By REV. R. R. SINCLAIR.
Rev. D. MacLean and myself had a most comfortable and enjoyable voyage from Southampton to Capetown in the “Pretoria Castle,” arriving in Africa on Thursday, the 9th of February, at 6 a.m. in the morning as the sun was rising. The view of Table Mountain as it appears to tower behind and above the harbour and city of Capetown was impressive indeed. At this stage of our journey the kindness and care of God was felt to be a reality. We stayed a few days in Capetown, a most up-to-date and attractive city. Then on Tuesday afternoon, the 14th February, the train for Bulawayo was boarded, and during our journey northward to Southern Rhodesia we passed through varied types of African country and scenery. Typical African villages, with their inhabitants moving about, were easily seen from the train time and again. The train stopped at Mafeking and Kimberley, places well known in South African history, and also at many smaller stations. On Thursday, the 16th February, we arrived at Bulawayo at 6 p.m., after quite a good journey, the weather not being too hot. We were met by Mr. Norman Miller, who had African boys with him from the Mission School to help with our luggage. Then we were driven in the mission car to Ingwenya, a distance of 30 miles. The last ten miles of the journey was over poor roads and tracks, and at places the car slithered about in the mud as there had been much rain previous to our arrival.
About 7.30 p.m. we arrived in the Mission compound, and at the door of Mr. Miller’s house. It was dark, but our friends from Scotland on the Mission were there outside with lamps to greet us with gospel cordiality. After partaking of food, our conversation lingered on till midnight, and just then the noise of motor transport indicated the arrival of Rev. James Fraser and Mr. James Tallach, the son of Mrs. Tallach, Oban. They had come from that part of our Mission further north, in the Shangani district. They had been delayed on this journey during the day by “travelling troubles,” which are common here. Our feelings in actually being at our Ingwenya Mission, Africa, and meeting Miss J. Nicolson, Mrs. Nicolson, Mr. and Mrs. Miller and family, and Miss J. MacKay, with the two later arrivals, are difficult to describe. God’s purposes and providence in the matter affected us in mind and heart, with some wonderment and peculiar interest. We could not but feel that He that ruleth over all of us and all events brought about this meeting, in the midst of Africa. Praise and blessing were indeed due to the Lord for carrying us safely into our African Mission after a journey o’er sea and land of at least seven thousand miles.
After resting the night in the guest house allotted to us, Friday, the 17th February, brought its own activities. At 12 noon Rev. James Fraser conducted a service in the Church, which had been previously
intimated; and preached most suitably from the parable of the fig tree in the vineyard. At the close of the service he introduced Rev. Donald MacLean and myself to the people. I then spoke to the people by way of explaining the interest the Church and Synod at home, in Scotland, had in them, evidenced by our being sent out; and exhorted them and warned them to seek to hold fast to the gospel and pure doctrines of the Word of God, and other privileges connected therewith, which the Free Presbyterian Church had in the past been instrumental in bringing among them for their spiritual good. I warned them not to be influenced by Mr. Edwin Radasi, who was no longer a minister of the Free Presbyterian Church, and against whom the Church had done nothing to cause him to depart from us. Rev. D. MacLean then addressed the people, conveying to them the good wishes of the Synod for their spiritual and eternal welfare. There would be about 40 adults present, and the rest of the Church was full to the front of the pulpit with scholars from the school. Quite a number had to sit outside on the grass, opposite the front door of the Church. There were in all about 400 children present. I was much affected as I sat in the pulpit, before rising to speak, in seeing through the open door of the Church the memorial stone set up over the grave of the late Rev. John B. Radasi, who is buried quite near the Church.
