THE subject of this sketch was born in Glendale, Skye, and after passing the allotted span died in October, 1941. His father was Farquhar Bethune, well-known as a praying man who cheerfully cast in his lot with the Free Presbyterian Church when the Glendale congregation was formed in 1893. In such a father Allan would, no doubt, see an example of true and vital godliness, but the experience of God’s people has been in all ages that neither example nor precept can change the natural man. Thus our friend lived for many years in this world, like the rest of the fallen sons of Adam, without God and without hope. However, in God’s own good time he was visited with power from on high and became a new creature in Christ Jesus, so that old things passed away, and all things became new.
We are not able to say what the means were by which this change came about, but the change was evident in his attendance on the means of grace and especially in the manner in which he would listen to the declaration of God’s word. A few years before this he had settled in the parish of Bracadale and in July, 1931, he became a member in full communion there. In 1935 he was elected to the office of the eldership, the duties of which he undertook and discharged cheerfully and humbly, and with singleness of eye to the glory of God and the good of His cause in the world. He acted for one year as the representative elder of the congregation to the Presbytery and Synod, and discharged his duties, as far as he was able, in a conscientious manner. He was naturally of an amiable disposition, which made him an agreeable companion and good neighbour, and when that natural disposition was sanctified by grace it manifested him as one bearing the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, and earned for him the love and respect of his brethren in office, and all who came in contact with him.
The end came rather suddenly. In August when we saw him at the communion at Vatten he appeared to be in his usual, but we heard it remarked by some that his prayers at that time gave the impression that the end was not far off. Three weeks later he was ordered to Glasgow to undergo an operation. Shortly afterwards he went, but medical skill proved of no avail. The last messenger had come, we believe deprived of his sting for Allan Bethune, and he entered into that land where “the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick.” His remains were brought home and buried among kindred dust in the grave-yard of Glendale, there to await the blast of the last trumpet. The great concourse of people who attended his funeral, from far and near, showed the high respect in which he was held. As the mourners left the cemetery it was not mere fancy with some to feel that there was now an additional tie binding them to that spot where so many of the bodies of the Lord’s people sleep their last long sleep, and which are in their purified state to be united again to their redeemed souls on the resurrection morning, to be forever with the Lord.
We would take this opportunity of expressing our heart-felt sympathy with his widow and family, and pray that his God would be their God also. To His all-powerful keeping we commit them, in the hope that the prayers of the one whom they mourn will yet be answered on their behalf, and that, when he shall stand in his lot at last, they shall appear with him.—J. C.