The Late Dr Hugh Gillies, Elder, Stornoway
We are persuaded that Dr Hugh Gillies’s memory will remain fresh, green and fragrant while there are found following after him on the highway to Sion such fellow-pilgrims as met with him on it and had the privilege of accompanying him a part of the way. Even those who did not share his Christian convictions highly respected him as a man of integrity and honour in the community and much lamented his death. For upwards of thirty years he practised as a physician in Lewis and was well-known in all parts of the island. Familiarly known as “Dr Hugh”, the high esteem in which he was held was reflected in the huge concourse of people from all walks of life that assembled to pay their last respects to him on Thursday, 30th April, 1977. The previous Tuesday, at the age of 56, he had passed away in Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, after sustaining a heart attack.
Many who read this will remember with affection Dr Gillies’s father, the Rev. Malcolm Gillies who, for twenty years, was minister at Stornoway. The inscription on the stone marking his grave tells us, among other things, that “his savoury preaching endeared him to the poor in Sion”, and perhaps more than any other minister, his pithy and oftentimes humorous sayings are remembered and recounted. Something of this sense of humour came out in the son as also did the balanced, shrewd judgment, kindness and care for the things of God that Mr Gillies was so noted for — qualities shared with his like-minded wife who originally hailed from Strathy, a place famed for its spiritual giants in days gone by. Dr Gillies thus came of godly stock. But grace does not run in the blood, and godly lineage, however great a privilege it may be, will not, of itself, shield any from the wrath to come. “Except ye repent,” said the Saviour to Abraham’s children, “ye shall all likewise perish.”
When Hugh Gillies “came to himself” and was turned as a repentant sinner to God the change was apparent to all. Being so well known, his conversion was a notable event in the life of the community. Sufficient for him now was the time that was past of his life “to have wrought the will of the Gentiles”. If afterwards, in exhorting others to repentance he referred to the days of his ignorance and folly it was not in order to glory in his shame but rather like the “chief” of sinners to enhance the greatness of the mercy which he had also found and the exceeding abundance of the “grace of our Lord . . . with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus”. Those whom he was previously wont to keep at arm’s length and in whose presence, as he afterwards confessed, he felt himself condemned, came to be as close to him now as they were distant before. The loving Christian attachment between himself and the late Dr Peter Aulay MacLeod was plain to all who knew them both, and often in their company reference was made to those days when that spiritual attachment was formed. Perhaps no-one knew as Dr MacLeod did the spiritual depths through which his younger colleague had passed, before coming to have the assured hope of a saving interest in Christ.
It would appear that he came to this assurance when laid aside through bodily affliction in an Inverness hospital. There, and at a time when he was in a very distraught state of mind, he received a visit from his minister, the late Rev. James Tallach. The outcome was that ever after there was a very close bond — as between father and son in the Lord — between Hugh and the Rev. James Tallach. Perhaps it was then that the words, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin”, came to be particularly precious to him.
In August, 1957, he was cordially received as a member by the Stornoway Kirk Session. Soon after he found himself suddenly having to take the Sandwick prayer meeting. One of his hearers that evening is convinced that “those present on that occasion are not likely to forget the earnestness and power with which he spoke from the words — ‘For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit which are God’s’ — a text truly descriptive of his own Christian life.” During the years that followed, and particularly after his ordination to the eldership in 1963, he was continually being called upon to take services, not only in Stornoway in the absence of the minister but throughout the island of Lewis and even further afield. He willingly and cheerfully answered every call made upon him if it were humanly possible for him to do so. On his last Sabbath on earth though apparently suffering much discomfort and pain he took the three services in the Tain and Fearn congregation.
Looking back, it is with a sense of wonder that we recall his willingness to undertake the most menial as well as the most arduous duty if it was to the advancement of Christ’s cause and kingdom. With Hugh Gillies that came first. His removal brought home to some of us just how much we had taken for granted. Quietly, unobtrusively, efficiently, he attended to matters connected with the congregation even to details which others less devoted might be inclined to neglect, or pass by as unimportant. At the time of his death he was clerk both of the Kirk Session and Deacons’ Court. Even after this lapse of time we are painfully conscious of the blank. We miss his friendship, fellowship, help and encouragement more than words can tell. As a devoted husband and father his loss is much felt by those whom he left behind and we would anew express the hope that his God would be their God and their guide even unto death.
What was mortal of Dr Hugh Gillies was lovingly deposited beside his parents in Sandwick to sleep in the dust with them until the trumpet sounds and they awake together to be satisfied with the likeness of their Redeemer and to be made “perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity”.
J. McL.