Those who dedicate their lives to Christ will find death to be great gain and advantage to them. The day of the believer’s death is better than the day of his birth, Eccles, 7: 1. Death is theirs, 1 Cor. 3: 22. It is theirs, that is, it conducteth to their use and benefit; their gain and not their terror; an enemy to nature but a friend to grace. The “Preacher’s” words referred to above are meant of those that leave a good name and a good savour behind them for so the whole verse runs: “A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.” The name of the wicked shall rot, but the name of the godly is a sweet perfume; when the matter of the perfume is burnt the scent remains behind. So when the person is gone the savour of a good name lives and remains behind. Such definitely applies to our departed friend. Her death is her great gain, and she left to be remembered her, “The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.”
The subject of this brief sketch was born at Upper Diabaig, which lies within the Parish of Gairloch and on the border of Applecross. The place is now uninhabited, like many other places where many of the Godly were reared in the Highlands of Scotland. Her father’s family consisted of one son and five daughters. Besides Miss Campbell the Lord had other marked ones in this family. The only son was a respected elder in the Gairloch congregation of the Free Presbyterian Church.
Miss Campbell was of a reserved disposition, and that made it impossible for one to know how and when she was brought to the knowledge of the Truth as it is in Jesus. None, however, would doubt her being a “branch” of the “True Vine.” “All that shall see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.” During part of her pilgrimage she was nurtured under the ministry of the saintly Rev. Donald Macdonald, Sheildaig, and she often spoke feelingly of him, with an evident loving warmth, and made special references to a sermon which she heard from him on the text: “Wilt thou go with this man? and she said, I will go.” To what extent the sermon influenced her cannot be said, but we can be sure that the good man’s preaching had a leavening effect on her all round. Again, her father’s teaching would be recalled by her. He, evidently, took great pains to have his children’s minds well stored with the truth. This early cultivation and sowing of the good seed made their own mark. “Train up the child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Privately and publicly she showed her unabating love to her Saviour, and according to the divine injunction she was “a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men.” She was a great reader of her Bible right through life, and as age crept in on her she loved her Bible more intensely. Her eyesight continued with her unimpaired till the end, so that she could read comfortably without the aid of glasses.
She did not suffer much from illness during her life. She had a strong frame and “by reason of strength” the infirmities did not creep in so soon in her case. But the infirmities that belong to age did come, more evidently during the last two or three years of her life, and signs were given that the “earthy house” was beginning to crumble. Then the “Adversary” took advantage, for he is one “having great wrath,” when “he knoweth that he hath but a short time,” and she was subjected to very sore trials. She had her sleepless nights and tears of sorrow. She was moved by the “storm” as a tree firmly rooted; but like David in Psalm sixty-two she was not “greatly moved”; her “heart was fixed trusting in the Lord” as stated in another Psalm. These are the sorest of trials when the believer’s rights to the heavenly Jerusalem are assailed. She got deliverance and expressed that she now wished, if it were the Lord’s will, to be taken. Being now more conscious than ever of the snares of the wilderness. Her wish was soon realized. Her Lord came at her request. She approached the “river” with all her mental faculties unimpaired and was supported greatly by the truth, and especially by parts of Psalms eighty-nine and twenty-three. Like Christian she “presently found ground to stand upon, and so it followed that the rest of the river was but shallow.” She entered into the joy of her Lord during the early hours of the 2nd day of June, 1945. A
few days more of earthly pilgrimage would have brought her to the great age of ninety years.
To her niece who tenderly attended to her needs in her declining years we tender our sympathy. Her loss is like the loss of a devoted mother. The aunt did the part of a loving mother to herself and her sister, Mrs. Fraser, who was called to her everlasting rest four years ago. Of all the bereavements which Miss Campbell has had, the loss of her sister was the sorest, but she bore the loss with Christian patience. The world is much colder by the removal of warm-hearted believers. The Lord alone can mould others to stand in the breach. “Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.”—A.B.