THE Stornoway congregation have reason to mourn and miss, among many other pious men and women the late Messrs. Alex. Macaulay and Alex. Maciver who were removed from our midst within a few weeks of one another. Alex. Macaulay was born in Islivig, Uig, Lewis, in the year 1853. Like many others who have adorned the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in all things, he had the unspeakably great benefit of godly parents and especially of a godly mother, whose example and prayers left their impress upon him all his life. He came to Stornoway in 1870, and soon after set up business for himself. He prospered in the affairs of this life and at the same time stood high in the estimation of all for integrity in all his dealings.
The great matters concerning God, Jesus Christ and salvation, became all-absorbing to Alex. Macaulay about 50 years ago, ere the machinations of assemblies, synods, and presbyteries split the Old Free Church into the fragments into which she is now broken up all over the land. The stirring days of a so-called revival period in Stornoway found him, then a young man, deeply exercised with the question:—”What must I do to be saved?” He used to tell how he attended some of these meetings at which he was urged to give what was tantamount to an intellectual assent to certain truths of Scripture as all that was necessary to salvation.
The Lord Himself delivered Alex. Macaulay from his spiritual bondage by applying promise upon promise, with light and power to his soul, which not only brought him out of darkness into light, but became his anchor and his stay right through life. He hardly ever spoke at a fellowship meeting without testifying to the danger of urging sinners to rest in a mere intellectual agreement with truth. His experience taught him that the powers of man’s being can never in this life, be more active than in closing in with Christ for salvation, yet that the faith which is the root of that activity is the gift of God.
After due deliberation, Alex. Macaulay cast in his lot with the Free Presbyterian Congregation in Stornoway and spared no pains to further the Kingdom of Christ in connection therewith. He took the greatest interest in the work and courts of the Church and performed every duty in the spirit of meekness. He had as great a measure of that “charity that thinketh no evil” as any we have ever known and his singleness of mind caused him to judge all to be like-minded with himself.
During the last few years of his life, he began to lose his wonted vigour of body and keenness of mind, yet this was more than made up for by the deepening sense he had of his own sinfulness and unworthiness, and by the clearer views he was obtaining of the adorable Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In common with all the Lord’s people, the nearer he came to the end of his journey, the closer and closer was the attachment to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
He passed away on the 7th of March, 1933, and what was mortal of him was sown in Sandwick Cemetery, where it lies near the dust of Alex. Mackenzie, Alex. Maciver, and Duncan Gillies awaiting the immortality of the Great Day. His removal has left blanks everywhere; in the family and home circle, in the business and civic life of the town, in the Church of God on earth. We believe that to him it is eternal gain, and that Alex. Macaulay will stand beside King Jesus on the Judgment Day and be a swift witness for or against those he has left behind him in Stornoway. We extend our deepest sympathy to his widow and family with the prayer that it be given them to follow his faith considering the end of his conversation.—M. G.