IT is with unfeigned regret we record the death of Mr. Hugh Grant, Bushgrove, N.S.W., Australia. The news of Mr. Grant’s death reached us the same day as that of Mr. Alexander Murray, Badbea, Creich. They knew each other in their early youth and though in the course of time oceans divided them yet now, we believe, they are together for evermore where there is no more sea. Both of them reached a patriarchal age. Mr. Grant was highly respected in the Clarence River District by people of all denominations for his sterling integrity. His honesty of purpose was recognised even by those who had little or no sympathy with his religious views. People of all denominations requested his prayers when they were ill. As one who knew him has well said: The Church at home and abroad is indeed the poorer by the passing of these two men of intrinsic excellence of piety. In his removal the Church in Australia and at home has lost an earnest pleader at the throne of grace. When I reached Australia he was practically bed-ridden but the welcome to the Church’s deputy was none the less hearty. At the meetings held in his house, when he was able to attend, it was touching to hear him and others in prayer pleading for God’s blessing on the Home Church and it is to be hoped our friends at home will be no less instant for the scattered groups in Australia. But Hugh Grant’s prayers will be heard no more on earth for us—prayer for him has passed into praise. A friend who had considerable intercourse with him ere he was stricken down by the infirmities of age has given the following account of him: “Mr. Grant, as is well-known to readers of the Magazine, was one of our elders in connection with the Brushgrove Grafton congregation, Australia. He was a man of tried piety, whose consistent life and correct and industrious habits had won for him the respect of those with whom he had come in contact. The more one saw of him the more apparent it became that he was taught from above, and had learned at least these two great lessons, namely, that “the just shall live by faith,” and “that faith without works is dead.” The loss of two sons through war service, and of his truly gracious wife, had introduced an element of sorrow into his life, which he bore quietly, mourning without murmuring. The elder of the sons referred to, John by name, of whom a short notice appeared in these pages, was a young man of great promise, and had been ordained a deacon in the congregation shortly before enlisting in the Army in the World War.
Originally, Mr. Grant belonged to Suordale, parish of Creich, Sutherlandshire, where as a boy he had attended the old Free Church at Creich, Bonar Bridge. In Australia he cast in his lot with those ministers of the Synod of Eastern Australia, who in 1884 were excluded from the Synod by an act of gross ecclesiastical tyranny. His sense of the wrong perpetrated by this notorious Expulsion Act (as it has been called), which raised a widespread and spirited protest at the time, and which has not since been repented of, remained unaffected by the circumstances which led many of his fellow-protesters to return to the Church which they had formerly condemned. To the end he continued faithful to his convictions in the matter evidencing thorough-going sincerity and consistency in face of many difficulties. The same discriminating and loyal attachment to principle characterised his relationship to the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland ever since he became associated with it. From the beginning of the Church’s separate existence his interest and sympathies had been warmly engaged, nor did the many trials which both he and the Church had to undergo in connection with maintaining their testimony inviolate serve to alienate or even to abate these. Truly through his removal the Church has lost a faithful friend and warm-hearted supporter.”
To his daughter, Margaret, who devotedly nursed her father and to his two sons who survive we extend sincere sympathy, while we commend them to God and to the Word of His grace, which is able to build them up and to give them an inheritance among all them that are sanctified. We would also seek to extend to the Brushgrove-Grafton our deep sympathy for the great loss they have sustained in the removal of a faithful elder and a wise counsellor.