THE subject of this notice, much-loved by all, and dearly-loved at home, gave evidence from childhood of a tenderness of conscience not observable in other children. So marked was this trait of character, that he was never known to us to tell a lie or even twist his language in order to save himself out of an untoward situation. More than once, while a young child at school, he was severely set upon by a crowd of bigger boys, to force him to utter or repeat some bad language or swearing, that they could say later that he uttered such language. They absolutely failed in this attempt, though he was roughly and cruelly handled.
Being taught early, while not yet 3 years old, he could repeat the 23rd Psalm and the first chapter of Hebrews, and at four years he could read. At the age of seven, he was presented with a copy of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and this he read and re-read with great avidity. Visiting a house about two miles from his home he saw a very heavy volume lying in a bookcase. He looked at it. It was Bunyan’s Holy War. He was offered the loan of it. He went to get it shortly afterwards, and while taking it home he had to rest several times at the roadside owing to its weight. These books he read with much relish. These, with the constant reading of the Bible from childhood, together with the discipline to which he was subjected at home, made a lasting impression on his child-mind, which appeared, however much he strove to the contrary, to have continued with him to the end.
As he grew up he made regular use of the theological books in his father’s library. He read the whole of Wylie’s History of the Reformation in Europe and the biographies and contendings of the Covenanters. Endowed with an exceptionally retentive memory he had the history of the Church stored up therein to an extent that few could claim at his age—yet he himself made no such pretence. With the Word of God and confessional doctrine he was no less conversant. This is testified to by his winning the Senior Bursary awarded under the late Sheriff McCulloch’s Memorial Fund in the County of Sutherland when only twelve years old.
The Bible never failed to be his constant companion since childhood and this he was accustomed to read in the most secret and reserved manner. He defended the Scriptures out of which he was able to quote with ease in his arguments with College and University students. They were struck with surprise at his conservative views and his ability to make so facile a use of the Scriptures, with which he silenced them. He used to say he was always up against evolutionists and he could refute and combat their pernicious reasonings by the Scriptures while he made dexterous use of his other learning. He told once that the condition he laid down in arguing against these wild views was—”Do you believe the Bible is true and is the Word of God?” According as the reply was—negative or affirmative—would he or would not engage in argument. This he did with great modesty and naturalness, which appeared to make a great appeal to his opponents. Affectation, which he was quick at detecting, he could not bear. It was usually to his mother he would tell these things of how effectually he silenced his opponents.
He always carried his Bible and had it under his pillow at home and from home he regularly read it. During his illness at home, the Bible was always beside him, and he read it morning and evening in the way of stated worship, and though one should come into his room while thus engaged, he would take no notice. At other times through the day, should he happen to be reading his Bible and any one disturbed him, he would immediately thrust it under his pillow. This was due to his natural secretiveness.
On one or two occasions he betrayed in the presence of his mother the spiritual bent of his mind in the matters of eternity. “Mamma,” he said, still retaining his childhood term of addressing her, of whom he was so intensely fond, “I think the glorified soul feels a want by its separation from the body until it is re-united to it, at the resurrection.” Then as if recollecting himself, he stopped short, and would say no more. This was owing to his extreme bashfulness in spiritual things. At another time, he remarked, “Mamma, this world is nothing but one huge hospital, and when we think of the infinity of God and the greatness of the Almighty, what are we all but a speck of dust in His Hand.”
When he left home first at 13 years of age, he took with him that remarkable book of Dr. Hugh Martin’s, “The Shadow of Calvary.” He perused it with great delight and gained wonderful understanding of its contents. Other outstanding works he greatly relished were Dr. Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology and Dr. A. A. Hodge on the Atonement. The latter volume, in fact, he had almost at his finger ends and took it with him to Switzerland. Calvin’s Institutes was another work he liked much to read. But, however much all the productions of men appealed to him, he read hardly anything on the Sabbath but his Bible while he lay ill at home. All this appeared to be preparatory to his trying illness and sufferings during his last months in Leysin, when he could not, on account of increasing weakness, read but very little. He had a keen desire to get well, and it was under this impelling force that he made up his mind to go to Switzerland. He was in a good measure restored before he went to Switzerland in December, 1931, but when the drastic artificial treatment of the Swiss doctors was applied to him, it had the very opposite effect to what was intended. The whole system got poisoned and the heart began to give way gradually, until it finally and rather suddenly at last collapsed the last day of April, 1932, and though it appears to us now the Lord did not intend restoring him, he was endeavouring in his letters home to put the best possible colour on his condition to relieve his family of as much anxiety as possible. In one of his letters home he said: “My trouble will be for the good of all concerned as I see it.” In another, he remarked: “It was decreed in the past ages that I should be born, that I should live the active life I did, that I should contract my present illness, that I should baffle doctors,” etc.
