AS one after another of the Lord’s dear people enters into the rest that remains for the people of God, the few that are left are like the sparrow alone on the house-top, waiting for the breath of wind that will waft them to their desired haven.
When we call to remembrance the goodly number of godly men and women who adorned our Church fifteen years ago, and how their ranks are being thinned by death from year to year, we are apt to feel much discouraged; but we ought to exercise faith in the Father’s promise to Christ—”He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” This promise shall not fail, but will, in God’s good time, be fulfilled. Our duty, therefore, is to wait patiently in the diligent exercise of all the means of grace, both private and public, and leave the issue with a faithful and covenant-keeping God.
Mrs. Mackay, or, as she was known by the godly men and women of the north of Scotland in her early days, Jane Robertson, was born in August, 1825. Her mother was an eminently pious woman, who brought up her family in the fear and admonition of the Lord. When Jane was about ten years of age she accompanied her mother to a Communion in the neighbouring parish of Farr, where she heard that faithful servant of Christ, Mr. Munro, Halkirk. The impression left on her mind by his preaching continued with her to the last, and she often recalled that Communion season with much pleasure and thankfulness.
At the age of twenty years her lot was to pass through a very painful affliction by the death of her three brothers—Donald, Murdo, and Charles. Her brother Donald was a young man in whom grace shone very conspicuously, and his decease occurring when he was about nineteen years of age, she felt it exceedingly painful. Notwithstanding, those deep afflictions—by which she was very much broken in mind and body—were, through divine grace, made useful in deepening and invigorating that good work begun so early in her soul by the Holy Ghost.
Some time after she passed through this deep sorrow she attended a Communion at Helmsdale. The Rev. Robert Finlayson was at that time minister there. At this Communion season she experienced one of the most memorable visitations of the divine favour which she ever knew. Before she came she expected great things from the ministrations of such honoured servants of the Lord as Rev. Alexander Macleod, Rev. Gustavus Aird, and Rev. R. Finlayson, who were together at this Communion. In the public services, however, she felt so devoid of the Lord’s comforts in her soul that she became fully convinced of the inadequacy of the creature to make up to her soul the loss of the consolations that are in Christ alone. In this disconsolate state of mind she retired to some secluded spot to pour out her sore complaint before God.” While there alone the words, “Thy maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called,” were with such demonstration and power impressed upon her heart that, probably more than any other portion of the Word of God, they were the staff that supported her all through her wilderness journey. This brings the condition of the Church in the Song vividly before one’s mind—”By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me, to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.”—(Song iii. 1-4.) At that Communion season Mr. Finlayson met her, talked with her, and afterwards said to a friend of his that he had met a young woman that day who would need to be tenderly dealt with. But although the aforesaid experience was probably the most memorable manifestation of divine favour she ever enjoyed, at least until towards the end of her days, she had many tokens of His goodness and mercy following her all the days of her life below. In her after days—when assaulted by Satan with the thought that she never had anything but what would fail her at last—her way in battling with the adversary was to fall back upon those most remarkable experiences in which the Lord had graciously revealed Himself to her, and very often in those mental trials did she find relief in this way.
At the age of thirty-four years she became the wife of William Mackay, an honest, humble, loving and God-fearing man, who predeceased her by the space of four years, and of whom a brief notice appeared in this Magazine of August, 1904. Their family of four sons and two daughters survive, with the exception of Donald, whose death, as the readers of the Magazine will remember, took place in August of 1900. If ever the children of any mother had good cause why they should rise up and bless her, the children of Mrs. Mackay were put under this obligation; for she really travailed on her knees for them that Christ might be formed in them the hope of glory. Her worthy son, the Rev. J. R. Mackay, Inverness, writes: “I used as a younger man to be much impressed with the agony she appeared to be in for the salvation of our souls.” This was not lost agony, as the most of her family bear real marks of having undergone a saving change.
She was a real mother in Israel. Her true humility, real feminine modesty, shamefacedness, and sobriety, along with a heart glowing with love to Christ, His cause and people, adorned her profession before all who knew her. Her love to the holy law of God was one of her very striking characteristics, and little she esteemed a profession of love to the Lord which did not shew itself in regard for His commandments. This caused her, notwithstanding her real womanly timidity and deep sense of weakness, to bear strong testimony for the sanctity of the Lord’s day in the district in which she lived, not without considerable influence on almost all the people. She was prudent, very sagacious, guarded in all her sayings, and very circumspect in all her actions, so that it may be said of her that she walked in all the commandments of God blameless.
In her zeal for God’s cause and truth she stood as a rock. The deliverance of Christ’s cause out of the hands of unfaithful men in 1893 was like life from the dead to her. From that position she would not resile. When several ministers and a few followers left the Free Presbyterian Church, and endeavoured to prove that there was no difference between this Church and that into which they went, she said to a friend—”Well, I don’t mind what the ministers will do; for myself, I was never happier in soul or body than since I became a Free Presbyterian, and I intend, while the Lord spares me, to be a Free Presbyterian, and I hope to die a Free Presbyterian.”
The last year of her life was the happiest of her sojourn on earth. This was owing to the comforting way in which those words—”Come, ye blessed of my Father”—were almost constantly laid to her heart. They took the sting out of every other sorrow which might otherwise be her lot. Her death was due to failure of the heart. To the very last she retained all her faculties without any apparent diminution of power. A few minutes before the end came, she asked her daughter, Charlotte, to raise her to a sitting position in the bed, and thereupon said that she was now about to depart. Charlotte remarked that it would be a happy change for her, and reminded her of the words—”Come, ye blessed of my Father”—which had been made a comfort to her. She said, “Yes.” She then repeated those same precious words, “Come, ye blessed of my Father.” A little after this she said, “Come, for all things are now ready,” and shortly afterwards she said, “Remember thy weary heritage; I am very weary.” In about a minute her race was finished. So departed our dear, loving, faithful friend, Mrs. Mackay, on the 26th day of August, at the ripe age of eighty-three years.
Her remains were laid beside her husband and their son Donald in the Strathy Churchyard, on the 29th day of August. A goodly number of friends came from many parts of the country, north and south, to her funeral; and some who were present felt the time more like a communion season than a funeral. “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”
N. C.