BY THE REV. NEIL CAMERON, ST. JUDE’S, GLASGOW.
THE Church of Christ in the Highlands of Scotland has had amongst its true followers several very striking examples of the creating and invigorating power of divine grace. Some have been effectually called by the Holy Spirit from among our fellow-countrymen, who were so weak intellectually that they were practically incapable of understanding anything about the ordinary affairs of this world. Angus of the Hills was a most wonderful and convincing proof of the change grace effects in the faculties of the human soul, and although Ewen Cameron was not altogether so weak mentally as Angus, still he would have remained extremely weak in his mental capacities had not the grace of God quickened and enlightened them. The Lord has a most wise purpose to fulfil by calling such, while He passes by men of the profoundest intellectual parts. The Apostle Paul infallibly unfolds this mystery to the Church at Corinth; as we have it: “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence” (Cor. i. 26-29). Vain man would boast of his wisdom, power, nobility, learning, riches, etc.; but God “raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people,” and sends the proud away empty at last. The Lord raised Angus of the Hills and Ewen Cameron in the estimation of the true people of God who knew them, and set them among the foremost of the godly men in the Highlands in their day. Their memory remains embalmed to this day in the minds of those who admire the wonderful grace and mercy of God in the salvation of lost men, and the very clear manifestation given of the grace and mercy of our God in these two weak-minded men. Indeed, so far as spiritual insight into the real meaning of the Word of God, and the power of expressing their needs in the exercise of prayer to the great comfort and edification of the Lord’s people, are concerned, they were among the first, while in the affairs of this world they were quite useless.
A good deal has been written from time to time about Angus, but so far as we know nothing has appeared, as yet, about Ewen Cameron. This consideration, and many earnest appeals from some friends, along with a desire that no crumb should be lost, overcame our reluctance to the making public the fragments we gathered over twenty years ago from Mr. Donald Cameron, Camuschoink, Strontian, and the Rev. Donald Gray, late of Saltcoats, who both knew Ewen Cameron very intimately.
We desire our readers also to understand that Ewen always spoke in the Gaelic language, and that in our endeavours to turn his expressions into English, we have kept as near the very meaning of his words as we could.
We have not heard anything about Ewen Cameron’s parents, or how he was brought up from his infancy, or by what instrumentality the Spirit of truth wrought the saving change in his soul; but that such a change had been effected was so apparent that none who knew him could question it. He told a godly woman once that, when he was awakened to a sense of his condition as a lost sinner before God, he went on very purpose to the sea to drown himself, being in such awful agony on account of his sins against God, and feeling the wrath of God in his conscience; and that before he carried out his purpose by casting himself into the water, the Lord shined the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ into his soul. “Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty: just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.”
He could not learn even the letters of the alphabet, although several efforts were made by his godly friends to accomplish, if possible, an improvement so very desirable; but all their efforts failed. But his memory, which was as weak as any of his other faculties up to the time of his conversion, became so retentive and correct; and after a while his knowledge of the Word became so comprehensive, that, if anyone, in reading the Word, made any mistake, he would at once correct him. So wonderfully was this true of the Psalms that he not only had them all by heart, but he could begin to repeat any of them at any verse, and end at any verse, as he desired, or was requested by another to do. No concordance could be more correct than his memory. He often told the chapter and verse where a truth would be found, when men who could read, and were in possession of an ordinary memory, could not say whether such a truth was in the Bible or not. He regularly held family worship where he lived for a night or a longer period; that is, provided there was no other man to do it. He always held the Bible in his hand when conducting worship in public and private, with the wrong end of the Book towards him as often as otherwise; but a stranger, who did not know that he was illiterate, could not discern that he was repeating from memory, for he mentioned the book of the Old or New Testament and the chapter, and then began at the beginning of it and never missed a word to the end.
I am inclined to think, although I have been assured by men who knew him very intimately of the correctness of the facts stated above, that he would have learned the Bible by hearing it read in order at family worship, and that certain parts of it, where there are very few things recorded except the names of men, of places, &c., could not be so perfectly remembered by him. However, as the man was a miracle of the saving grace of the Most High, to bestow on him such a wonderful memory was an easy matter for Him.
He was well known to the godly throughout the most part of the west coast of Argyllshire, as he was in the habit of going to communions to many places. He visited the Island of Coll once, at least, and while he remained there he lodged with an eminently godly woman. At the stated times for family worship, her house would be full to the door of the people who lived in the neighbourhood, listening to Ewen’s lectures and prayers. His exercises, both in prayer and expounding the Word, were very edifying and encouraging to the Lord’s people.
