DUNCAN MACKINNON was born at North Ballachulish in the year 1843. His father was the blacksmith of the district, and was, as reported, an orderly and careful-living man. The writer knew Duncan’s mother, who was considered to be a pious woman. Duncan learned his father’s trade. Until he reached the age of eighteen years, he lived quite carelessly, “without God and without hope in the world.” In the year 1861, as he was on the eve of leaving home to assist a blacksmith in the Black Mount, he attended a dancing ball held in the parish. On his way home that night, his conscience awoke to a sense of the guilty condition of his soul in the presence of a holy and just God. In this condition of mind, he left next day for his new place. The struggle he endured there was fresh on his memory to the last. He would often spend the whole night in secret prayer, after being hard wrought at his trade all day. The awfulness of being under the wrath and curse of God, which he then felt “like burning coals of juniper,” for ever and ever, swallowed up every other consideration. This put an end for ever to dancing and all other forms of vanity, so far as Duncan MacKinnon was concerned. He told the writer the portion of God’s word through which his guilty conscience was set free, but he cannot now recall it.
It was in these terrible struggles that the foundation of Duncan’s eminence as a man of prayer was laid. The Rev. Mr. MacGillivray was the minister of Ballachulish at the time; but Duncan looked to no man as an instrument by whom he was convinced of sin or brought to gospel liberty; all was secretly wrought in his soul by the Holy Ghost through the Word of God. When he returned home, the change which had taken place was seen and read of all men; consequently he was called upon to pray publicly. One who heard him at that time, and has been his true friend and companion to the end of his natural life here, writes: “I remember when I was a young lad of hearing Duncan pray in a prayer meeting held in my father’s house, and the fervency which characterised his prayers in later days was manifest then. His place ever after was seldom vacant at the weekly prayer meeting, despite many a wild and stormy night, and that after a hard day’s work in the smithy. He was very zealous, especially in denouncing sin, and that without being afraid of any man.” This describes briefly some of his outstanding characteristics as a public witness on the Lord’s side against the sinful practices of men. But he was not a censorious man, for he condemned sin in himself more than he did in any other one, and he was moved to do so out of sincere regard for the glory of God, and also because of how convinced he was that sin, if not repented of and forsaken, would end in everlasting weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. He was ordained an elder on the 17th day of March, 1878, which office he held to the end of his days on earth.
The writer met him for the first time in the year 1884. He was then in his full strength and vigour. Two things in his character impressed me about him at the time: (1) The extraordinary transparency of his mind, accompanied by real sincerity. He struck me as being “an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile.” This impression was confirmed more and more as the years of our acquaintance rolled on; for he was truly a man of sterling integrity in everything small or great both in the affairs of God’s house and cause, and also in all that concerned his fellow-men. (2) The extraordinary earnestness and the striking originality of his prayers. He approached the Lord in prayer as a child would a loving and indulgent father. The writer heard him repeatedly use the words, after praying earnestly for the coming of Christ’s kingdom, or for the Lord’s people, or for the unconverted: “O Lord, Thou knowest that this is our will.”
The following are a few specimens of his pithy remarks:—After having described the awful condition of lost men, dead in trespasses and sins, and their great need of being quickened, he said: “Lord, take another walk through this great churchyard.” Some years ago he had to enter the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, to undergo an operation. Before he went into it, he uttered the following words at family worship: “Though the storm may be quite contrary, if Christ is on board, all will be well.” He lost a number of his cattle one year, and when he was called upon, in St. Jude’s, Glasgow, to speak at the Friday meeting, he quoted the words: “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stall: yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will joy in the God of my salvation.” He then said: “The Lord will bring His own people to the dust completely in themselves, and as to all the things they possess.” On this same occasion, at a prayer meeting, he used the expression: “Lord, raise up faithful men, in this dark and cloudy day, to defend Thy truth, and it is our wish that those whom Thou hast counted faithful, putting them into the ministry, may have a heavy wythe of fish (gad mor eisg) on the shore of eternity.” In another prayer, after quoting the words: “Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are; then ye shall begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence you are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.” “I believe,” he said, “the echo of the door on being shut against them will resound in their ears throughout an endless eternity.” A friend gave him the sermons of the Rev. Andrew Gray, late of Glasgow. Meeting his friend some time afterwards, he expressed a desire to keep the book a little longer, “for,” he said, “I like it, because it puts an edge upon my spirit, and enables me to take strides into eternity.”
