ALEXANDER MACDONALD, DUNMORE, URRAY.
ALTHOUGH the subject of this brief notice was not very widely known, nor perhaps a marked man for outstanding abilities, yet his integrity of life and devotion to sound principles, not to speak of the fact of his being an office-bearer in the Free Presbyterian Church for eighteen years, deserves, on our part, that something should be written in memoriam of him.
Mr. MacDonald was born in Teanluick, parish of Urray, about the year 1829, and, when very young, came to live at Dunmore, in the same parish, which latter place was his home for seventy-one years. He had thus quite a good recollection of the Disruption of 1843. In the minister of his youth, the late Rev. James MacDonald, Urray, young Alexander MacDonald had an able exponent and teacher not only of evangelical truth, but also of sound Church principles. With these views of truth our late friend became in early life thoroughly imbued, and, for their maintenance in later years, he was willing to suffer. In 1888, he was called to the eldership in the Free Church congregation of Urray, where the late Rev. Mr. Beaton was then minister. In 1893, he cast in his lot with the Free Presbyterians, and inasmuch
as no congregation of Free Presbyterians was formed within the parish of Urray, Mr. Alexander MacDonald became one of the Free Presbyterian congregation of Beauly, where his status as an ordained elder was recognised from the beginning. In this capacity he for years, more especially after the death of such worthies as the late William Campbell, and the late Alexander Fraser, gave much help in conducting services among our people in Kilmorack parish, and also as a good visitor, helped to maintain the cause within his sphere of influence.
Mr. MacDonald became a widower in 1903. This trying event in his life led him, some years before the end came, to remove from Dunmore, where, as we have said, seventy-one years of his life were spent, in order to live with a daughter in the parish of Ferintosh. But, although thus separated in body from those with whom, since 1893, he worshipped each Sabbath, we know that his thoughts and sympathies went out to the very end towards those whom, since 1893, he regarded as the true representatives of the Free Church as he first knew it.
Mr. MacDonald passed away at his daughter’s house in Ferintosh, on the 15th November, 1911, and, on the following Saturday, his remains were interred in the burying place at Gilchrist, parish of Kiltarlity.
With his surviving son and daughters we feel sincere sympathy.
“Help, Lord, because the godly man
Doth daily fade away;
And from among the sons of men
The faithful do decay.”
J. R. M.