The late Rev. Alexander Macintyre, who died several years since in Australia, and who was a native of Strontian, was very fond of him. Ewen was in the habit of coming from Camusallach (which is situated on the south side of Lochsunart, a considerable number of miles west from Strontian) in order to hear Mr. Macintyre on the Sabbath. One Saturday he came to Mr. Macintyre’s lodgings (he lodged with his brother) and asked to be allowed to see the minister. Mr. Macintyre’s brother told him that the minister was at his studies, and that he could not see him that day. Mr. Macintyre heard Ewen’s voice and knew it; he opened the door of his room and said to his brother—”Let him in; for one half-hour of his company will be better for me than four hours of my own studying.” Ewen came into the room, and said to Mr. Macintyre—”I would not be so bold as this on every one.” Mr. Macintyre enjoyed Ewen, because he would talk very little about anything belonging to the world, but never got tired of hearing about spiritual matters, and he was always ready, in childlike simplicity, to give his own opinion about any truth he had been thinking upon. He seldom or never thought of anything else; for so far as we could ascertain from godly men and women who knew him, he very seldom said anything about the affairs of this world.
He excelled most of his contemporaries as a man of prayer. The answers he got, at times, were miraculous as far as man can see. In the year 1846 (so far as we could ascertain) there was a famine throughout the Highlands, owing to the fact that the disease destroyed the potato crop. Some families were almost at the point of starvation, as they had no money, and the boll of oatmeal cost from three to five pounds sterling. The family, with whom Ewen lived, were very poor, so that they had nothing to eat but shell-fish which they gathered on the sea-shore. He got very sick, and as his sickness continued many days, he at last became so weak that he could hardly walk. In this great distress he went away a little distance from his fellow-mortals to pray. Coming to a hollow through which a small rivulet ran, he bowed his knees and prayed earnestly to the Lord that He would take him to heaven to be for ever with Himself, or, if it was His will that he should be left longer in this world, He would provide some food to uphold his frail body. When he arose from his knees, and came up to the brow of the hollow, he found lying on the ground a large bannock of oatmeal which had marks of having been baked on a brander. He lifted the bannock, turned back with it to the rivulet, where he had prayed, and gave thanks to God for having so wonderfully provided for him. He ate of it as much as satisfied him. The remainder of it he brought home, and all the family partook of it till they were satisfied also. From that day, the Lord provided food for them all. This will remind our readers of the wonderful provision the Most High made for Elijah in time of great need. The God of Elijah is unchangeable, and He can now, as well as then, cause ravens to bring bread to the brook Cherith to His hungry servant. The Lord has not revealed where the ravens got the bread, but Elijah was quite sure that God did provide it, and that he was kept alive by it. The same thing may be said about the oatmeal bannock Ewen Cameron got in the time of his distress.
Sometime after the above wonderful answer to prayer was granted him, he went to a Communion at Onich, in Nether Lochaber. He lodged in the house of Hugh Cameron, Bunree, who was a godly man, and who told us the following story about Ewen. This man told us that the people in that district had to part with all their money and most of their cattle in order to provide the necessaries of life during the famine of the preceding years. This year they had plenty of potatoes, but they had nothing but salt to take along with them. This godly man, like his neighbours, lived mostly on potatoes and salt. Ewen went away down below this man’s house to the estuary of a river that passed near by. He bent his knees on the mole at the side of a large pool, and prayed to the Lord to send them something which they would eat along with the potatoes. When he arose from prayer he found on the mole, between the place where he prayed and the pool, a large salmon. He lifted the salmon in his two hands, and walking into the house threw it down on the kitchen table, saying, “How is it that you have so little faith in prayer? Look at that!” The man told us that he was sure the fish would weigh, at least, twenty-six pounds. So they had salmon enough till the solemn season ended, and the strangers left for their own homes. Next year Ewen came to the Communion at Onich again, and lodged with Hugh Cameron. This year they had plenty of everything needful for the nourishment of the body. Ewen did not forget, however, the Lord’s goodness to them the previous year, so he went to pray in the same place, and to thank the divine Ruler of providence for past mercies. When He bent his knees on the mole he placed his hat beside him, and while he prayed a gust of wind rolled the hat down into the sea. Prayer being ended, he arose, and the first thing his eyes lighted upon was his hat on the strong current of Lochlinnie, about half a mile away. He came into the house bareheaded and looking very much perplexed. The goodman asked him what was wrong. He told him that he had lost his hat and how it happened. The man told him not to be troubled about the hat, and that he would give him another hat. But the boys heard of it, and, coming to Ewen, said, “Now you see, Ewen, there is not so much good in prayer after all; for, although you got a salmon last year with it, you lost your hat this year.” He was very much grieved at this, for fear it would raise a bias in the minds of the boys against prayer. He said to them, “I wish you never heard a word about that hat; and see you, boys, that the loss of my hat will not keep you from praying, for there is a very great blessing in prayer.” He, in honest simplicity, believed the boys were in real earnest, and he urged on them to pray to the Lord to save them, and that the Lord would hear their prayers.