Duncan took a deep and sincere interest in everything pertaining to God’s glory and the spiritual good of lost sinners. The sinful departure of the late Free Church of Scotland from her own original creed and constitution pained him very much. When she took steps in 1891 to change her relation to the Bible, as God’s infallibly inspired book, and the Westminster Confession of Faith, he felt very keenly the issues that were bound to follow, and when, at the General Assembly of 1892, the changes desired by Rationalists were passed into a binding law and constitution in that body, he immediately concluded that this new heretical body was not the Free Church of Scotland, and resolved to renounce her jurisdiction. He was quite prepared to take this step then, but as there was a hope held forth that steps would be taken at the next Assembly to repeal this infamous Act, and that, if that would not take place, the ministers called the “Constitutional Party” in that body would separate from her, he agreed, along with many worthy men, to wait till the Assembly of 1893. That this was his fixed purpose, he did not conceal from others. After the Assembly refused to repeal the Declaratory Act in 1893, Duncan handed in to the Kirk-Session a form of resignation, in which he, while casting off the jurisdiction of the Declaratory Act Church, reserved his former status as an elder in the Free Church, to which he had always adhered, and did so then, as it was represented by two faithful ministers, a few students, a large number of elders, members, and adherents. He, along with a brother elder, who had taken the same position, began to hold meetings on the Lord’s day in Duncan’s smithy. This meeting was afterwards carried on in his house and that of a neighbour on alternate Sabbaths, with such regularity as was found possible, until the end of his sojourn in the valley of tears.
The late Duncan Fraser, Angus Clunas, and Finlay MacIver came from Inverness to spend a Sabbath day with him, which visit was to him like an oasis in a howling wilderness, and which continued with them a pleasant memoriam to the end. We believe that they are now enjoying the rest that remains to the people of God when they shall never have to part. Their prayers and singing oft refreshed weary pilgrims in this world, notwithstanding their harps hanged on willow trees many a day; but now they sing together the song of Moses and the Lamb without one jarring note.
Duncan MacKinnon was one of the most faithful and sincere friends the writer has had the privilege of meeting in this cold and selfish world. Kindness and hospitality were as free in his nature as the Lochaber air which he breathed. Indeed, none knew him without spending some time under his hospitable roof, where his unfeigned love to the brethren had free and full play. His partner in life was of the same mind, which made their hospitality doubly appreciated.
The following has been sent us by a brother in the ministry:—“A scene at Duncan MacKinnon’s house on an evening will ever be memorable to the writer. Duncan came in from the field where he had been busy all day. He had leggings and old clothes on, as his work was not easily done without such garments. A stranger meeting him, as he appeared in this rig-out, would, from the outward appearance and his general conversation about his work and crofts and cattle, be inclined to conclude that he had no grace at all; that, in fact, he was a worldly-minded man. However, Duncan washed and made himself tidy, while his kind partner prepared tea. When we sat down for tea, he asked a blessing on the food, and such a blessing that one would now conclude that he had not seen a turnip field or a cow during the past six months. The blessing was in Gaelic, and was as follows:—‘Oh that Thou wouldest put us in the number of the poor, Thine own poor. Thou delightest in the poor (is toel leat na bochdan); the poorer the better. O thou blessed Boaz, spread thy skirt over us, for thou art a near kinsman,’ etc.
“His great fear was that after all he was nothing but a hypocrite. Some time before he died he told the writer privately that this was his great fear, and he added, ‘I am now an old man; I am drawing near to the confines of the great eternity, and oh! I was thinking the other day of what is to become of me, if I am a hypocrite; but, do you know? I was putting before me that if I perish, I will perish at the foot of the cross,’ and as if he had there and then got a glimpse of the eternal consolation that is in Him who died upon the cross, he continued: ‘But, although I am often afraid that I am a hypocrite, there will be times when matters are otherwise. Man (he said), the barn is my college, and sometimes while there I will be getting into the bosom of eternal love, the time passes so quickly, and the wife will be wondering what is keeping me.’
“His own fear about hypocrisy led him in his public utterances to distinguish sharply between reality and delusion. He was one time speaking at a fellowship meeting in Oban, and he said: ‘Friends, it is alarming exceedingly what is substituted for vital union with Christ by professors of religion in our day. I am, as you know, a blacksmith, and there came some time ago a gentleman into my smithy who told me that he had “stuff” with which he could weld two pieces of cold iron just as firmly as I could do by making them red hot, and then hammering them into one on the anvil. So I gave him two pieces of cold iron, and after rubbing this “stuff” upon them, he put them together, and handed the united pieces to me. I asked him if the work was done, and he said it was. So I took the piece and gave it one stroke on the horn of the anvil, when behold it broke in two. The smithy of the devil,’ Duncan said, as he forcibly applied the illustration to those who made converts who had never been melted by the love of God, and united by living faith to Christ.”
On his deathbed he suffered much from weakness of heart. A friend heard him say: “I have finished my course; I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.” His last night on earth was one of continued intercourse with God. He was to all appearance oblivious to all around him, but his prayers, which were audible, were as sweet, Scriptural, and correct as they used to be when he was in the enjoyment of bodily health. He repeated often these words: “Whoever leaves me, do not Thou leave me, my beloved Saviour.” The end came on the 6th day of August, 1920. He was buried beside his kith and kin in Muckomer, Lochaber. His age was seventy-seven years.
The writer desires to express his sincere sympathy with his lonely and disconsolate widow. They had lived together during nineteen years as co-partners of each other’s joys and sorrows. May the Lord be her stay, her guide, and her everlasting portion!
“The righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance.”
N. C.