There, on our first public appearance in the Mission, was a witness to what our late godly fathers in the Free Presbyterian Church originated and supported, through the instrumentality of the late Rev. J. B. Radasi, viz., a mission among the heathen in Africa to bring to them the Word of God, the pure gospel of Christ Jesus for dark and lost sinners, and the practice which is after godliness. In this such as the late Revs. N. Cameron, N. MacIntyre, J. S. Sinclair, and D. Beaton had the deepest spiritual and prayerful interest. Many in the Church at home were not born when those godly and discreet fathers were at the height of their interest in our African Mission. Then on our first Sabbath at the Mission, the 19th February, there were the usual services held. Rev. D. MacLean conducted the prayer-meeting at 8 a.m. for half an hour. Then the Sabbath School was held after it. At 11.30 a.m. I held the first service, using an interpreter, and found it much easier than anticipated to speak thus. Then at 1.30 p.m. Rev. D. MacLean held the second service, using an interpreter. At 5 p.m. I held the third service of the day, all parts of the service being conducted in English. There were present at the first two services about 40 adults and 86 scholars, and all these young people and a number of adults at the evening service. Then at 7.30 p.m. I went with Mr. Norman Miller to take worship with the boys and girls after their evening meal. The worship is conducted just as at home in the family. But after worship we waited about half an hour as I answered questions of a Biblical kind put by some of the boys and girls, and also heard a number of them repeat from memory texts which they heard in Church during the day.
Since coming out here we have met with expressions of sorrow at the death of the late Rev. John Tallach, who for so many years bore the burden and heat of the day in labours constant and varied among the Africans in the Ingwenya area. At the time of writing we have been but a week in the midst of the Mission yet we have been daily on the move, and have seen much of the activities and organisation of the Mission. I must not anticipate here what news we will bring home, as we have yet to visit Shangani district. But one thing I will say, I am more than satisfied, I am glad at the unique privilege of being an eye and ear witness to the fact that the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland has a Mission which ministers to our fellow sinners in this part of the Continent of Africa. It is unavoidable that this note will appear in the Magazine a few weeks before our return to Scotland, the Lord willing, but our friends in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand will read this ere any Synod report will be published during the summer. “Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself. So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name” (Psalm lxxx. 17 and 18).
In Memoriam: Rev. John Tallach.
By REV. J. MACLEOD.
“SURELY he shall not be moved for ever: the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance” (Ps. cxii. 6). All the Lord’s people are righteous because of the grace of God bestowed upon them in a day of mercy. It is the grace of God that makes them upright, honest, humble, truthful, and obedient to the Lord that paid the price of their redemption in His own blood! It was a debt that they could not pay to the offended God of heaven. When they are brought to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by faith behold Him—”And looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith (and with John they all say it), Behold the Lamb of God.” How can the believer but love Christ? It is not a mere fleeting impression or a sensational flash of the imagination that fades away like a shooting-star. It is, on the contrary, a growing indebtedness to Jesus Christ which cannot be expressed in mere words. It is in his walk and conversation the believer reveals his heart love to Jesus Christ. Judas might kiss Him, but in his heart was a drawn sword to destroy Him! Mary “stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and began to wash His feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment” (Luke vii. 38). Christ was precious to Mary!
In the Bible we have a galaxy of men and women who showed by their life and walk that they loved the Lord, and many of them sealed their love to their Lord with their blood. Their names shall be in
“everlasting remembrance” in the Book of God. The world hated them, persecuted them, and slaughtered unknown numbers of them from the days of Abel, and by so doing, thinking, and believing that they were forever blotted out, but their names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, where devils and wicked men could not reach them any more!
By the above few remarks concerning the Lord’s people let us bring to the remembrance of the readers of the Free Presbyterian Magazine one who was known to many of you personally, and to others by name and profession only.
John Tallach was born in the town of Dornoch, Sutherland, some 66 years ago, and ended his earthly pilgrimage on Sabbath morning, the 30th October, 1955, in his manse in Oban. It was at the beginning of the first world war we first met John Tallach in the town of Tain, Ross-shire. It was on the eve of his joining His Majesty’s Forces in 1915. It was obvious to us then that he was deeply interested in the cause of Christ, and in the salvation of his immortal soul. From that time to the day of his release from “the body of this death” we felt united to John Tallach. He was privileged from infancy by being born to parents who feared the Lord, that honoured the Lord in their life and conversation, not only before their neighbours, but before their own children. His father, Andrew Tallach, was an outstanding Christian, pious, upright, sincere, and humble yet strong and courageous on the side of the cause of Christ, when many who made a loud noise turned their back on the cause that they were supposed to defend and follow at all hazards! It was in this God-fearing atmosphere that young John was reared and nurtured. “Behold now, there is in this city a man of God, and he is an honourable man: all that he saith cometh surely to pass: now let us go thither; peradventure he can show us our way that we should go” (I Sam. ix. 6).