On another occasion he attended the communion at Oban. It was his habit, wherever he was, to retire to pray in some lonely place, away from the presence of his fellow-men. He went here and there in search of a secluded place; but go wherever he could, the Oban boys followed him. This harassed him very much, and caused him to be greatly cast down in his soul. One night, after family worship, he went out and was a long time before he returned to the house; but, when he did come in, he looked very cheerful and happy. A stranger who lodged in the same house with him during the coming season, got an opportunity of asking him about the cause of this happy change. Ewen told him what was the cause of his trouble, and said: “The Lord got a place for me now which the boys cannot find.” The following morning the man said to him that he should let him see the place. Ewen brought him to a place where there was a big perpendicular rock, the whole face of which was covered with ivy; he looked this and that way to make sure that no one saw them, and then he divided with his two hands the ivy at a certain place where there was an opening into a cave. “This is the place the Lord provided for me to pray in,” he said. In this place he spent a while alone with his God every night till he left Oban. This ought to be a warning to boys; for we cannot but believe that God was very angry at the Oban boys for troubling poor Ewen when he went to pray.
On a Sabbath day, at Strontian, after sermon, he went to the house of one of the godly men of the place. This man had a very intelligent brother who read much of the writings of Dr. Owen, Thomas Boston, and other divines of the orthodox school. This man asked Ewen what, in his opinion, was the meaning of a certain truth, which he mentioned. Ewen told him his opinion of it. The man said to him: “You are wrong; for Owen and Boston agree on this other meaning of it.” Ewen answered: “They should know the meaning better than I,” and he immediately rose off his chair and went out. The man went to the window to see where he would go, and he saw that he went into a thick bush of willows at the bottom of the garden. In this place he remained a considerable time. He then came back into the house, and coming up to the man, said to him: “Were you not the servant of Satan, for you knew perfectly well that both Owen and Boston held the same opinion of that truth which I hold?” The man got such a fright that he never again said a word to any person about such matters, although before that day he used to take pleasure in airing his own knowledge and in contradicting the godly men of the place. He confessed to one of the men that Ewen was right in charging him with having misrepresented Owen and Boston, and endeavouring to confound Ewen by what he himself knew to be a lie; but, because Ewen did not know of this till after he prayed, he was sure the Lord alone revealed it to him.
The late Dr. John Macleod of Morvern told a friend the following story about Ewen. The Doctor and Dr. Norman, his brother, met Ewen on the public road near the Manse of Fiumary one day, and he brought him into the manse. When he got him into a room, he closed the door, and asked Ewen to pray. He refused. The Doctor told him that he could not get out of the room till he prayed. When he saw that he could not get away without obeying the Doctor, he bent his knees beside the chair on which he sat, and began to pray by saying, “‘Thou hast, O Lord, the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season,’ and seeing I am now in the presence of these learned men, give me the tongue of the learned that I may know what to say.” He then went on to pray, and continued for a considerable time. The Doctor was very surprised at the prayer Ewen offered, for he considered it one of the most wonderful prayers he had ever heard. He said that he had heard much from others about Ewen as a man of extraordinary power in prayer; but that, owing to the weakness of his capacities in other matters, he could not believe it till he heard him for himself, but that he now confessed that it was no exaggeration he had heard. From that day he became very friendly towards Ewen, and provided him with most of the clothing he required to the end of his days.
