- Hitherto unpublished.—Ed.
MANSE OF HALKIRK, 4th October, 1839.
MY DEAR H.—I have your letter of December 8th, 1838, before me. I think you have written me since, but I cannot at present lay my hand on your letter. Mr. Matheson of Kilmuir, whom I had the pleasure of seeing at the General Assembly, told me how you then were. You tell me he was very kind to you, and I trust he continues to be so. He is a very kind man.
I trust you and John, your brother, keep worship in the family, and that you pray time about with your dear mother. She will tell you that the Lord was pleased to remove our father from us when we were very young. It is now sixty-two years in July last since the Lord was pleased to take him to his rest. I, who was the eldest of the children, wanted four months of being nine years of age at the time. The Lord took care of us in His great mercy. My brother and sister, who both died in hope, are now removed—my sister in February, 1789, and my brother, who in age was next to me, in February or March, 1805. Your mother can tell you how her mother and mine took her leave of us on a Sabbath evening, at Alness—her last Sabbath on earth, for she died on the Tuesday night of that week. Her parting words to us were, “I have been told that your father’s grandmother said that the Lord had given her four sons and two daughters, none of whom the enemy, Satan, should ever see at his fireside. I am not without the same hope concerning you. Follow you the way of the Lord.” The last words of my grandaunt, who died at Catewell, in, I think, 1801, about this time of the year, were, “Nach d’ thanig am Buachaille gloirmhor? Nach d’ thanig am Buachaille gloirmhor?” (“Has not the glorious Shepherd come? Has not the glorious Shepherd come?”) She died last of the six, and was the youngest of them. I was credibly informed that her mother, Helen Munro, alias M’Gillechriosde, said that as a mark that what she had said of her children would be verified, they would leave the world in the order in which they came into it; which actually came to pass, and thus died the youngest above alluded to.
(The writer now addresses his nephew’s mother, his own sister.) You, Christian, my dear sister, remember her well. . . . You are the fourth link of the chain who are the Lord’s by the father’s side—reckoning downwards from his grandparents. * Alexander Munro and Helen M’Gillechriosde, Hector Munro and Jane Sutherland, Alexander Munro and Janet Munro, our father and mother; and the Lord in His great mercy has put it in the power of your children to say, Finlay Ross and Christian Munro. I pray likewise it may be the Lord’s will that you survive me. The chain on our dear mother’s side is—reckoning upwards—Alexander Munro and our mother, Janet Munro, John Munro, her father, and Elizabeth Mackay, Donald Munro, her grandfather, and Catherine Munro, alias Buie, and John Munro, alias Caird, her great-grandfather, Mr. Thomas Hog’s disciple. I do not remember to have heard his wife’s name.
- We have inserted these and the following words in italics, in order to make the lists of ancestors plain to the reader. It will be observed that the Rev. John Munro’s parents were both Munro to name, and that the famous John Munro Caird of Kiltearn was his great-great-grandfather by his mother’s side, and not his father’s, as has been sometimes thought. Grace does not run in the blood, but it often runs in the line. This saying is remarkably exemplified in the above.—ED.
“Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us; but unto Thy name give glory for Thy mercy and for Thy truth’s sake.” And have we not cause to be humbled in the dust, to remember and be confounded, and never open our mouth for shame? We with our fathers have sinned, but the Lord is following us, because He is good and His mercy endureth for ever. The fountain promised is opened and is now open. The electing, eternal love of the Father, the redeeming, eternal love of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, and the sanctifying, eternal love of the Spirit, is the same. God in three Persons is love, holy love, wise love, just love, unchangeable love, almighty love. The love of Christ passeth all knowledge, but the knowledge of God Himself. We are in jeopardy every hour, but He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. I depend upon Him for keeping me in the world, for warning me daily when I am to leave the world, and let you and children and all do the same. Here we have no continuing city, let us be looking for one to come, a city having foundations where the weary are at rest.
Write me soon. Mrs. Munro joins with me in offering our kind love to you all. Alexander is in Brodick, of Arran, Argyll-shire, mostly, since the middle of July last.—I am, yours affectionately,
JOHN MUNRO.