That John Tallach was a child of many prayers, we doubt not, but more than all that was required and needed before young John could say with the Church of God, “I know whom I have believed (margin “trusted”) and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day” (II Tim. i. 12). He passed with hundreds of thousands of his fellow countrymen through terrible experiences in the first world war on the Continent of Europe in defence of his country. The Lord brought him safely out of that “horrible pit and miry clay.” For He had other work for him, the noblest and the most honourable in this life: to preach the gospel that saved his own soul to other poor lost sinners. That the Lord had set him apart for the work of the ministry is beyond all doubt. When he passed through the usual secular and theological curriculum, he offered himself to the Church, through its Foreign Mission Committee, to labour in our Mission in Southern Rhodesia. The Church had been looking and praying for several years for a young man that would offer himself to labour in this Mission. It was on condition that a
European Missionary should be sent out at the earliest possible date that the Government allowed and permitted the late Rev. J. B. Radasi to be settled among the native population. Mr. Radasi was a native of the place, and the then policy of the Government was not to allow a native Pastor to work among the natives but under a European Pastor.
The Synod promised the Government to send out a European Pastor that should be in charge of the Mission as soon as one was available and suitable to take charge of the Mission. Mr. John Tallach was the first to offer his services to the Church for Mission work in Africa. He was accepted, and sent out with the prayers of the Church that the Lord would use him, and that His kingdom would be advanced in that part of the “dark continent.” On his arrival on the field of labour, and most undoubtedly looking forward to meet the Rev. J. B. Radasi, with whom he expected to work and labour for many years, instead he found on arrival at the Mission Station that Rev. J. B. Radasi had been removed to his eternal rest. “The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet” (Nahum i. 3). We can truly appreciate in this case what Nahum says, “The Lord has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm.” Here we behold another sore trial for our friend, Rev. John Tallach. He was alone, among primitive people, did not know their language, their customs and manners were all new to him! What was to be done now? We can follow him into the heart and centre of the 23rd Psalm! Here he found peace and solace. He cannot turn back; he has no desire to turn. He must go forward and preach with all his heart and being that gospel that saved his own soul to the poor heathen, some stark naked and, worse still, naked in their souls before a never-ending eternity. What loomed before his mental vision at the sight of the heathen orgies? Eternity, the soul lost, and lost for ever if not redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God.
He knew the remedy; they knew not the remedy. He saw into eternity; they could not see beyond their cattle and their foul and filthy beer! On his arrival there were few children attending school; probably one or two teachers. He immediately set about to teach the children, and before he was forced to retire through ill health there were hundreds of children in the schools under his care and supervision, and hundreds of them able to read the Word of God who were formally living like irrational animals.
He had to labour not only in the spiritual sense, but in the physical sense as well. It was not a “forty-hour week” he had to work, but eighty and ninety-hour week. He had to supervise the schools, appoint teachers, open new schools, attend to the sick, provide for their food, clothing, medicinal attention among old and young, male and female alike. He had to do all this in the face of opposition which often
taxed him to the limit of human endurance; the monetary difficulty he had to meet and face for years on end! I was a member of the Foreign Mission Committee before and during all the years Rev. John Tallach was in Rhodesia. How little our people at home could appreciate of the troubles, trials, and mental worries that Rev. John Tallach had to endure, while labouring night and day to direct the poor natives to that knowledge which flesh and blood cannot give, neither can take away once it is established in the soul by the power of the Holy Spirit! The question no doubt has been often asked, or thought, what has been the benefit, fruits, and results of all the labour that has been spent on the poor natives in our Rhodesian Mission? All that one can say to such a question is, that we must leave that to the Great Day.
We doubt not but many souls have been saved: but, even if one soul has been saved, in the words of the pious Samuel Rutherford, “My heaven would be two heavens in Immanuel’s land.” There is no wheat without chaff. The wheat is taken to the granary; the chaff is burnt. If many of the heathen are painfully disappointing after all the labour and effort that is used for their benefit, do we not meet with similar trying and painful disappointments at home? We most certainly do! Men, women, boys and girls under the teaching and preaching of the gospel for years, and at times very promising wither away into utter indifference, godlessness, and often into immorality! Here we have naked heathen savages whose life and conduct are far lower in many respects than the irrational animals, if they break away in many cases after being “semi-civilised” and educated to the extent that they can read the Word of God, where are they different to the “civilised” heathen in the home country?
