The late Mr Thomas Richmond Kidd, Elder, Grafton, N.S. Wales
Mr Thomas Richmond Kidd passed, we believe, to his everlasting rest on Saturday 15th June 1974 in his 86th year. Mr Kidd was the youngest member of a family of fourteen — five sons and nine daughters. Their parents, Mr and Mrs Thomas Kidd, were God-fearing persons, in whose hospitable home the eminent Rev. Alexander MacIntyre and other faithful witnesses on the side of Christ in their day, where often honoured guests. They brought up their large family in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, seeking in the strength of grace to fulfil what Thomas Manton the Puritan divine in his Introductory Epistle to the Westminster Confession says: “Families are societies that must be sanctified to God as well as churches, and the governors of them have as truly a charge of the souls that are therein as pastors have of the churches. But, alas, how little is this considered or regarded! They offer their children to God in baptism and they promise to teach them the doctrines of the Gospel, and bring them up in the nurture of the Lord; but they easily promise and easily break it; and educate their children for the world and for the flesh, although they have renounced these, and dedicated them to God. This covenant-breaking with God, and betraying the souls of their children to the devil must lie heavy on them here or hereafter. They beget children, and rear families, merely for the world and for the flesh: but little consider what a charge is committed to them, and what it is to bring up a child for God and govern a family as a sanctified society.” The parents, both members in full communion identified themselves with the Reconstituted Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia after the notorious Expulsion Act of 1884.
Three of their sons were worthy elders in the Church, Mr Richmond, the subject of this obituary, and his brothers Alexander and James. Alexander the sixth member of the family was born at Woodford Leigh on the Clarence River in the year 1871. A brief narrative of his life written by his brother James, is incorporated in his obituary written by the late Rev. Finlay Macleod, Dornoch, and appears in Volume 60 of the F.P. Magazine. Mr Macleod says of him: “He was greatly attached to the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, because he found in her the gospel by which sinners are saved.” He passed away in 1955 at the age of 84, “to be forever,” as Mr Macleod puts it, “with his Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
James Kidd the seventh member of the family was born in 1873 and passed to his eternal rest in October 1959 at the advanced age of 86. James attended the Sydney University to study with a view to the ministry. In his third year at the University he had a serious breakdown in his health, which resulted in his having to relinquish his studies. From that breakdown he never fully recovered. Both he, and his brother Alexander and the worthy Hugh Grant who died in July 1935 at the ripe age of 89 years, were elders in the Rev. Walter Scott’s congregation, elders who were outstanding witnesses for Christ in their day and generation. In the midst of abounding apostacy they upheld the testimony on the side of purity of doctrine and purity of worship, cleaving in the strength of grace to the faithful exhortation which the Rev. Walter Scott sent in one of his Pastoral Letters, to the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation. “Let me refer you again,” he wrote, “to the touchstone of Truth and duty — the more sure word of prophecy — ‘Let them return unto thee, but return not thou unto them’, (Jer. 15: 19), whereunto ye do well that he take heed.”
Many of the daughters of Mr and Mrs Thomas Kidd, striking in appearance and demeanour left fragrant memories of lives lived in the secret place of Him that is Most High, living epistles of Christ, holding fast to the law and the testimony of Zion’s King whose truth and cause they loved and honoured.
Mr Richmond, as he was usually called, was a man of strong physique, handsome of stature and of a pleasant and kindly disposition. During his farming days at Clunes on the Richmond River he was held in high esteem by his neighbours, for his willingness to give a helping hand in time of need. He saw service in France during the First World War. On one occasion when on leave he visited several parts of Scotland including Dumbarton from which his paternal grandfather had emigrated as an engineer to Australia.
When home on final leave before leaving for France, his brother James held a farewell service the night before he left, and gave a discourse on Jacob’s dream at Bethel as recorded in Genesis Chapter 28. Mr Richmond used to tell how much he was impressed during the service by the promise in verse 15 — “And behold I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” He also vowed as Jacob did that the Lord would be his God. The apparently deep impression made upon him under the preaching of the Word and in such solemn circumstances, on the eve of leaving home for the battlefield in a foreign land, in due course passed away as the morning cloud, and as the early dew. Convictions and impressions are not conversion. In France he had wonderful escapes from death. On one occasion a jagged piece of shrapnel hit him on the chest and were it not for the wallet he had in his pocket, he could have sustained a fatal wound. Although he was still a stranger to grace and to God, he could not but see the goodness and long-suffering of the Lord in preserving his life and sought to praise Him for it.
On his return home from France at the end of the war, he took up farming, kept family worship and was diligent in his attendance on the means of grace in Ballina on the Richmond, where his brothers Alexander and James conducted the services. He was well over the age of thirty when he was convinced of his lost condition as a sinner and his need of a Saviour. It seems that for some considerable time he was under law work, concluding at times that he had sinned away the day of grace. One night about midnight light and deliverance came to his burdened soul through the words, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” (1 Tim. 1: 15.) He rose from his bed with a new song in his mouth to praise the Lord for remembering him in his low estate, because his mercy endureth for ever. In the morning he made for the house of his brothers Alexander and James to tell them what the Lord had done for his soul. On his arrival full of wonder and praise he spoke of the deliverance vouchsafed him by the Lord. “Now,” he remarked, “my troubles are all over.” “Richmond,” replied his brother Alexander, “they are just beginning.” He often spoke of that morning he went to see his brethren. The grass never seemed so green nor the crops so beautiful. The face of the natural creation appeared new to him. As time went on he began to learn the meaning of his brother Alexander’s remark. He met with troubles, trials and afflictions of divers kinds, but out of them all the Lord has now set him eternally free.
Then are they glad, because at rest
and quiet now they be:
So to the haven he them brings,
which they desired to see.
(Psalm 107: 30.)
Mr Kidd was an elder for several years in the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation, whose spiritual welfare and prosperity he sought and prayed for. He conscientiously discharged the duties of his office while health permitted. Oftentimes in frailty and weakness he attended the means of grace on the Sabbath and the prayer-meetings during the week. With the Psalmist he could say, “Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth.” (Psalm 26: 8.)
Mr Kidd left a like-minded widow and six of a family, three sons and three daughters. Two of the sons (one a deacon) and one daughter are communicant members in the congregation. To them all we extend our sincere sympathy in the loss of a devoted husband and father. May they all be found following in their father’s footsteps toward that eternal rest into which he has now entered.
“And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek Him, He will be found of thee; but if thou forsake Him, he will cast thee off for ever.” (1 Chronicles 28: 9.)
W.M.