The Rev. D. Gray, meeting him one day, asked him, “What is the meaning of this truth, Ewen?”: “Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.” Ewen answered: “Well, I have been thinking on that truth. The old Christian learned by painful experience to walk straight on the middle of the narrow way, and to watch at every step where he should plant down his foot, and also to walk very slowly and cautiously. The young Christian comes up from behind him, walking briskly with a careless and light step, and says to the old Christian, ‘If thou wilt not walk better than that, thou shalt not reach thy journey’s end before the night overtakes thee.’ The old Christian gave him a serious look, but said nothing, and the young one passed on. The old one did not proceed very far till he saw the young one in the ditch at the side of the way sunk to the neck in the mire. He stepped cautiously down, took him out, taking good care that he himself should not fall into it also. When he had brought him up to the side of the way, and brushed some of the mire off him, he left him and walked away slowly, keeping the middle of the way more cautiously now than ever before. When the young one got his clothes dried, and got some of the mud rubbed off, he came on again with a quick, light step, and accosted the old Christian as he did before, and passed on with a confident air. In a little while the old one saw him sunk to the neck in the ditch, this time, however, on the other side of the way. He pulled him out again as he did before. But the young one, after a little, came past him again, and fell the third time into the ditch. And from ditch to ditch—the old one always helping him out—till at last the young one became more slow than the old; and the old reached his journey’s end long before him.
“I thought of it also this way:—The old Christian may be compared to an ox taken out of the yoke in the evening and let into a park. The animal, being tired, lay down on the green sward to rest. The young Christian may be compared to a calf that was let out to this park also. The calf was never out before. It ran round the park with all its might. Seeing the ox lying on the ground it ran up to him, and with a bound jumped over him, uttering ‘baw;’ and ran round the park again, repeating the same every time it came to the ox. The ox cogitated with himself:—’Thou art very merry and lively, being fed each day on thy mother’s milk; but when thou art weaned and taken in hand as I am, and put to plough all day long with only some dry straw to eat, thou shalt not run, nor jump, nor “baw” so much.’ On one of the calf’s rounds through the park, a foal that happened to be in the park with its dam, ran along with the calf. When the calf came to the ox it jumped over him as usual, and the foal jumped over him also. The ox got up at once, as much as to say: ‘Although I allowed the calf to jump over me, I will not allow thee.’ Mr. Gray asked him: “What do you mean by the foal, Ewen?” “What,” said he, “but the hypocrite?” This was the way by which he set forth the toleration and forbearance of experienced godly men towards the young and inexperienced; and the difference they make between what they consider folly in the heart of God’s child, and hypocrisy and presumption in the carnal formalist.
We may see from the above, the simple and very instructive way in which Ewen set forth the doctrines of the Word of God. It has been felt by us a great loss that so little of his teaching has been preserved. At the same time, we always felt indebted to the man who gathered the few crumbs which we have recorded above, because we consider it a fair specimen of the simple and parabolic manner in which he used to lecture to the people. It reveals a mind that meditated much on the Word of God.
He went to a communion to Tobermory when the late Rev. Peter Maclean was minister there. Angus of the Hills came to that communion also. Ewen and Angus never saw each other before. Coming out of the Church after the service on the Fast Day, they met at the door. They looked at each other straight in the face. Ewen asked Angus: “What is your name?” Angus put the same question to Ewen. The introduction being over, they walked away arm in arm. Ewen’s first question to Angus was: “What is saving faith, Angus?” He replied: “Saving faith is a soul setting its own seal to every word recorded by the Holy Ghost from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation.” This answer gave full satisfaction to Ewen. Coming to a place where there were a few men standing right opposite the windows of the Free Church Manse, Ewen began to address them about the everlasting concerns of their immortal souls. Angus placed his back to a corner and listened very attentively. The Rev. Peter Maclean saw themselves and the crowd of people that had gathered by this time to listen to Ewen, and said to the Rev. John Macrae (MacRath Môr) that he would have to go out to order these men into the Manse, as the people would only make fun of them. Mr. Macrae, who knew both Angus and Ewen better than Mr. Maclean, said to him if he would take his advice he would let them alone. Mr. Maclean went out, and coming to them, said: “What are you both doing here? Away into the Manse.” Angus immediately said: “You are doing very well, Ewen; never heed him, for that is Satan’s way, always when anyone is doing good, he tells him to stop it and to go home.” So Ewen took Angus’s advice and continued his lecture. When Mr. Maclean went back to the Manse, Mr. Macrae asked him how he got on with their friends. “Get on with them! they compared me to Satan, and did not take my advice.” Mr. Macrae replied: “Did I not advise you to let them alone?” Angus and Ewen spent six months going together among the godly of the Island of Mull before they parted; and we understand that it was a painful thing to others, who were eye-witnesses of their grief, when they had to separate from one another, to meet no more on this side of the grave. We have no doubt but what they are together now, where they shall never separate, and where sorrow and sighing have for ever fled away.
