MRS. DAVIDSON, TOMATIN.
ALTHOUGH the Free Presbyterian Church be but comparatively small in numbers, the number of the trees of God that were among us at the outset is only now being realised when one after another of the most prominent has been or is being gathered home. Pressure of other unavoidable work must be our excuse for leaving unnoticed for so long a time more than one to whom love and admiration were moving us to pay a tribute however slight. Among these we must not defer longer in making mention of the late Mrs. Davidson, Tomatin, a woman who endeared herself to a large number of the Lord’s people, as indeed almost all who from far or near came to attend religious services at Tomatin formed some acquaintance with her.
Mrs. Davidson, whose maiden name was Janet Sinclair, was born at Lairgandour, parish of Daviot, in the year 1824. When she was but very young, her father, John Sinclair, a farmer to occupation, removed to Ballintruan, in the same parish, and again, when the subject of this notice was about thirteen years of age, he further removed to the farm of Easter Daltulich, in the parish of Croy. Easter Daltulich was Janet Sinclair’s home up to the year 1852, when she became the wife of Samuel Davidson, blacksmith at Findhorn Bridge, Tomatin. From 1852 to the 17th day of December, 1911, when she finished her course here below, her home was at Findhorn Bridge.
Although we are not able to give a narrative of Mrs. Davidson’s religious life and experiences, her great appreciation of the Gospel way of salvation was a sure token of her being from an early age the subject of a gracious and saving change. Probably she owed more to the late Rev. Archibald Cook as an instrument in God’s hand than to any other person whatsoever. When her father came to Easter Daltulich about 1838, Mr. Archibald Cook was then minister of the North Church, Inverness. Although distant some seven miles from Inverness, and although having his home in another parish (Croy), John Sinclair with his family attended upon Mr. Cook’s ministry. And when Mr. Cook in 1844 removed from Inverness to Daviot, John Sinclair, such was the regard he had for Mr. Cook, brought his family on the Lord’s Day to Farr, Daviot. In John Sinclair’s house, too, at Easter Daltulish, Mr. Cook regularly held an annual diet of catechising. Nor was Mrs. Davidson by her marriage cut off from this valued ministry, but, on the contrary, she was in some senses brought more in touch with Mr. Cook than had previously been her lot. During almost all the time that Mr. Cook was minister of Daviot, part of his responsibility was the Free Church people of Moy and
Dalarossie. He on this account went once in every three Sabbaths to preach in Tomatin, as well as devoted a considerable time every year to catechising the people of this district. As Mrs. Davidson’s home was within easy stone’s throw of the church in which Mr. Cook preached, she had the privilege not only of hearing him preach and catechise, but also of entertaining him as a guest in her own home. A few years before Mr. Cook discontinued going to Moy Mrs. Davidson became a communicant. Mr. Cook’s memory was thus cherished as something very precious on the part of Mrs. Davidson, and when in 1907, a volume of Mr. Cook’s Gaelic and English sermons was published, she hailed the publication with delight, and read the sermons over and over again.
Mr. Cook was not able to carry on services at Moy after 1861, and in the following year, the Free Church congregation there had placed over them as pastor the late Rev. John Baillie. The latter’s preaching, Mrs. Davidson truly appreciated, but still more so the more searching preaching of the Rev. Donald Macfarlane (now Free Presbyterian minister at Dingwall), who succeeded Mr. Baillie in Moy.
Nor was profound appreciation of the Gospel as preached the only mark and fruit of regeneration which our late friend bore. The writer on one occasion asked a pious woman, an intimate acquaintance of Mrs. Davidson’s, whether she thought Mrs. Davidson was a person who experienced much soul conflict in her life’s history. The answer, we believe a very truthful one, was to the effect that about the particulars in that conflict she could not say much, but that she had good knowledge that Mrs. Davidson was well fitted to give guidance and comfort to others who were no strangers to soul conflict. Mrs. Davidson’s disposition was naturally so placid that she could hide from others her own sufferings. But she had her own heavy share of afflictions, and in the case of one so tender-hearted as she was, the adverse dispensations of Providence through which she was made to pass must have been very trying. For instance, within a few years, she was called to mourn the removal by death of four of her family, two sons and two daughters, just as they were attaining to manhood and to womanhood. She nursed them all unweariedly, as they successively fell ill, and as in the course of five years they were successively taken from her, she manifested the beauty of her Christian character in that next to the salvation of her dear ones nothing seemed to concern her so much as the making the affliction as light as possible to her like-minded husband—who predeceased her by about seventeen years—and to the remaining two sons and two daughters. She was enabled to bear all this heavy ordeal without murmuring, and the language of her deeds if not of her words was: “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Another feature of Mrs. Davidson’s character that is worthy of
commemoration was her hospitableness. It was not only that she would in a kind way give hospitably to strangers when for a few days they visited her, but she had the greatest delight in so doing, nor did any seem to be more welcome than the poorest of the flock who resorted to Moy, drawn by their spiritual needs. In this way Mrs. Davidson came to have a very intimate and deep acquaintance with many of the most tried of the Lord’s people.
Mrs. Davidson always took a close interest in the Church’s testimony for divine truth, and when in 1893 a witness had to be borne for the truth of the Reformed Faith as expressed in our Confession, she did not hesitate to cast in her lot with the Free Presbyterians. She often in this connection referred to a sermon which she heard the late Rev. Donald MacDonald, Shieldaig, preach at the Inverness Communion in February of 1894, a sermon in which Mr. MacDonald warned his hearers against disloyalty to the truth witnessed for, and a sermon that made quite a lasting impression upon herself.
She was not very robust in her later years, a circumstance which was not a wonder to those who knew what severe illnesses and what other trials she had in her life passed through. But as long as it was at all possible, she made it a matter of conscience to be regular in her attendances at the services which were held a few yards from her door. Even as lately as July, 1909, although by that time she had through increasing weakness found it impossible to attend the ordinary services, she, revived no doubt through seeing so many of the Lord’s people about her, was present at most of the Communion services in connection with the Free Presbyterian congregation at Tomatin. In the Spring of 1910 she had a very bad turn, and in fact was ever afterwards mostly confined to bed. About two months before the end came, she became much weaker, and it was evident to herself and to her family that the end was not far away. During this last period she seemed to be much exercised in making a fresh review of her life, and of the Lord’s dealings with her, especially in regard to her many privileges. In the end this also was to her comfort, and she seemed to rest in that passage: “I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; rejoicing in the habitable parts of His earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.” Within an hour of her departure she asked a chapter to be read, making mention at the same time of part of the last chapter of First Peter. After the portion now mentioned and other portions of Scripture were read to her, as if conscious that the appointed time had come, she closed her eyes, and breathing out passages of Scripture in a prayer which was scarcely audible to the nearest, she without again opening her eyes passed gently away. This, as we have said, was on the 17th day of December, 1911.
With her bereaved family we feel the sincerest sympathy.
J. R. M.