This worthy man passed to his rest in June, 1953. Despite many attempts on our part, we were unable to gather from friends any of his spiritual experiences. This prevented us from writing a short notice until now. There has come into our possession the following “appreciation” from “An Old Friend,” which will form the basis of this obituary and afford the opportunity of setting on record a few details of one who was of the salt of the earth and of the light of the world.
“It is written in the Word of God, ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.’
“One of those saintly men was the late John Macdonald, Braes, Portree, Isle of Skye. We met John about the year 1908 in the city of Glasgow. He was then a very timid man, and deeply concerned about the salvation of his soul, and his everlasting state. He was assailed with unbelief, doubts, and fierce conflict with the corruption and depravity of his fallen nature. Eternity was so real to John that he would appear to strangers to be at least bordering on a complete mental break-down! It was his habit at that time to visit us once a week, and what extraordinary questions he would advance during that time about grace, regeneration, the effectual call of the gospel, predestination, union, and communion with the Lord Jesus and the place of the moral law as the rule of the life of the believer! He was one of the most serious minded men we ever met. He found himself a lost sinner on the way to a lost eternity. John was truly awakened by the Holy Spirit, and the lostness of man under a broken covenant was made very real to his soul. The book of Genesis as well as the Epistle to the Romans was to him the Word of God. John could say, ‘I was alive without law once. When the commandment came sin revived, and I died—.’ Here he found himself condemned, cursed, and nothing to look to but the ‘wrath which is to come’ and all darkness, death, and a lost eternity before his soul! He was assured by the Word of God that in a short time he would have to appear before the judgment seat of his Judge. Hell, death, and eternity stood before his soul, and all hope of deliverance gone forever! John found himself like a condemned prisoner, waiting the day of execution, and was assured by the Word of God, and his guilty conscience that he would be cast into a lost eternity! When the time of deliverance came John was a poor lost sinner. He used to tell us of a sermon he heard delivered by the late Rev. J. R. MacKay in Portree which, so it would appear to us, conveyed to his soul the light of the gospel in a measure at that time. But one thing certain in his case is that he got deliverance from the curse of the law, and that wrath, guilt, and the thunders of a broken law which he so much felt, and experienced, were taken away, and the sweet voice of gospel peace and blessings took possession of his soul. He could hardly speak or refer to the Redeemer ever after but his soul, and affections, would be moved at times almost beyond control. He sat under the holy ministry of the Revs. D. MacFarlane and D. MacDonald, and was greatly edified listening to the godly servants of Christ. One would know on John speaking to the ‘Question’ on Friday that it was not a mere ‘personal testimony’ he was giving to the people but a witness on the side of the truth of God, and the danger to the souls of his hearers in departing from the Word of God in chapter or verse of it. He would never be long in his public devotions whether at the prayer meeting, or speaking to the ‘Question’ on Friday. One would not get weary listening to John Macdonald. He was a true man! His love of the Bible was most evident, as was his fearless witness in its defence. His love of the first day of the week was equally remarkable because it was on this day that his Lord and Saviour rose from the dead. It was a Sabbath of rest to his soul. He worshipped in the St. Jude’s congregation for many years, and was elected an elder in that congregation in the days of its revered pastor, the Rev. Neil Cameron. John discharged his duties with the utmost fidelity all the time he served in that congregation. The people had confidence in his simple and transparent honesty. John abhorred sham of any kind with his whole soul. The least departure from the Word of God, and the practice of godliness in walk, life, and conversation, was to him something that was dishonouring to God and hurtful to the soul. He on all occasions witnessed against all modern sinful fashions as true signs of an immoral conduct whether known or unknown! The woman with the ‘bobbed hair, or painted red lips’ would be classified in her own rank according to the Word of God as a daughter of wicked Jezebel! He testified against the wicked women that go about the country in the male attire.
“John married a Miss MacRae, a native of the Island of Skye, and an excellent helpmate she was to him. He was highly blessed and favoured in this partner—a modest Christian lady who looked after his interests as long as they were together. She predeceased him by several years. This was a deep, and painful affliction to him, but, by the grace of God, John submitted to the blessed hand that gave him this loving wife for so many years of happy fellowship and communion about the Cause of the Lord, which both sincerely loved and adored. After her death, John retired to his native place in Skye, and the present minister of the congregation will add to this short and brief account of the life and labours of this man of God. We knew him for well over forty years, and during that long period we found John Macdonald a faithful witness on the side of the Lord. He was humble, modest, and sincere. We mourn the loss of such men.”
