(V.)
BADBEA, 13th December, 1849.
MY DEAREST FRIEND,—I received your long-looked for favour, for I was very willing to hear of your case and of Mr. Macbeath. I am sorry that the Lord is pleased to keep him silent, whatever the issue will be. He is angry with this generation, and He is showing that in various ways; but we may observe the mark of His displeasure since many years by calling home the young that had all appearance of being useful in His Church upon earth. Others He allowed to be tempted in their mind and reason; and He is calling home fast the wheat to the garner, the fathers and mothers, such as you mentioned. He is gathering them home fast from the evil that hath overtaken us, coldness and indifference among professing Christians. The heathen’s plague (cholera) is also cutting down our fellow-creatures in our county and neighbourhood. O how we have provoked and squeezed His compassionate bowels to lay such a scourge on our land. He doth not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men,
I sympathise with you, and wish to bear some of your burden, but I have learned as much in the school of affliction, which I have been accustomed to from my infancy, as that He must cross our desires, for He “shall spoil all the delights” upon the daughters of Zion. You speak of going to a place where you could attend the means. You may get there, and yet you would not be long there when you would desire to be back again to your cottage. It is the Lord who placed you in that spot of His creation; He knew thee before the world was created. There is no place in my acquaintance so unlike my case in every respect as where I am. It is seven miles from any means of the very form; and I am sickly and delicate; since many years I am almost confined to house in the winter season, and my only sister that is with me has been in the fiery furnace for 26 years: my niece also is broken in health, as the crofts are so difficult to labour, no plowing, no cart here, and the place is shut in to the rocks, while I am paying four times as much as mother was paying when we came here; yet I could not think of leaving it, although my niece is always for leaving it; I got no (Divine) call to leave it.
I am sorry that poor Alexander Stewart is so much tempted; he will not meet with any nurse like your sister. With my love to you and your sister, and A. Stewart,—I am, your attached friend,
JOHN SUTHERLAND.
(VI.)
BADBEA. 21st December, 1854.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—I received your kind favour long ago, and I thank you kindly for it. It was a treat to me in my loneliness, especially when you were stating how that prince, Alex. Stewart, was carried to his Father’s house. You were honoured when he was sent from Perthshire to your house to be edified and trained and prepared for glory. You did your duty, and your kind sister, in the space of 24 years’ nourishing and cherishing him, until you got his dear remains interred where your dear parents are buried, and you did not spare any expense that was decent and orderly. What you have both done is an everlasting record, as ye may read in the Gospel by Matthew, chap. xxv., v. 40—”And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
I am a poor dark clout under Satan’s feet, but the Lord is speaking to me in word and providences from my infancy. I have been at the knee of the Lord’s people since nearly 40 or 50 years, and I am in great danger that they will see me upon the left hand, and if they will, surely they will put their seal to my misery, for I got more of their mind and bosom than many that win home to their Father’s house with clean garments. I am often thinking of the days of old, and in my bed, when I am reflecting on how I have spent my days without doing anything to His glory or for the good of my fellow-creatures, I dread at thinking of venturing on eternity. O, my ignorance of the Father’s Beloved, that came to seek and to save those that the Father gave Him in the New Covenant. At times I will be thinking that if I was to begin anew in the world, I would spend my time more to His glory, but I know that that is a piece of the covenant of works. If profession would do, or speaking and reading, there is not any minister in the Free Church in Caithness, or any in the Established, so long speaking in one place, as I am in this bothy in a remote place. And I am now old and grey-headed, frail and feeble, and am in danger of wanting the one thing needful that men made choice of.
The desolation is daily increasing, and the Lord’s hand is stretched out still with much threatening by the sword of that uncircumcised Philistine, the Emperor of Russia, and by the Egyptians’ disease, the cholera. And what is more gloomy and sad than this. He is calling home His chosen people, those wrestlers at a throne of grace that the Lord was hearing with delight, and He would grant them their petitions and requests. Dear George Brothie is now glorified. He was a lovely, experienced, and lively Christian, and his removal crowned the desolation in poor unfortunate Thurso. The Rev. John Macdonald, of Helmsdale, is no more. His remains were carried from Glasgow to Helmsdale Burying-ground, but although I got two funeral notices, I could not attend his funeral; I am so tender and the day was so stormy,
I must conclude. I would count it a favour if you would write me by Berriedale. With love and respects to you and your sister,
I remain, dear Friend, yours affectionately,
JOHN SUTHERLAND.
(VII.)
BADBEA, 21st December, 1857.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—I received your much esteemed favour of the 2nd inst., and I thank you kindly. Your dear letter refreshed and revived my soul’s rusty faculties.
I would have written you long ago, but I feel it difficult now to write any. I am receiving many letters, but alas! my first correspondents have gone home to their Father’s house, and I am left and in danger that I will be in the foolish virgins’ case when the midnight cry will come. The blessed people of the Lord were bearing with me, and now I am old, and should I be able to go out, where would I go? The fathers and mothers are called home from this vale of tears, except very few, and there is a set of windy, empty professors that have risen in their place, and have the impudence to stand in congregations speaking of what they know not; they are disgusting to those that saw better days. I dread to think of how the glory is departed. But alas! I have to say my leanness above any; there is not any of them so dark as I feel myself, but I am not the better of them.
I approve of all that you write me, especially when you said that you had come to that of it that you knew not how you came to take upon you to open your mouth, and that you had got that much, “Who can tell but you or such as you may get pardon?” The cause of the evil, you say, is yourself. It is good that you came that way with the fault. I am glad that you mentioned that you were glad you saw so many of the fathers and mothers before they were taken home, but at times you were afraid they would see some in the left hand at the great day. You may leave that to others. I am troubled with the same fear, and if I will be found among the Lord’s jewels it will be the greatest wonder, and surely if He puts me among His children, the crown of my salvation shall be on His own glorious head.
I am old and frail, and so deaf that I cannot hear should they take me to the church. I am trying to open the Bible on the Sabbath, as the Free Church is ten miles’ distance from here. Dear friend, I must be done writing. I will be glad if you could write a short line, and believe me, my dearest friend,
I am, your attached Friend,
JOHN SUTHERLAND.
P.S.—Please give my kind respects to your dear sister.—J. S.