JOHN MACRAE’S mother was eminent for her godliness. David records in two of the Psalms that his mother was God’s handmaid, and it is also noted in profane history that the mother of Augustine was an eminently godly woman. A godly mother is of incalculable value to her children, and this fact was verified in the life of John Macrae. He was truly the child of prayer, and even on the occasion of the most unpromising incidents of his youth she predicted, with absolute assurance, that he would live to become eminent for his piety. She had the great privilege of hearing such men as the Rev. Messrs. Lachlan MacKenzie, John Kennedy, and John Macdonald (afterwards Dr. Macdonald), and she appreciated her privileges so much that she always walked on foot all the way from Plockton to the Black Isle at Communion seasons to hear these ministers of Christ.
It was not, however, till John got the news of her death that any serious and lasting impression seems to have been fixed on his mind. Before this time he was a seafaring man, and spent several years on the coast of China, and sailed also over every part of the trading world. An incident happened to him at this period which gave plenty time and occasion for reflection. He was unconsciously constrained to become one of a crew of picked men for the purpose of running a number of military officers and a cargo of war materials into the Southern States at the time of the Confederate War in America. They ran the blockade successfully between Glasgow and Mobile, but soon afterwards the Federal army captured Mobile, and he became a prisoner of war. Having remained in confinement for over a year (his relations at home thinking he was dead), he was released. It was during this period, like Manasseh of old, that the godly instructions received in his childhood and youth at his mother’s knee came home with power to his mind. On his return to his native country he gave ample proof of the true change which he underwent by refusing, though a poor man, the handsome premium offered by his employers for having violated, so successfully, the law of his country. Ever after this he abandoned seafaring life, and, it may be said, gave his whole heart and time to the things that are unseen and eternal. It was not long until he was elected an elder in the Free Church congregation of Plockton. The Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge engaged him as a missionary for Sconcer in Skye, and he acted in the same capacity for a while at Rona.
So precious was the written word of God to him that his righteous soul could not tolerate laxity concerning its infallibility, or its doctrines and principles, or worldliness and sacrilege in connection with divine things. The appearance of these evils in the Free Church pained him very much. When the Declaratory Act was passed in 1892, he felt, along with a few others, that matters had come to a crisis. The separation from that Church, in 1893, in order to hold God’s word intact, and the original doctrines and principles of the Reformation, was to him a renewing of his youth. His mind, vigorous at all times, got more vigorous than ever. He continued to conduct services for our people at Plockton with his whole heart from that time till he was called to his everlasting rest.
Though he was not an educated man, he read very widely the writings of the Reformers. Luther was a great favourite of his, and we remember the last time we heard him speak to the question at Plockton he made a remark about the state of the cause of Christ in the world prior to Luther’s appearance. He said, “Have faith in God’s word. You remember how low Christ’s cause was that day that the words came to Martin Luther—’The just shall live by faith’—which raised him up from being a dead man in the cell of a monastery in Germany, and made him, in the hand of the Spirit of God, an instrument to pull down the strongholds of Satan in the world, and to set up the kingdom of Christ. The word of God is the same still, and when the Holy Ghost takes it in His hand, He can do the same thing with it again. Therefore, hold fast the truth of God.”
We saw him on his death-bed about a month before his removal from time, with all its tears and sorrows, to that happy eternity which lay before him. His mind was unclouded, and his faith and hope in Christ firm and unshaken. On being asked how he felt in his mind, he said, “The mercy of God through the blood of Christ is our only hope.” All who knew him gave him credit for being a man of real integrity, blamelessness of life, and spirituality of mind. He was very prudent in all his words and actions, and, like Daniel, no fault could be found in him except in things which concerned the laws of his God.
He had passed his ninetieth year, and still his spiritual eye was not dim, nor his strength abated. On the 13th day of April, his remains were laid in the Plockton churchyard to await the sound of the last trumpet. He will yet stand in his place at the end of days. N. C.
Original Seceders and the Psalms.
From the Free Church Record we learn that it is proposed in the United Original Secession Synod to publish a book of “Selected Psalms.” We must be plain. This is little short of blasphemy, for an unbelieving reflection is cast upon some of the inspired Psalms as unfit for New Testament worship. This is playing into the hands of infidels with a vengeance. We are surprised at the Seceders, and would be more so, if we did not think that some of them should be elsewhere—among the new lights.