JESSIE RUSSELL was born at Croy, where her father served as a gardener. Not long after Jessie was born, her father got an appointment in Edinburgh, but Jessie, being the stronger of twin sisters, was left with a maternal aunt who lived at Dores, where she remained till she was of age to go to service.
At the age of seventeen she got a situation in Inverness, in which town she remained till she was twenty-six, when the Lord laid His hand on her body. The furnace of affliction is not sweet to flesh and blood. Jessie felt it very hard to lose her sight. The apple of the eye is a tender part of the human body, and very dear to all living beings. Her whole nature rebelled. Her prospects in life were to be blighted. She consulted many physicians, and reached an Edinburgh Professor; but she was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. She had to part with both her eyes, but it is clear that it was for her eternal good. Until that time she lived like others, without God, or hope in the world. In this forlorn condition she returned to her aunt to Dores, and took to her bed, as she thought, to rise no more, and in mind resembled Jonah, “angry unto death.” In after years she would, with a subdued heart, say, “What a wonder the Lord did not cut me down in my sins!” but that was “the month wherein the wild ass” was to be caught.
One of the days during which she lay in bed repining, her aunt asked her to get up, as she had to go out to do some work on the land. Shortly after Jessie got up a “Teacher of the Blind” came to the house, asking for her, and left with her a card with the alphabet for the blind, and asked her to begin at once to learn. Jessie began to remonstrate with him, saying that she would never manage to learn, but the man was insistent and left her, and before she went to bed that night she could read all the letters.
Next week he again visited her, having with him one of Paul’s Epistles to Timothy. Jessie began that Epistle, and found it to be God’s message to her. Before she was once through it, she was convinced of her lost and ruined state as a sinner, and her need of Jesus Christ as her Saviour; she felt that God would be just in not only taking the sight of her bodily eyes away, but also in casting her to hell. Then she ceased to murmur for her lot as blind, but began to lament her ignorance of Christ as the Saviour, and used her fingers to find out more and more about Him who so loved as to give His own life a ransom for many, and it is clear that the Lord bestowed on her a great measure of His Spirit.
Jessie Russell became a burning and a shining light through the grace of God given unto her. She took a great interest in the cause of Christ at home and abroad. She lived alone at Dores for some years after the death of her aunt, and her room was a model for cleanliness and order, although she could not see. The Lord enabled her to order it, and use well her hands.
The first time the writer met her was in her own room at Dores in the days when worthy Alexander Fraser lived there, and he could never forget his feelings on meeting her stone blind. One felt that she read you through, and knew your thoughts. In 1893 she had no hesitation in joining the Free Presbyterian Church, for she saw and lamented the sad declension in the Free Church, and to crown all the passing of the notorious Declaratory Act confirmed her as to her duty. She joined the congregation of Inverness, and on more than one occasion was driven in from Dores to visit an old worthy lady who lived at Douglas Row, one like-minded with herself, full of faith and love. Mrs. MacKenzie would give the first place for discernment to Jessie Russell, and Jessie would give the first place to Mrs. MacKenzie, and it was a privilege and pleasure to listen to them both recounting the Lord’s dealings with their souls, under the hearing of the venerable Archibald Cook. Jessie used to relate that, when she was losing her sight, she used to think of the kind “well-to-do” friend that she depended upon to help her. “This was my folly,” she would say, “for none of those whom I looked to ever helped me in the least, but the Lord raised up friends to me, whom I had never seen with my bodily eyes.” In process of time the family, who used to show her great kindness at Dores, removed to Inverness, and took Jessie along with them. She remained for some years with that family near Tomnahurich. Many resorted to her for counsel, not only for their souls, but also for the things of time, and all who consulted her found in her a most wise counsellor.
The writer remembers coming from Beauly with a godly old man who lived at Righsamridh, called William Campbell. He had a great desire to see Jessie Russell. Being a most original fellow, it was truly touching to witness the meeting of the two worthies. William began by saying how long he desired to see her, because he considered “that there were very few so like brother and sister as the two of them, that it seemed she was so wicked that the only way by which the Lord could deal with her was to take the sight of her eyes from her, and that he himself was so ungodly that the Lord had to take the strength out of his back.” He walked with his chest bending towards his knees. Their meeting was like the meeting at the “Three Taverns.” They both rejoiced in the Lord, who had made His grace to abound to such as they were, and, as long as William lived, his meeting with Jessie Russell was counted by him among the beginning of months.
Jessie’s room was truly like the cave of Adullam in the days of David. Such as were discontented with themselves as sinners flocked to her, and many found it for the benefit of their souls to do so. She was truly a Christian lady, gentle as a lamb when standing for herself, but bold as a lion when called upon to contend for the cause of Christ. She would not change her opinion for words or gifts, and she was not afraid to inform such as would try to win her with such devices what she thought of their actions. She lived for some time in Academy Street with a Miss Cameron. We met her there, and heard wise words from her. She attended church sometimes from there. But her dear friend, Miss Cameron, did not get a long lease of life here below, and Jessie Russell had to change her place of abode once more, before she was taken to her eternal home. She spent the latter part of her pilgrimage with a Miss Mackintosh, in Argyle Street, and here also she was lovingly treated to the end.
If the Apostle Paul said, “I have fought a good fight,” it might be said of Jessie Russell. She had to fight with inward conflicts. She was not ignorant of Satan’s devices, yet she had the sentence of death in herself, that she might not trust in herself but in God, who raiseth the dead, and calleth the things that are not as though they were. She lived to see many changes upon some in the Free Presbyterian Church, but she was unchanged by such changes, believing that the testimony was the Lord’s, and that if He was for the despised few, He could uphold them against the mighty. She used to say, “There is one church in Inverness, and it will be there, whether you are in it or not.”
She lived to a good old age, and in old age, when others fade, she still brought forth fruit. Always keeping the dark side to Him who thought on her in her low estate, in Him she trusted, and was not put to shame, but the bright side she kept to the world, praising Christ by word and deed. She lived holily, righteously, and godly in this present evil world, saying nothing but what the law and the prophets did say. She was one of nature’s ladies, if ever there was one, and she was a trophy of free grace, which is better still. She was a true lover of Zion, and not one who wished to make divisions. She was a meek and lowly saint, who felt her own unworthiness and inward depravity, and her need of the renewing of the Holy Ghost, daily repenting of her sins, and rejoicing in the forgiveness of sins through the peace-speaking blood of Christ. She was encouraged to believe that better days are in store for the Church of God yet in the land. She believed in being faithful unto death, and, with Moses, she esteemed “the reproaches of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.” Thus she, as to her body, went under the sod without bringing a spot on her profession, and we believe her soul went to the God who gave it void of offence. To her who attended her so faithfully we tender our deepest sympathy. The Lord reward her! E. M’Q.