186 years ago today, the six-year-old son of the Stranraer minister, William Symington, was killed in an accident in the manse garden (now McNeil funeral directors - the building is called ‘Mansewood’). The tragic story is recorded below (taken from this article):
Robert’s gravestone - built into the wall of the Reformed Presbyterian graveyard
“During the month that marked fourteen years since his ordination in Stranraer, William and Agnes’s fourth child, Robert, was playing in the manse garden when a stone pillar supporting a sun dial fell on him. He suffered an internal injury, and despite the efforts of three doctors, died within thirty-six hours.
There are a number of touching details associated with the tragic event. His mother gently asked him a number of questions about his faith in Christ and hope for Heaven. Doubtless most of them were catechism questions he had learnt before. But she couldn’t help asking him a final question: ‘Would you not be sorry to leave us all?’ To which he responded by putting his arms around her neck and telling her not to cry because he was going to be with Jesus’.
Thinking back to the event as a widow, nearly 30 years later, Agnes charged her youngest son never to forget a certain friend because of the love he’d shown at the time. The sons don’t tell us his full name, but she was almost certainly talking about James M’Gill. M’Gill was a farmer’s son from Portpatrick and had been part of the Stranraer congregation as a 13-year-old when Symington was ordained. He had gone on to become a minister himself, at Hightae, near Lockerbie.
Agnes told her youngest son: ‘You were an infant six weeks old when Robert died. Mr M‘G- had baptized you, and was on his way home when the tidings overtook him. He turned his horse and came back on the Saturday evening (Robert had died in the morning) and preached on the Sabbath. I crept into the vestry with you at my breast, and heard him preach on “Jesus wept.” Never forget Mr M‘G- as long as you live.”
Tomorrow night we’ll be considering what is a very real question for many who have faced similar tragedies: ‘How could a loving God allow suffering?’
Update: Audio of the talk is available here.
