Rev. Donald A. MacFarlane M.A.
The passing of this worthy minister to his eternal rest at his residence in the hill district of Inverness last October will be mourned by the Lord’s people who know how to prize unfeigned godliness. Mr MacFarlane had attained the great age of 90 and peacefully passed into the Lord’s presence as a shock of corn fully ripe is gathered into the heavenly garner. He had completed 60 years in the Church’s ministry and during this period had his own share of life’s trials, mainly affecting his interest in Christ and his ministerial labours for he took a lowly view of his own attainments in grace and in the Master’s service. He is now with the Redeemer whom he loved to commend in his own simple and affectionate way to others over whose salvation he yearned with godly jealousy that he might by some means present each one as a chaste virgin to Christ. Even in his last week among us he seized the lapel of a friend who visited him and plied her with close questions about the Lord’s work in her soul till he was satisfied with her answers. Zeal for the Saviour’s honour and a sincere desire to see souls turning from their sins to him characterised his ministry in public and private.
Mr MacFarlane was born in the Raasay schoolhouse where his father, Alex. MacFarlane, was headmaster for 40 years. He enjoyed the blessing of a godly home. His mother, an Argyllshire woman, was a daughter of Alex. MacColl, cousin of the eminent Rev. Alex. MacColl, latterly of Lochalsh with whom the family were on terms of the closest friendship till the end of his life. His father lived in the time of the great Highland preachers, being baptised by Rev. Robt. Finlayson. He often sat under the preaching of Rev. Rod. MacLeod, Snizort and Rev. Alex. MacColl; of the other godly ministers such as Rev. John MacRae, (MacRath Mor), Rev. Frances MacBean, Fort Augustus and Rev. Malcolm MacCritchie, Knapdale and Kock, Lewis, he could relate interesting and instructive notes, received from those who had been their hearers. Mr Alex. MacFarlane took part in the steps leading to the separation of our Church from the Free Church over the passing of the Declaratory Act in 1893 and along with Revs. D. MacFarlane and D. MacDonald was a signatory of the Deed of Separation, signed at Portree in August 1893. At this time Rev.
D. MacFarlane was minister of Raasay and for some years crossed by boat each Saturday for the Sabbath services to Raasay from his temporary home at Broadford till a manse could be built for him among his people, and stayed on these occasions at the godly schoolmaster’s home. Here the observant boy was often left in the company of the aged saint whose prayerful habits in private when, unmindful of his young companion, he poured out groans and longings of his soul for deliverance from the carnal mind and sinful heart, left a lasting impression on his young mind. When the father retired from the Raasay school in 1910, the family came to live in Inverness. After a few months his mother passed away, and among her last counsels to her family of 2 girls and boy, she particularly charged her son with the duty of preparing for the ministry of the Church.
From the Raasay school Mr MacFarlane went to Kingussie High School, then to Aberdeen University where he graduated in 1910. He took the Divinity Course of 2 years with Rev. J.R. Mackay at Inverness and 2 years with Rev. D. Beaton at Wick. His first charge was in Sutherland as minister of the joint congregation of Dornoch & Rogart, Lairg & Bonar to which he was inducted in August 1914. His father came to stay with him in the Lairg manse, and the Lairg people looked forward with no ordinary pleasure to listening to his orderly and attractive way of presenting the Gospel when called upon to take the services in his son’s absence.
He moved from Sutherland to the Oban congregation in 1922. While in Oban, he was joined in marriage with Catherine, daughter of our godly elder, Andrew Cameron, and here also he lost his father. He passed through a period of distracting doubt about his own state and his fitness for the office of the Ministry, which completely incapacitated him for his pastoral duties. The months he spent in Glasgow during these months under the ministry of the Late Rev. N. Cameron were blessed to his recovery and he returned to his congregation greatly strengthened. In 1930, he came to the Dingwall & Beauly congregation as successor to his saintly namesake, Rev. D. MacFarlane. His wife’s last illness was for her husband a period of great mental and spiritual darkness, leading to physical prostration which required medical attention at Inverness. In the Lord’s kindness he recovered his health and 2 years after his wife’s death, in 1957, he was joined in marriage with a daughter of one of our Dingwall families, Isabella Finlayson. Like her predecessor in the Dingwall manse, she proved to be a great help and comfort to her husband, a “succourer of many” and a “servant of the Church”, and survives to mourn her
husband. After a ministry of more than 45 years at Dingwall, Mr MacFarlane moved to Inverness into retirement in 1973 and here finished his earthly pilgrimage last October.
