THE family of the late John Campbell, elder, Gairloch, consisted of two daughters. The subject of this brief memoir was the younger. She was born in Upper Diabeg in 1902, where her father was tenant of a small farm before he removed to Gairloch. At the age of five days Mrs. Fraser was left motherless. In the good providence of God, however, her paternal aunt, who is still spared, “and full of days,” took charge of the bereaved sisters and brought them up as lovingly as any mother could do. Christ had a saving eye on Mrs. Fraser and he decreed to put sin, hell and devils out of the way that He might have her in the fold with His gathered ones. She had early impressions. The teaching her aunt imparted had its own effect. It is not known when these impressions were such that she began to seek the Lord in sincerity, but as far as can be ascertained it was about twenty years ago. The tale of the day of her espousal is better told by herself as she relates it in a letter sent to a girl friend in 1928. She was at the time in Aberfeldy in the Post Office, her life work. Part of the letter runs as follows: “I had been thinking in my mind last week about that verse in Psalm, 68. Thou hast received gifts for men, for such as did rebel, yea even for them, that God the Lord in midst of them might dwell (Metrical Version). I was feeling very much the strength of sin and the world—more than usual. I was enabled on Thursday night to plead more earnestly for grace to overcome, and I was enabled to plead for the gifts that He had received for the rebellious. I could class myself among them and nowhere else. Then the thought that He had received gifts for such as I was gave me great encouragement to plead for them, and then the gifts were paid for at such a dear rate, and they are offered freely. If I lacked repentance, faith, etc., there they were offered free, and what comforted me most was that they were for rebels. I felt at the time that I could claim those gifts, as I was indeed a rebel. I never thought of that passage in the same light. On Saturday night I lay awake for a time thinking over these precious words and felt like shouting to the walls of the room that God, the Son, had received gifts for the rebellious.” She could certainly say with the Psalmist on this occasion: “Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”
Ever since then this scripture, in Psalm 68, was a source of comfort to her. When she made a public profession a few years ago, she intimated to the Session that she derived great comfort from the words of the Psalm referred to in the letter quoted above. We are not led to understand, however, by the above that she was always in the King’s “banqueting house.” David said: “And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved, Lord by thy favour, thou hast made my mountain to stand strong: thou didst hide thy face and I was troubled.” Mrs. Fraser had to learn this lesson, and that right early, after setting out. She was often laid in the dust and challenged. “I am afraid I have never been taken out of the kingdom of darkness.” She said in one of her letters, “but perhaps it is Satan who suggests to me I should not speak or write of Christ at all, and that I am a hypocrite, but even hypocrites can be saved by Him. Oh! isn’t He worthy to be spoken of.” Psalm 68 often took her out of the depths. Christ was her song in the night. She could speak of Him as a generous Saviour, who often gave her a measure heaped up, pressed down, and running over. She lived a blameless life in the sight of all men. As the needle points to the pole her soul constantly turned to Him whom she reckoned better than all the world. Her end came very unexpectedly in a Nursing Home at Inverness. The Lord was her Shepherd in the valley of the Shadow of Death, His rod and staff sustained her, and in God’s house above for evermore her dwelling place is, joined with the redeemed in their song and bliss.
“We walk in white without annoy
In glorious galleries of joy;
And crowned with everlasting bays,
We rival Cherubs in their praise.” (R. Ershine.)
Her end came on 3rd December, 1941. Much sympathy is felt for her husband, Mr. Murdo Fraser, and his infant son who is left motherless, and for her aged aunt and for her only sister.—A. B.