NORMAN MACCALLUM was born at Millhouse, Cowal, Argyllshire, on the 14th day of May 1831. His father, Hugh Maccallum, had a large family of six sons and three daughters; Norman was the second son. The only one of the family still spared is a daughter, who lives at Manchester, and is eighty-four years. Hugh Maccallum was a blacksmith to trade. He trained the most of his sons in his own smithy, and the subject of this brief obituary, having learned his father’s trade, remained at home with him. Norman Maccallum lived like his neighbours till he was about thirty years of age. In the year 1859, the late Mr Archibald Crawford, who became the Lord’s messenger to many in Cowal, began to hold public services in the church at Millhouse. These services were begun by two young men of the Baptist Church, who, holding Arminian views, taught the people that they had the power to believe in Christ as well as they had to believe in any facts of history. This was only historical faith, which caused two or three thoughtful men to visit Mr Archibald Crawford at his own house one night, to whom they said—”If this is saving faith, the doctrines we have been accustomed to are soul-ruining, and we have called to get your opinion about this serious matter.” Mr Crawford explained to the men the scriptural doctrine of justification by faith without any works of man, and proved to them that the faith these men preached was nothing else but man’s work. When they were leaving that night, they asked if he would give them further explanation should they come back next night. To this proposal he agreed. They came, and after he instructed them further as to the nature of saving faith, they told him that there were a few other men who wished to hear from him on this important matter, and asked whether he would go the next night to the house of one of them, where he could meet these men. To this he agreed on condition that they would not tell any other except those that he was to be there. They agreed to do this. But when he arrived at the house it was full of people, and a large number were standing outside who could not be accommodated inside. He called the men out, and remonstrated with them as to the breach of their promise to him. They answered that they were telling the people whom they met with on the roads the views he had told them of saving faith, and that, when the people opposed these views, they asked to come that night to hear for themselves. Mr Crawford, showing unwillingness to proceed, one of the men said to him—”The everlasting concerns of these immortal souls demand of you that you should instruct them in this important matter.” Mr Crawford said—”But the house will not hold them.” The man answered—”The church is at hand, so let us go there.” This was done, and Mr Crawford’s meetings continued to be held in that church for more than three years. Thus began public services, guided as we have shown, by the secret will of God, which resulted in the conversion of many a poor sinner in that district of Cowal. The writer knew several of them in 1891 and since who adorned their profession by a life becoming godliness to the end of their days, and of whom a few, very few now, are yet in this world of sorrow and sighing. Norman MacCallum was one of those who passed from death unto life at that time.
The view he got of himself as a sinner before God was both real and deep. He told the writer one night in his own hospitable house at Kames, where he lived since 1905 till the end came—”I was sure that my sins were so great and so aggravated that they could not be forgiven, so I came to the awful conclusion that whoever would have forgiveness, it was impossible so far as I was concerned.” In this despairing state of mind, he went to hear Mr Crawford, who spoke from the words—”Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else” (Is. xlv. 22). The speaker said, among other things, —“This means that while the truth of the natural life is in thy nostrils, thou art commanded to look to Jesus Christ for salvation.” Norman said—“When I heard these words, I felt that there was yet mercy for me in God, and the terrible darkness of my mind was so far removed. On the following Lord’s Day, I went to the Castle (a place-name in the district) in order that I might spend a part of the day there in secret prayer, and while I was upon my knees pleading with the Lord, that passage of God’s word came to my mind with great light, power, warmth, and comfort—“My Beloved is mine, and I am His.” I felt as if I had the Lord Jesus in the arms of my soul as sure as Simeon had Him in his in the Temple at Jerusalem.” Thus the Lord loosed his bonds and did set him free. So great and lasting were the effects of that day’s experience that, at the end of fifty years, the impression made continued as a sheet anchor to his soul. Shortly after the above deliverance the Lord gave him he became a member in full communion with the Free Church in Millhouse congregation, and in the year 1867 he was duly elected to the eldership, which office he accepted.
