If, as one of the great divines has put it: “There is not so powerful a sermon in the world as a consistent Christian life,” then the worthy subject of this brief biographical sketch, by her sincerely consistent and faithful life, walk, and conversation, manifested, from early girlhood to a ripe old age, what a powerful sermon life-long vital godliness can be. Mrs. C. Munro was born on the 12th September, 1864, and was the ninth child of a family of ten; her parents being Mr. and Mrs. George Gilbertson, who lived in the vicinity of Olrig, Caithness. As a child she was baptized by the saintly, faithful, and justly-renowned Rev. Dr. Kennedy of Dingwall. As her home was some miles from church, it was not considered advisable to make her walk all that distance, till she was about six years of age. The preacher on that, to her, memorable occasion, was the above-named Dr. Kennedy, and on her return home, she amazed her mother by asking for the true spiritual meaning of the words: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom,” that being the subject of Dr. Kennedy’s discourse. The deep ineradicable impression made on her mind by that discourse, and the beautifully solemn and heavenly aspect, characteristic of this renowned and powerful preacher’s countenance, remained with her all her days, and she referred to that event, with ardent gratitude, even in the ninety-fourth year of her age. This interesting incident, with its subsequent fruit in true piety over a long period of years, emphasises the importance of taking children to church as early in life as possible. The regular family pew, under a faithful ministry, is an unrivalled institution for moulding character.
She had been married several years before her immigration to Canada, her husband being a brother of the late worthy Mr. Hugh Munro, our highly-esteemed missionary at Beauly. Her parents, and six brothers and three sisters, came to Canada before her. They are all now buried in Simcoe Cemetery. She lost three of her children at birth before she left Caithness, and this afflicting dispensation was a great grief and trial to her, when, before the birth of her fourth child, the truth spoke to her with power: “This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands,” which words, she afterwards discovered, were the prophetic ones spoken by Lamech concerning his son, Noah. It proved so in her case also, as the child survived, and grew up to care for her mother, lovingly, during the last thirty years of her life. Mrs. Munro passed peacefully away on 15th December, 1958.
Mrs. Munro arrived in Canada in 1905, and lost her husband five years later, leaving her with three small children, whom she creditably brought up, though not without a great trial and struggle, but ingrained grit and determination, steeped in believing prayer, and dependence on God’s merciful provision, as embodied in His precious promises to widows and orphans, upheld her throughout. After a hard struggle of two or three years, a matron was needed for the Orphaned Children’s Home, in the town of Simcoe, Ontario, Canada, and, because of her exemplary integrity, she was offered, and accepted, the position. She always regarded this as a marvellous providential arrangement, as she had a comfortable home and accommodation for herself and family, as well as affording her her heart’s desire to instruct the young children under her superintending care, many of whom wrote to her in after years to express their heartfelt gratitude for the valuable character-moulding instructions given, exemplified by the consistent example of true Christianity set by her daily life. When she retired she bought a house in Simcoe, where many of our church’s deputies, including the present writer, enjoyed liberal generosity under her hospitable roof. Latterly she removed to Toronto to be with her daughter to the end.
Mrs. Munro was a life-long friend of the late Mrs. Auld, with whom she regularly corresponded till the latter laid down her able and cultured pen at death. From the time, in early girlhood, the Word of God was made to dwell in her richly, it continued her unfailing daily companion, friend, and instructor of heart, lip and life, to the end, while she literally prayed without ceasing. When her only son, Mr. John R. MacKay Munro, now a bank-manager in Hamilton, Ontario, tried to test her extraordinary knowledge of the Scriptures shortly before she died, he offered to read a chapter in her hearing. He deliberately omitted a verse near the beginning, and another one near the end. At the conclusion she thanked him for reading to her, but advised him, for the future, to be more careful in reading the Word of God, as he had omitted two verses, which she repeated with perfect accuracy. No doubt he anticipated this result, as would any one who knew her. Not only was she widely read in the writings of the great divines of the past, especially Scottish ones, but up to the last she read Protestant evangelical magazines from every part of the English-speaking world. She often sent cuttings from these, which periodically were published in our “Young People’s Magazine,” direct to the Editor, but often through the present writer, with whom she regularly corresponded to the end. Her interest in the young, boys and girls, young men and women, never abated, doubtless due to her own girlhood’s blessed experience. Her long life bridged the chasm between two widely separated generations.
She was gifted with an extraordinary retentive memory, keen penetrating intelligence, spiritual discernment, ready wit, a keen sense of humour, and, above all, an uncompromising, rigidly-fixed and stereotyped fidelity to the eternal, immutable, infallible doctrines of free and sovereign grace, the only doctrines, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that can save a soul.
Mrs. Munro, though severely tried and tempted by the world, the flesh and Satan, within and without, and in combination, never developed a sour, stern, melancholy facial aspect, but would have cordially subscribed the words of Rev. Richard Baxter: “Always cultivate the friendship of the most cheerful type of Christians, for there is no mirth like the mirth of believers.” Some regarded her as too strictly rigid relative to Sabbath observance, evangelical Protestantism, and the doctrines of free and sovereign grace, but such, without realizing it, were paying a tribute to her unswerving fidelity to principle.
Despite her long isolation from Free Presbyterians in a remote part of Canada, she never once, in the least degree, swerved in her cordial loyalty to the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. When the present writer teased her relative to her admiration for the late Rev. Prof. John R. MacKay, D.D., seeing she named her only son after him, she replied: “I always admired him, and still do, for his undoubted piety and eloquence as a preacher, but when he left the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, I most certainly did not follow him then, for God never asked anybody to leave a pure and Scriptural church for a less pure and less Scriptural one,” a phrase of which the present writer has made frequent use in speaking and writing since. She could not suffer vacillating professing Christians, who seemed, like the weather-vane, to change with every wind that blew.
While, naturally enough, she had great regard for Dr. Kennedy of Dingwall, she so admired the late Revs. James S. Sinclair and Neil Cameron, Glasgow, that she could quote their writings with the greatest ease, and ardent admiration. She loved them with a true heart fervently. In a letter to one of our ministers shortly before she died, she said “I am sick-tired of myself.” To do justice in a biographical sketch to the rich long-life experience of Mrs. Munro, one would need to write a fairly-large booklet with a much more competent pen than the present one, for Mrs. Munro represented a type of Christian, common enough in Dr. Kennedy’s day, but extremely rare nowadays, for they are fast disappearing from the view of our day and generation. She was naturally courteous, attractive, and cheerful, and admired by all true Christians. It is not at all surprising that her own son, two daughters, and grand-children, deeply mourn their loss, which was her great and everlasting gain. May her instructions and example be blessed abundantly to them all. With all due respect to the value of space in our magazine, one does not apologise for writing thus lengthily about a fast-disappearing type of consistent uncompromising Christian, with her well-nigh inexhaustible fund of enriching and edifying anecdotes and conversations of the godly men and women of her young days.—John P. MacQueen.