“That the Lord would raise up others to take their place in our Church is, we believe the prayer of all God’s people in our midst, and wherever they are on the face of the earth!”
The death of his eminent wife was to John a very painful experience leaving him very helpless and lonely in this world. He could, however, rejoice in the hope that she was with Christ and this was the balm which gave healing to the wound. He told us that one day during the illness, which proved to be her last, she said to him that she did not expect to recover. He, himself, had not been thinking of this and so asked her with some surprise what caused her to come to that conclusion. She replied that a portion of God’s Word had been speaking to her and from it she had concluded that her end was near. When he asked her she refused to tell him what the portion was. On the day of her death, however, he found a piece of paper pinned to the pillow with these words on it, “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom. 16, 20). Evidently these were the words which the Holy Spirit had made precious to her soul in the time of her sickness and from which she rightly concluded that Satan was soon to be forever under her feet through her translation from a state of grace to a state of glory.
One could have no doubt either but that the day of John’s death was better to him than the day of his birth. The great change had so evidently taken place, as John bore fruits which showed to all who had eyes to see that he was a new creature in Christ Jesus. Like the rest of us he was not without his faults and failings but both as a Christian and an office-bearer, he left the impression on all that he was one who loved Christ because He had first loved him and who was grieved at the heart because of his own sins and the sins of others.
Although we knew John well before, it was only when we came to Portree as minister that we fully appreciated his worth. There were two features of his Christian character in which he appeared to us to be outstanding. The first was his love to the means of grace. Like the psalmist of old, he thirsted for God the living God, and the question was often with him, “When shall I come and appear before God?” (Ps. 42, 2). In his latter years he was completely blind, but neither this affliction nor the frailties of old age were sufficient to prevent him from attending Church at home nor Communion seasons away from home, for his soul longed, yea, even fainted for the Courts of the Lord (Ps. 84, 2). Like the rest of the tried and tempest-tossed household of faith, he was often afflicted with unbelief and darkness so that his desolate soul shunned consolation but, in the House of God, he had refreshing seasons which revived his hope, the tears from his sightless eyes bearing eloquent testimony to this fact.
The other feature which appealed to us in John was his exercises in public prayer. When granted a drop of the liberty of the Spirit of grace and supplications, he enjoyed a nearness of soul and measure of spiritual light which was quite unusual. This showed that he was a man much given to secret prayer and meditation and that his delight was in the Word of the Lord. Psalm 27 was one of the fields of the New Testament Boaz in which he gleaned, and found the spirit which possessed his own heart and mind. “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple” (verse 4). But his spirit of prayer not only flowed from his meditations but also from his sense of need of mercy and grace to help in the spiritual warfare. He was not ignorant of Satan’s devices nor of the plague and deceitfulness of his own heart. His prayer was therefore the “cry of the poor” and the verse most frequently quoted by him and from which he seemed to derive great encouragement was, “The Lord is my light and salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” (verse 1).
Although not educated in the popular sense of the word, John Macdonald was quite well read in the writings of the Covenanters. He possessed quite a number of books of this kind and relished the spiritual poems of Dr. MacDonald. His grasp of the principles of the Church of God in Scotland was clear and unambiguous. As he valued the Covenanters for their piety and faithfulness he was in a good position to prize highly the stand made in 1893 on the side of the infallibility of God’s Word, the preciousness of its doctrine, and the necessity of its discipline. Any disposition to trifle or tamper with these principles he would not tolerate. He was granted grace to remain faithful to the end as a witness who was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.
The end came comparatively sudden. He was in the prayer-meeting in Portree. A day or two after he took a stroke and rapidly succumbed to the Messenger of Death. His end was peace and we believe he now sees the beauty of the Lord in the sanctuary above. He is sadly missed in the Portree congregation where death has made so many breaches in recent years. May the Lord arise to have mercy upon Sion. D.M.