Ewen spoke publicly against the soul-ruining doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church sometimes very strongly. This aroused the blind zeal of a young man of that persuasion. He met Ewen in a lonely place far from human habitation one day as he was returning from a Communion, and told him that he would kill him on the spot because he miscalled their Church. Ewen said to him that, if he had any human feelings in his breast, he would allow him time to get his sword, so that he might defend himself. The young man, knowing perfectly well that he had no material sword, let go his grip of him, and stood right in front of him on the mountain track. Ewen stretched forth his hand toward the young man’s breast, saying as he did so: “It is written, ‘Ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.'” The young man ran away, and left Ewen to continue his journey homeward unmolested.
He was not ignorant of Satan’s devices and temptations. Satan harassed him often about things which might seem to men possessed of stronger mental faculties of very little importance. The Rev. Alex. Macintyre gave him a suit of clothes which he had himself cast off. He gave him also a hat, bag, and umbrella. Ewen met the Rev. Donald Gray one day attired in this suit, who said to him: “Who is this little minister?” and asked him to turn round till he would see how the coat fitted him. He turned his back, and Mr. Gray praised the suit, and told him the coat fitted him very well. “But,” Ewen said, “I must put it off; for the Pharisees had long coats, and this coat makes a Pharisee of me.” Mr. Gray reasoned with him that that was a temptation from Satan, and that he should not yield to it. At last he persuaded that the sin of the Pharisees was not their long coats, but their hypocrisy. So Ewen did not cast away the coat. Mr. Gray praised the bag, and told him how very useful he would find it for carrying things that would be necessary for him when away from home. “But I must put the bag from me,” he said. Mr. Gray said to him: “Why will you throw away the bag?” “Because Judas had the bag,” said he. Mr. Gray endeavoured to show him that there was a very great difference between the purpose for which Judas carried the bag and the use he intended to make of his bag, and told him that was another temptation to which he should not yield. At last he got him persuaded not to throw away the bag.
He went with Mr. Gray that night to Mr. Gray’s sister’s house, and was put to bed in a little room beside the kitchen. About four o’clock next morning he came into the kitchen—where the goodman and wife slept—scratching his left arm above the elbow with his right hand, and looking very much harassed. She asked him what was wrong, and he said to her: “Do you know where my umbrella is?” She told him that she did not know, and asked him where he did leave it. He said that he did not remember. She told him to try his hand down at the back of the meal-chest, as it might have fallen there if he left it on the top of it. He did so, and finding it there, he opened it and said, “Ah! was Satan not a liar as usual, for he told me the rats had torn it all into shreds?” He took it with him, and went away to his bed.
We have been told a similar story about Angus of the Hills. A kind man in Portree once gave Angus a good overcoat to keep him warm in winter, and made him try it on. When Angus put on the coat the man said to him that it would keep him warm, and that it would make a gentleman of him. “But I must put it off, for it will ruin my soul with pride, as I feel my pride rising up already,” said Angus. So he did put it off, and could not be persuaded to put it on any more.
Ewen lived the last few years of his life with an eminently godly man—a Mr. Macfarlane, an Inland Revenue Officer—near Lochaline, Morvern. The kindness and attention bestowed on him in this family exceeded all praise. The last day of his life on earth he asked them to take him out so that he might see the world once more. They told him that he was too weak to walk himself, and that unless they would lift him bodily as he was in the bed—bolster, bedclothes and all—he could not be carried out any other way. “Will you not, then, carry me out that way itself?” he said. So they lifted him out, and sustained him in a sitting position on the lawn opposite the door. He looked round on the beautiful panorama formed by the mountains of Mull, with the Sound of Mull lying at their base—a view which has been admired by men who have travelled much in foreign lands. Ewen gazed on this view for a little while, and then said: “Is not the world which God created beautiful? but what is good for me is that I have found Christ in it.” He told them then that they might carry him in again; and, on being placed again in his bed, he thanked them for their wonderful kindness to him. That night Ewen Cameron went to be forever with the Christ he found in this world.