If some are saved through the preaching of the gospel what more can the Church expect than what Paul and Peter expected in their day? Let us also remember that the seed sown may disappear for many a day under the sods in the minds of poor sinners in our Mission in South Africa, and reappear after many days, and bring forth fruit to the glory of God! Queen Victoria spoke very seriously to a young woman whom she met in the home of a dear Christian lady about her eternal salvation. The young woman, like many other young persons, thought little of it until a few years ago, when the solemn advice of the noble Queen Victoria came with power into her soul and conscience! His word will not return to Him void and fruitless. If John Tallach had been associated with one of the larger bodies, such as the London Missionary Society, the whole kingdom would hear of the work he was enabled to accomplish! Indeed, after he came home we strongly urged him to write out his experience in the Mission Field. He was too modest and thought so little of what he was able to do that he would not attempt it. The field before his mind was so vast that he could not make himself believe that he did anything.
That was John Tallach all through life to the end. Christ was great but the sinner or believer nothing at all. Another point that should be carefully considered, that the gospel never entered any city, town, congregation, family, or soul but the devil was roused and fought back with all his might to dislodge, discredit, and murder the “infant child” in the soul before it could walk in the ways of truth, righteousness, and holiness! The Roman Priest can convert the heathen by putting a bunch of beads about their necks and pour a little water on their heads, muttering a few Latin words, and call them converts to the “Catholic Faith.” The servant of Christ must tell the heathen that he must be born again, changed in state and nature, otherwise that all the waters of the Zambesi will neither cleanse nor take away his sins. Here is the fundamental difference between the servants of Christ and the false prophets. The prophets of Baal can multiply converts in thousands: the servants of Christ know that they cannot convert anyone unless God will use them as instruments. Their heart language with the prophet of God is, “Who has believed our report, and to whom the arm of the Lord is revealed.”
Whatever work the Rev. John Tallach was the happy instrument of doing in the hands of the Lord must be left to the great day of Judgment, when all His jewels are gathered home from north, south, east and west. That he was able to gather together many hundreds of poor heathen children, teach them to read the Word of God is sufficient evidence of the laborious work he was able to carry on in the sole interest of the salvation of their souls. His work was eased to a considerable extent when Dr. R. Macdonald arrived at the Mission, and Miss J. Nicolson, who took charge of the scholastic side of the work. Although the burden was made easier by their help and company, yet the responsibility of superintending the whole Mission work and preaching stations remained with him to the end of his sojourn in Rhodesia. He was one of the most unselfish men we ever worked with, as if born and moulded for Missionary work. How often we felt over the years that this servant of the Lord should be so often hampered and stunted in his work for the lack of financial help that could enable him to extend and carry out various projects for the benefit of precious immortal souls. Over the years thousands of millions of money have been spent in slaughtering men, women, and children and thousands of millions now squandered in feverish preparation for more slaughter, misery, and destruction, and nations and Governments refuse to spend a penny on the only remedy of the ills and woes of dying humanity! What savages we are! John Tallach worked against all odds like all the great Missionaries of the past and, verily, he was no grumbler. He could not wait to dress himself with a “White Tie” or with a “Dog-collar” on the field of labour.
He worked under all kinds of conditions, learning the native language, and translating part of the Word of God into the vernacular of the people, teaching, preaching, attending to the sick and dying,
building places to conduct the worship of God with the help of the natives, travelling long distances from place to place, and when famine was threatening or actual among them he had to provide food for the poor, hopeless and helpless natives. The “Witch-doctor” could do nothing to bring rain or food to the dying heathen! He had to contend with the “Witch-doctor” on another field. For the heathen Africans believe in the “evil eye” of a bad neighbour, as some Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotsmen believe it! Sin and the devil are the same in Africa as in the Highlands or Lowlands of Scotland. That John Tallach over-worked himself is evident. When he wrote that he was to come back to Scotland, we wrote by return pleading that he should try to remain another five years, knowing what invaluable work he was doing in our Mission. After a month or two he wrote us that his time and work was at an end in Southern Rhodesia. We knew then that his work was accomplished; that his loving labours there were over! He was a faithful servant, loving, humble, and sincere. He loved His Master, His service, His people, and the souls of men. He was the first European Missionary the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland sent to the Mission Field. He served his Lord and Church nobly and faithfully. His reward is with His Lord in glory.