Next to the early influence of the home, it appears that Mr MacFarlane derived great help from a little work that has helped many a tried soul to peace in Christ, J. Angel James’ “The Anxious Enquirer”. Years later, when at Dingwall, after 50 years in the ministry, he was beset with doubt when he questioned the depth of the work of conversion during those years. One morning, a religious magazine arrived, in which the editor dealt with Peter’s denial of Christ and pointed out that Peter’s dreadful lapse did not prevent him from serving the Lord after he had obtained repentance and forgiveness. So those who mourn and repent past failures should not despair but take heart and seek grace and strength to go forward in the Lord’s service. He enjoyed thereafter great personal assurance. His words on this subject to his people at Dingwall, we may give here, as they will recall his pulpit manner which was peculiar to himself. “With assurance about Christ, a permit to heaven, are these 3 things. 1. The stamp of the blood is upon them. You know in a God-given way what the efficacy of the Atonement is and joy in Christ through the Atonement. Where sprinkling of the blood is, there is no condemnation. 2. Where the blood is, the oil is there too. Wherever the blood is and the conscience singing of the blood of the Person of God, the Lord sees to it that you get a drop of oil. 3. And where there is oil, there is incense. Christ is the incense of the soul. “A bundle of myrrh is my wellbeloved unto me”. At the same time you have what Cornelius had when he saw the glory of the blood and had oil and incense of gratitude and desire to be for the Lord, incense of praising the Lord from the heart. You have the incense in virtue of the union to Christ. A bundle of myrrh would be the Lord’s Prayer. When Cornelius and those with him were baptised invisibly, not only Peter was there, God was standing there, Christ was there. ‘I aver that I am their Mediator’.”
Mr MacFarlane was a choice preacher and very consoling to the Lord’s tried people. His preaching was of a high standard, often requiring of his hearers some knowledge of the subjects of his sermons. He was an assiduous student, the habits of close study acquired from his student days at Kingussie, he maintained through life. From a retentive memory, called upon to yield up its stores, in private conversation, he offered varied information in a diffident and quite deceptive manner. He was a lover of good books which as they passed through his hands were marked in the margin on every page with the results of his reflections. Dr. Owen
was a constant delight to him as were all the English Puritans; he gave a high place to Halyburton, and Dr. Colquhoun’s little vol. of sermons was in his hands up to the end. In public and private therefore he was always fresh and stimulating, the mark of a mind constantly being replenished from the best sources. When occasion arose, he could speak out sternly against the moral and spiritual state of the country and the declension of the professing Church. He served for a time as tutor of the Church’s students and on the Church’s Committees. He never travelled abroad but took a prayerful interest in all that related to the Redeemer’s Cause. He had no family. In private life his walk and conversation were clothed with the deep humility of grace, preferring others before himself.
In his last years it was a pleasure for his friends to visit himself and his wife in their hospitable home in Inverness. His conversation on such occasions had a heavenly fragrance, derived from the upper sanctuary. On the Sabbath before the end, he complained of great weakness and from remarks he made it was clear that he realised that his sojourn on earth was coming to an end. On Monday, he rallied and in the evening was able for almost an hour to listen to a sermon on Sanctification by Dr. Colquhoun of Leith. The following day, he was quite alert and able to converse with friends who called to see him but on the Wednesday he became much weaker and spoke again of the approaching end and bade farewell to the nurse who attended him and to his wife. The words of the Apostle: “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Cor. i. verses 30, 31) which had often been in his thoughts for the past weeks, brought seasonable help and confirmed his hope in Christ as his sole righteousness and all his redemption. Some weeks previously, he had directed the attention of a friend to remarks of Halyburton on this passage, in his Memoirs at page 216 which seemed to agree with his own experience. He at the time spoke much of the union of Christ with believers, begun on Christ’s part in quickening the dead soul by His Spirit so leading the soul to embrace Christ by faith and the union thus effected would never be broken. He considered that Halyburton summed up Dr. Owen on this subject.
He was glad to welcome his wife’s nephew, Cameron Fraser, on his arrival that evening from the U.S.A., and to express pleasure in their meeting once again. On Thursday, he did not speak much and appeared abstracted, lost in contemplation and could be heard repeating the words: “In my father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have
told you”; “I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me” and it could be gathered that his thoughts were in John, chapter xiv; and the words of Psalm xxxiv, verse 7: “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them”. One of his last remarks was: “I want to be with Christ; I would like to be like him; I would like you all to be like him”. To a visitor who called that evening he could only indicate with his hand that he understood and was pleased to see her. He then fell into a deep sleep and passed away that night. He has now entered into the rest that remaineth to the Lord’s people. “And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth; Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them” (Rev. xiv, verse 13). The memory of this godly minister will long linger among his friends. We extend to his sorrowing widow our deep sympathy in her great loss.
A.F.M.