We have heard the following things about Angus of the Hills, which we do not remember having seen in print, and we give them as we heard them:—
When the Rev. John Macrae was in Lewis, in one or other of the parishes of which he was successively pastor, being very fond of Angus, and having a desire to have him near himself, he got Angus to come to live at the Manse in order to look after the cows. One day Mr. Macrae saw, from the study window, the cows in the middle of a field of corn, and went himself to turn them out of it. He had to keep watch on the cows a good while before Angus appeared. Mr. Macrae, being a little displeased with Angus for having neglected his duties, and being afraid that he might say something which might hurt Angus, he went his way into the house without waiting till Angus came up to him. When Angus came home in the evening, Mr. Macrae said to him: “Where were you to-day, Angus, when the cows got into the corn?” Angus answered: “I was praying.” Mr. Macrae replied: “But you ought to have attended to the cows, Angus.” Angus answered: “There would not be much worth in a prayer in which the cows would be.” So, seeing the herding of the cows and prayer could not get on at the same time, Angus went away.
At a prayer-meeting on one occasion he was asked to pray, and, although ordinarily he rose without refusing much, on this occasion he could not be prevailed upon to pray. After the meeting was over one of the men said to him: “You should not have refused to pray, Angus; for you see that Jonah prayed in the belly of a whale.” Angus replied: “But if the whale had been in the belly of Jonah, as it was in mine, I don’t think he could have prayed.”
A godly woman in Skye, with whom Angus used to lodge sometimes, tried him to see if he could count a few pennies. She placed the coppers on a table, and asked Angus to count them. He began, and do what she could, she could not get him to count the pennies correctly. That same evening the prayer-meeting was held, and the woman and Angus went to the meeting. He was called upon to pray. He arose, and began to pray with light, spiritual depth, and unction, and using words so well chosen and scriptural, that the woman (although she knew his voice perfectly well) was constrained to turn round to make sure that it was Angus—the man who could not tell the number of a few coppers a little while before then, but was now praying like a sage.
On one occasion he went from Lochalsh, along with two godly men, to Inverness to attend Communion services. They walked all the way, taking Strathglass as being the straightest and shortest route. The men sat down to take a little rest at the roadside beside a wood. Angus had a pair of very old and ragged trousers on. One of the men said to him that his trousers were not respectable enough to go to Inverness with, and that he should go to pray for a new pair of trousers. Angus went away into the wood, and went on his knees behind a bush. The men crept up to the other side of the bush in order that they might hear what he would say. Angus began the prayer by saying: “Lord, they tell me that my trousers are not good enough to go to Inverness with; I am quite satisfied with them myself, but if Thou thinkest them not good enough, give me another pair of trousers.” He then went on with a prayer for the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ in the souls of men and throughout the world, till the men at last lost patience and had to call to him to come away. When they came to Clachnaharry, on the west side of the town of Inverness, one of the men lodged there. The other and Angus went into the town. As they walked up one of the main streets, a clothier, standing at the door of his shop, saw the man and knew him. He came across the street to salute him, and, when they began to talk, Angus continued to walk on. The clothier asked the man who was this other man that was along with him? The man told that he was an eminently God-fearing man, but was weak mentally. The clothier said that he noticed that his trousers were very bad, and as he had had returned to him that afternoon a pair of trousers and vest, which were a misfit, if he would take them for the poor man, he would oblige him. The man thanked him, and took the parcel as it was. The man and Angus came to the house where they were to lodge during the solemn season. Angus was put into a small closet to sleep. The man went into the closet after Angus fell asleep and took away the old trousers and vest, replacing them by the new. In the morning, when Angus got out of bed and took up the trousers, he exclaimed: “O Lord, Thou hast sent me a new pair of trousers straight down from heaven!”
One of the godly Gaelic schoolmasters, who were such an unspeakable blessing to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, got to know Angus in the Island of Lewis. He loved Angus so much that he often took him away long distances from the bustle of the world in order that they might have private communion with the Lord and with one another. One day he asked Angus, as they walked at the side of a river, it being the dry season of the year: “How would you, Angus, describe the way faith acts towards the promises of the Word?” Angus answered: “Faith is often comparable to a trout that would be endeavouring to come up this river, and the water so low that its back has become dry, so that it concludes that it will never be able to reach the lake from which the river comes; but bye and bye it sees a pool a little in front of it, and it makes a plunge into it. So does faith when it is almost on the point of giving up for want of the water of life; when it sees the promise it plunges into it.”