the companion of her home, and the Word dwelt in her richly, so that when unable to read, she could recall it, as now, from memory. And thus, on 24th June, 1899, there passed away, in her seventy-seventh year, this mother in Israel, holding fast the beginning of her confidence steadfastly to the end; fully persuaded that what He had promised He would also perform. “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them. . . . Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city” (Heb. xi. 13-16).
W. S.
Correction.—In notice of the late Mr. Alexander Fraser, Kiltarlity, which appeared in April, the date of his death was given as the 19th instead of the 20th February.