Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 13
November 23, 1961
NUMBER 29, PAGE 14a

M. C. Cuthbertson

Luther G. Roberts, Salem, Oregon

Monday morning, September 25, 1961, I said good-bye to brother M. C. Cuthbertson as the train he had boarded was pulling out of Salem, Oregon. I never dreamed that it would be the last time that I would behold his face on this earth and that I would see his face no more in the flesh. I hope to meet him in the new heaven and the new earth. He passed from this life September 28, 1961, in Tucson, Arizona, at the age of three score years and fourteen days. Funeral and burial were in Amarillo, Texas October 2, 1961.

Brother Cuthbertson had closed a meeting with the church in Salem Sunday night, September the 24th. He had preached eight days, including the Lord's days of September 17th and 24th. His preaching was as fine as I ever heard him do. He was true to the Word of God in his teaching and his appeal was to all for a close adherence to that Book. He was kind in his presentation, yet plain and pointed in his teaching as he pled for God's ways as above man's ways, which was the theme of his preaching for the meeting based on Isaiah 55:6-11. On Saturday night of the meeting he preached on the subject, "Death and After." The last Sunday of the meeting he preached on "True Worship," in the morning, and on "It is Written," in the evening. As one member of the church stated it, "He preached his heart out in this meeting." Three made the confession and were baptized and one was restored during the meeting.

We visited during the meeting with each other as we visited others. Brother Cuthbertson's first thoughts were of the church and of the people whom he could interest in the truth and the church of the Lord. He was very pleasant during the ten days he was with us here in Salem. He arrived on Friday preceding the beginning of the meeting. He seemed himself as he was of old to a great extent. He teased and laughed during our visits as he had through the years except in times of extreme sorrow in his life.

In our conversation he mentioned more than once two men whom he loved and appreciated and with whom he had been associated much in his life, brethren C. R. Nichol and C. E. Woolridge, both of whom passed away this year. Though he was younger than either of them he was closely associated with them and was saddened at their passing from this life, but he was happy in the prospect of the realization of their hope, and his reunion with them, though he did not anticipate this reunion so soon, I am sure.

Brother Cuthbertson and I were closely associated for several years in the work of preaching the gospel. We had worked at different times for the same churches, he would follow me at a place and I would follow him working with a church where he had labored. He was moderator for my first religious discussion. He was a hard worker and made lasting friends among those where he worked so untiringly. This writer preached the funeral sermon for brother Cuthbertson's mother and his wife. It is a cause of much regret that because of the distance involved it did not seem practical for me to be present for his funeral service. His was a full life of a labor of love for the three score and ten years allotted unto man here. His faith was stedfast and his hope strong in God and in the power of His might.

"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their works follow with them." Like Abraham, "he looked for the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." May the Lord bless and comfort his loved ones.