(III.)
STRATHY HEAD.
MY DEAR—, I received your very kind and welcome letter a short time ago. I was sorry to hear that you were not keeping well. I had much spiritual death on my soul since I came home. The power of sin is great. What need that He would subdue our iniquities and love us freely! “O Israel,” He says, “Thou hast destroyed thy self, thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.” How low we have fallen by our own iniquity! You desire me to go to—first Sabbath. Though, on the one hand, I desire to go; on the other hand, I feel it somewhat strange for me to go there. O that He would yet make His face shine on such a dark and dead soul who tries to make mention of His Holy name! May He bring us in truth into communion and fellowship with Himself, and to know the way in which to walk! One said: “Thou, with Thy counsel, while I live, wilt me conduct and guide.”
The first Sabbath after I came home I felt a little liberty sometimes, but I am still the brutish creature I was. Even though a word sometimes comes with power, when that word leaves, sin gathers strength again, so that my soul can do little but groan under the burden of sin. O, for a breathing of the Spirit!
Remember me to the friends there, and to old Sandy. May the fellowship of Him who is life eternal be yours as a congregation! O that the Spirit would be poured on us from on high! With love.—I am, etc.,
DONALD MACKAY.
(IV.)
KERRYSDALE,
GAIRLOCH, 31st March, 1896.
MY DEAR—, I received your kind and welcome letter. I was over at Laide last Sabbath, and waited on Monday to see William MacIver. He is very poorly. He was asking if it was the Sabbath, so you may judge something of his state. I am
grieved at myself for not staying longer with him. He asked me to stay, but we had a meeting on Monday night. I might have gone back, but did not do it; and now I am afraid that I will not get another opportunity. How brutish I am! Pray you for such a brute that He would not cast me off for ever. May it please Him who has our breath and life in His hand to restore William! But as for him, it is far better for him to be with Jesus, where nothing will break their fellowship. This is only a wilderness at best, a dry and thirsty land, full of pits and snares. How good it is for the soul that will safely escape over them! Though we would desire that He would spare William, and although it is our privilege and our duty to cry to the Holy One concerning him, yet, on the other hand, shall the thing formed say to Him who formed him, “What doest Thou?” What need there is to be guided by his Spirit! What need of the sprinkling of clean water! “Ye are clean through the word that I have spoken with you.”
My desire is that the Holy One would be with you. Though this is a wilderness, He is not a wilderness to His poor and needy ones. . . . With love,—I am, etc.,
DONALD MACKAY.