Note 10 — Chapter X
Reading edition
Alexander T. Magarey and Vaney J. Magarey were sons of Thomas Magarey, M. P., of South Australia. They made their home with us while attending the University of Melbourne. Two more congenial spirits I never met; nor better students. Then, too, they were Christians from very love of the Savior, and delighted in the truths of the Gospel. They were very intelligent in the Scriptures. After my return from Australia Alex. visited me in Kentucky. It was my delight to take him among my kindred; for he and his brother seemed to me like one of my own family, and to present him to the Brethren as a specimen of what sort could be found in Australia. The memory of him, his father, brother and the Magarey family is very precious. Alex. would have me take him to see the mother of Brother Be. sley who went to Australia, came home an invalid and died of consumption: he must weep with that mother and see the grave of that young man: he must see those—teachers and preachers—of whom he had read; he wanted to take them all by the hand, and such a hand grasp as he gave was remembered. We were sitting together in the Main Street Church in Louisville during the State Meeting in 1880, when T. P. Haley asked if any knew of rich men's sons who are preachers of the Gospel. Only two were known—T. M. Arnold of Covington, Kentucky, and Alex. Magarey. On one occasion his horse, which no one drove but him, took us in a buggy from his father's home to a church near Adelaide where Alex. preached. The people there were poor, and he would minister to them—"preach the gospel to the poor". He taught them to give. A woman who had no money had gathered the wild flowers—her offering—better than gold to him. He took them home and pressed them, possibly had them as long as he lived.
The name "Magarey" always honored in the Campbell Home, is it strange that when Alex. came to the United States the next time it was for the express purpose of bearing to his Australian home a bride—niece of Alexander Campbell?
These young men (A. T. and S. J. Magarey) were my ideals of what young Christians ought to be and do: they were so congenial to me—my companions even playmates, sympathized with me so fully, helped me in my work, that when their earthly life ended it seemed that a part of my own life had gone with them.
O. A. C.