On receiving the news from the Swiss doctors that his heart was rapidly failing and the circulation was getting bad, we were stricken with grief, which was increased by the consideration of the distance between us, precluding the probability of seeing him alive. It may be permissible to add the part of his parents’ experience on the night on which the news of this turn for the worse took place in their beloved boy’s case arrived. At 2 p.m. on Sabbath morning they, in their grief, went aside and apart to plead with the Lord on his behalf. They endeavoured to beseech the Most High to prepare him, and as it appeared to be the end, to take him to be with Himself for ever. The petition offered was that the Lord might be pleased to vouchsafe a special truth, fitted to fortify, strengthen and relieve grieved and anguished hearts, on which they could base an assured hope that it would be well with him for eternity. While thus engaged for some time, at last the truth flashed with unusual overpowering effect into their minds, though the one did not know that the other got it at about the same time—”Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise”;—to the one it came in Gaelic and to the other in English. The effect on both was immediate and they felt wonderfully relieved and composed.
Many of the Lord’s people who knew him personally got truths, some of them very remarkable, as bearing on his case, since he came home ill in 1930. Although some of them did not tell till after his death, from these truths they got they felt persuaded at the time he would not recover and that it would be well for him through eternity.
The following extracts are taken from letters sent after his death to his father by a young student from Cornwall who was in the same institution and with whom he had much talk on religious topics:—”I have,” says this young man, “been struck by the manner in which he was enabled to draw spiritual strength and courage from the Holy Scriptures, of which he was a constant student, and about which we have had many talks.” In a second letter he wrote:—”Our conversation on religious topics ranged over a wide field and your son retained his intellectual vitality to a quite exceptional extent in one so ill. Some of these talks stand out in my mind. I well remember that one evening I found him eager to talk, and after discussing for some time the question of the inspiration of Holy Scripture, we passed on to the question of personal salvation, repentance and forgiveness. He was that evening somewhat weighed down by his sense of sin and unworthiness, but as we talked on he gave it as his opinion that faith was the great gift which was of paramount importance. At this point he was thinking deeply about the vital truths of the Christian religion. On another occasion he said he had been struck by the number of really good people whom he had met who suffered from T.B.” “Just before he left here”—he was transferred shortly before he died to another institution—”he told me that he felt his religious interest quickened, and meant to keep reading about it. He seemed fully alive to its supreme importance and also he had found comfort and peace in it and more particularly in the parables of our Lord which deal with the salvation of sinners, such as the lost sheep and the prodigal son. This penitence was remarkably deep, and the idea of our Lord as Saviour was one on which he used to dwell, together with the thought of the joy of being numbered among the blessed. Twice he told me an anecdote which drove home this latter point. It was that of an old lady who declared that though only one soul should be saved she would strive to be that one. I am very sorry not to be able to quote his exact words, but you will understand we talked a great deal about religion. I have tried to give a faithful account of his experience, though it is sometimes given in general terms, a refuge in which he often modestly hid.”
In a third letter he wrote in answer to queries: “I do not think your son regretted coming to Switzerland. It is much harder for me to say how much he realized that he would not recover. I used to avoid the subject as much as possible, and did not feel it right to tell him my own opinion. It is quite certain, however, that he realized the need for spiritual preparation, and spent much time in it. During the last days he was here, I believe he had a deeper appreciation of things spiritual than he had ever had before. For my own part I am quite confident that he found our Saviour and that he will be led to the Father in His Kingdom. The spiritual experience of which you write must have been a great comfort to you and I hope it may continue to be so. God used his illness as a means of preparing him for eternity and of bringing him to a true knowledge of things heavenly, and in this respect his sufferings were not without fruit. Through the training he had received and the guidance of the Holy Spirit he was able to use his illness and weakness to draw near to his Heavenly Father. He longed for the riches of eternal life. In this longing he was a striking contrast to several others I have known who have not recovered and whose lack of spiritual insight into suffering was a sad spectacle.” It is a year this month since he passed away aged 20 years.—M. M.