Mr Ronald MacBeath
On 29 July 2013, and 10 years after the death of his wife Lizzie, Ronald MacBeath departed to his eternal rest above. Ronald was raised in Arina on the Applecross Coast in a God-fearing home where the Sabbath was kept and weekly services faithfully attended. Church attendance involved either a three-mile walk to Cuaig or a combination of walking and rowing to the morning service at Shieldaig and an evening service at Ardheslaig.
At the outbreak of World War II, Ronald’s elder brother Norman was in the merchant navy and was lost at sea within six months of the start of hostilities. The news of this sore loss reached the Arina home just as Ronald himself was preparing to leave to join the same service. Though his own ship fell victim to enemy action with the loss of many lives, Ronald survived the War and often talked of the Lord’s goodness to him in preserving his life. He returned to the Applecross Coast to work on a fishing boat and to marriage to Lizzie MacLennan, the district nurse at Shieldaig. His mother, Christina MacLennan, was from Raasay and his parents moved to the island a few years after the end of the War. Ronald and Lizzie followed his parents and brought up a family of five girls over the ensuing years.
Ronald professed faith and was ordained an elder during the ministry of the late Rev D Nicolson in Raasay. Subsequently he served as an elder in the courts of the Church and took services as occasion required. Ronald had a gracious, humble, contrite spirit; his advice as an elder was profitable; and his prayers and contributions on the Question Day were edifying. One felt that he was very much one of those who were “going and weeping”, asking “the way to Zion with their faces thitherward”. A frequent petition of his was to be delivered “from the evil within and from the evil without”. These prayers have now turned to praises and the Church militant is the poorer.
His daughters were consistently caring of their father, and this was especially evident in his latter years. We commend them to the grace that brought Ronald MacBeath from the “horrible pit” and “miry clay” to the “general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant”. We extend our warm sympathy to his daughters and grandchildren.
“The expectation of the poor shall not be lost for aye.” (Rev) J R Tallach.