His removal made a blank in our Church at home and abroad. Some of us who knew him so intimately feel his removal keenly, but what cause of thankfulness to the Lord that His servant was lovingly removed to his eternal rest without ever marring his profession to his last hour in this life! He worked to the last, and was willing to go to Church the Sabbath morning he died if that was the will of the Lord. Instead he went to the Church above to join the redeemed of the Lord there, where sin, death, and parting are forever unknown. “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isa. xxxv.).
Tribute to the late Rev. John Tallach.
By AN AFRICAN FRIEND.
The Lord owns His people, not only as their Creator but as their Redeemer. Mr. Tallach’s departure to his homeland in 1946 caused deep sorrow and a sense of heavy loss to us all, and this was aggravated by the news that the Lord had removed him from this world altogether. But he belonged to the Lord and the Lord has taken Mr. Tallach to be with Himself in that world which knows no darkness nor parting.
“Ye are the salt of the earth.” The servant of Christ who was the salt of the earth for over 20 years in the Ntabazinduna and Shangani Reserves is greatly missed far and near, but his labours and way
of life will remain sweet memories to all who love the Lord and were privileged to meet Mr. Tallach and to know him. Mr. Tallach set a very high standard of Christian life in his day among us. As a servant of the King of Kings he devoted his life to the preaching of the gospel of salvation. It can be said of Mr. Tallach that he preached more by deed than by word. His life was a powerful sermon to many souls in Rhodesia.
Mr. Tallach was a most kind and tender-hearted man. His tenderness was clearly shown when attending the death-bed of one of his flock or of any member of the community. He gently gave a word of comfort to those who were God’s people and those who were strangers to Christ he sought earnestly and tenderly to lead to the Saviour. The poor and the aged Mr. Tallach showed a special interest in. Many sons and daughters of the poor owe it to Mr. Tallach that they are educated people to-day. As a true missionary he frequently visited the homes of his flock in order to find out how they lived and to show an interest in their daily life.
Mr. Tallach was a true servant of the Prince of Peace. He loved peace and sought and maintained it in church, school and community. This man of God had the spirit of his Master for his home was open to all classes of people who needed help spiritually and materially. Who is to fill his shoes? We look to the great Head of the Church to fill his place in His Church here and in Scotland.
I believe that these words of the Apostle Paul are appropriate to the labours and life of Mfundisi Tallach in Rhodesia: “I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing” (II Tim. iv. 7, 8).
—P.M.
The late Donald Nicolson, Elder, Portree.
Brotherly love, being a grace wrought by the Holy Spirit in the souls of His people, is a clear sign of regeneration. “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death” (I John iii. 14). Like all the other graces, it finds its exercise in the communion of the Holy Ghost, in fellowship in the truth and spiritual experience, and extends its interest in bearing one another’s burdens in things temporal, should such a need arise. “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth” (I John iii. 18). Brotherly love is thus a very different thing from amiability of character or kindness of disposition. Such features may be found in many religious people in whom there is no brotherly love uniting them to the children of God. But brotherly love is a spiritual affection which discerns the
beginnings of the image of Christ being traced by the finger of God’s Spirit in a man or woman, thus forming a spiritual union, profitable to both, and encouraging in their common efforts to advance the Cause of Christ in the world.
When one of the Lord’s people is taken from this Valley of Baca to appear before God in the heavenly Sion, all who felt spiritually united to such feel the loss, not only to themselves personally, but also to the Church at large. When such were useful in the vineyard and known to be of those who sighed and cried because of the abominations done in the land, the sense of loss is more profound although it is realised that they have finished their course with joy and entered the inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled and which will never fade away. Such were the feelings of many when they heard of the death of the worthy man whose name appears at the head of this notice. He was one of the faithful of the land, belonging to a stamp of Christian fast passing from our midst, who knew the value of vital godliness and were not disposed to accept that which bore the name but lacked the reality.