In the year 1874, he got married to Miss Catherine Maccallum, a daughter of Mr Dugald Maccallum, a farmer in the district, who was also one of the spiritual children of Mr Crawford. The issue of the marriage were three sons and four daughters. All the sons died in infancy, but the daughters are still living. Norman and his wife were true helpmates, both as regards spiritual and temporal concerns. She predeceased him seven years, after they had lived 57 years together in happy fellowship.
The writer met Norman Maccallum in the spring of 1891 for the first time. At the urgent request of the elders and their minister, Rev. Mr Campbell, who had been an invalid during the previous seven years, he went to labour in the Millhouse congregation for six months. Norman was at that time a strong and robust man at his age. During a conversation we had with Mr Crawford at that time about the professing men and women in the congregation, he said—“I have the fullest confidence in Norman Maccallum as a single-minded and sincere Christian man.” This was exactly the impression he made on the writer’s mind then, and he never found any cause to change it to the last.
In the year 1893, the congregation of Millhouse separated from the then Free Church, on account of the fact that a Declaratory Act was passed the previous year, and that she refused to retrace her wayward steps at her Assembly in 1893. None were more hearty in this separation than Norman; for he loved the orthodox creed and constitution of the Free Church more than to barter it away for keeping up a fellowship with a Church which held now quite another creed and constitution. Immediately this separation took place, the congregation were deprived of their two churches and their manse; but they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, and built a church and manse at Kames. Although the most of the office-bearers were farmers and men of business, they were more intelligent than to estimate that the property they had lost was equal in value with the Creed and Principles which they kept. In this mind Norman Maccallum continued to the end.
While he was able to walk the distance, he was a most regular attendant on the means of grace, both on the Lord’s Day and the weekly prayer meeting. Indeed, the writer thought many times that, if he had not a real joy, like David of old, in going to the house of God, no one could have a better excuse than he for absenting himself. But as the saying is, “Where there is a will, there is a way,” he gave conclusive proof that one day in the Lord’s courts excelled a thousand days in the tents of sin in his estimation. He was going there not as an onlooker, but to worship God with all his heart. The writer was often struck with some of his remarks in public prayer. One of these was—”O Lord, keep us out of temptations, and keep us in the face of temptations, and keep us in temptations.” In these exercises he manifested how deeply he was conscious of the abominations of his own heart and mind, and of his absolute dependance upon the grace of God for deliverance from sin and all its consequences. The last time the writer went to see him, when he was going to read a chapter of God’s Word, he asked Norman to ask a blessing on the Word. He answered—”What is the use of asking me, for I cannot speak or think aright; that is my own opinion, and also that of others.” The writer said—”You begin, and the Lord can give you thoughts and words.” He then began to pray with choice words, light, and unction, and when he had finished, he said, with childlike simplicity, “Will that do?”
He was a man that never spoke much about himself, and he did not desire to be flattered by others. He used to say—”We will all be tested yet.” Another scripture which he often quoted is—”For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of man, but of God.”
During the last year of his earthly pilgrimage his hearing, eyesight, and memory failed him much, and he seemed to take very little notice of the things of the world, but to the last his mind was quite clear and his memory as good as ever when he spoke of the doctrines, etc., of God’s Word. Whenever the name of Archibald Crawford was mentioned, the very expression of his countenance beamed with joy flowing from the real love of his heart towards him. They are now together on Mount Zion, being led by the Lamb into living fountains of water, and the Lord has wiped all tears from their eyes. There they will never have the painful thought of separating the one from the other, or from the Lord’s people in their Father’s house above, or from the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for ever and ever.
Mrs Maccallum died in October 1917, and Norman Maccallum died on the 17th January 1925, at the age of 93 years. His mortal remains were laid to rest to await the second coming of his Lord to judge the quick and the dead on the last day. He will then stand in his place.
The writer desires to express his sincere sympathy with each member of the bereaved family, and also with all their relatives, and with the Kames congregation and their minister. N. C.