He was born in Peneffler in the Parish of Portree in 1869 of respectable parents who belonged to the Established Church. Of their spiritual condition he could say little, but he had the inestimable blessing of a godly grandmother, Mrs. MacKenzie, Strome, who often spoke to him of his soul’s interests and who was much pleased with the evidences of early piety she saw in her grandson. It appears there was a godly neighbour near the home in Peneffler and young Donald would often enter this house at the time of worship. He was of the opinion that the prayers of this man at worship were the means the Lord used to bring him under soul concern, so that, at the early age of five years, he was seeking for mercy from the God against whom he had sinned. He continued in this frame of mind for many years, praying and reading the Word of God, when he became able to do so. He mentioned also being impressed by a sermon by some Free Church schoolmaster, whose name we have been unable to discover, on the 5th chapter of Romans dealing with the subject of saving faith. When about 14 years of age he was, one day, herding the cattle alone, and exercised about his soul, when he felt the drawing power of the Redeemer and was enabled to close with Him in the everlasting gospel. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me” (John xii. 32). “For the love of Christ constraineth us” (II Cor. v. 14). As he was very reticent, it is regretted that more details of this time in his life are not available. That the change was real and effectual, his after-life proved. Both while engaged in seafaring and after settling down at home, his love to the Word of God and separation from the ungodly world was manifest. “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John xvii. 15-16).
He married Catherine MacKinnon, a daughter of Ewen MacKinnon, who was an elder in our congregation at Broadford. We have been told that she also had been brought to the knowledge of Christ when young and proved a true helpmate for Donald, encouraging him in the work of the Lord when, in later years, he began to hold meetings in various parts. She was apparently of a quiet and reserved disposition, living a consistent life in the fear of the Lord. She was taken away from him in 1942 when she died in Raasay.
He was received as a communicant by the Portree Kirk Session in 1913, and was ordained an elder there in 1920. He was often heard in his last days to speak with regret of two things. The first was that he was so long in making a public profession of his interest in Christ. While he doubtless felt the weight and solemnity of taking such a serious step, he appeared to feel that he had waited too long. Of his right to be at the Lord’s Table, none who knew him could have any doubt.
The other thing he regretted was that he was so long in leaving the Established Church, although he was many years in our Church before he made a public profession. He was warmly attached to the stand made in 1893 and to the principles and contentions of the Free Presbyterian Church. He realised the need of such a testimony in a day of backsliding, and could not tolerate any half-heartedness in a matter so closely bound up with the honour of Christ and the good of souls. He read quite a lot and often spoke of the Reformers and the doctrines of grace in which his soul found the food it needed. All who were of the same mind as himself in these matters found in him a warm friend who encouraged them and prayed for them.
In his later years he became resident in the Island of Raasay, where he was taking the meetings until the last two years in which he was confined to bed with a trying and often painful illness. He was most patient in this dispensation and afraid of complaining. Shortly before the end, when very ill, he was heard to say, “The Lord was good to me all my life.” Satan took advantage of his bodily weakness to attack his soul and his hope for eternity. While not a stranger to the devices of the Evil One before, it seems the conflict became more severe during this time. This was known only to those near him as he did not believe in showing his troubles to the world. Near the end he appeared to attain a greater measure of peace and to feel that the joy of salvation had been restored to him. He was faithfully and tenderly nursed by his daughters until the end came in September of last year when he passed away, we firmly believe, to be with the Saviour, who loved him and gave Himself for him. To his various relatives we extend our sincere sympathy.
Donald Nicolson was a man of prayer. His petitions were characterised by honesty of expression, a fruit of his natural frankness, salted by grace. When very ill on one occasion he was heard to say,
on apparently waking from sleep: “Grant it; grant it.” When asked what he was praying for, he replied, “For the Holy Spirit to come to this place.” His prayers are now ended but the need for the Holy Spirit to come to Raasay, Portree and other places is great indeed. May the Lord, in His infinite mercy, grant us all the spirit of prayer that the Holy Ghost would come to raise up a seed who would faithfully and lovingly follow the Lamb through good and evil report as our fathers were enabled to do.
“Instead of those thy fathers dear,
Thy children Thou may’st take,
And in all places of the earth
Then noble princes make” (Ps. xlv. 16).
—D.M.