DONALD Macleod was born in 1828 in the township of Ceapach, in the district of Strathaird, parish of Strath, Skye. One of a family of eight, he was a healthy, vigorous child. With the opportunities that offered, such as they were, he was taught to read the Bible well. In the absence, however, of restrictions now imposed by law on children of school age, Donald, as a mere boy, was engaged as herd in the service of Macalister, the tenant of the place. Macalister was a medical man, and being a rare horseman, worked his “practice” in the saddle. Donald, who was light and young and fearless, the doctor took with him to look after the horse. Placed right behind the doctor, Donald’s knee at every stride struck against the saddle’s curve. In course of time, his right knee began to swell. Try what he might, the doctor, who was very fond of him, failed to effect a cure. He had a limp till his last day.
After this he went home. He soon showed he was not without ambition. With the help of a sister who kept house for him, he opened a small shop. The little business apparently prospered; but “the love of money is the root of all evil,” and with all his buying Donald at last bought some smuggled whisky. At this time, he had no serious thoughts about personal religion to mar his prospects or disturb his plans. But the Lord’s hour was drawing nigh. William Macdonald was a catechist and school-master in Strathaird. A man of no ordinary ability, he was a fervent preacher of righteousness and temperance. One day he met Donald. “I hear you have some whisky in your hands,” he said; “I hope it may not be the means of sending yourself and others to hell.” Donald himself, in after years, on fellowship days, more than once, referred to this illegal venture.
It would appear that Macdonald’s alarming remonstrance produced an abiding effect. Neighbours noticed that some time after this he went to Communions, and made companions of the Lord’s people. His sense of indebtedness to Macdonald in after days was very great, and his admiration of him almost boundless. To a daughter of the catechist, as Donald was on his way to Portree Communion two years ago, he said, “I shall be a star shining in your father’s crown to all eternity.” In such a public way was the good work begun, but according to his own account it was in a very private manner that it had its striking and glorious climax. He was about forty years at this time, when the district was visited by a very malignant fever. His sister was suddenly and seriously attacked. He evidently had as yet no peace of mind. Alarmed by the suddenness of this stroke, he left the house and lived for several weeks in a deserted hut. He procured every aid and comfort for his sister, but for himself there was no peace. When night came, fresh terrors came. He was certain there was some mysterious noise and movement about the hut. To his dying day he believed it was Satan. He saw that the Most High had hedged up his way with thorns. His sister might be dying. His own death might be only a matter of days. In this extremity, this is how he described his mind and feelings. “I wanted that my soul should be united in everlasting wedlock to the Son of God. I thought of Paul praying thrice for the removal of the thorn in his flesh. Why should I not go with my request to Him as well? I knelt and prayed intensely to the Lord for mercy. No answer came. I prayed again with even greater fervency, but no answer came. There was yet one hope. I knelt and prayed the third time. I had hardly begun to plead when, “with the power,” as he would say, there came these words:—
“O let the Lord, our gracious God,
For ever blessed be,
Who turned not my pray’r from him,
Nor yet his grace from me”—(Psalm lxxvi. 20).
And immediately there followed these:
“I love the Lord, because my voice
And prayers he did hear.
I, while I live, will call on him,
Who bow’d to me his ear”—(Psalm cxvi. 1).
Donald was a new creature. He “had joy and gladness,” a feast, and a good “night,” which the light of the Gospel had turned into a twofold day. Once the writer heard him say, “If I had wealth, on that spot would I rear a palace, all of gold.” From this moment he became a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Leaving his native village some years after this, he set up a small shop in the parish of Strath proper. Here he began a career which was anything but uneventful. Within a period of some thirty-five years he was the tenant of six different houses in succession, but in spite of change, loss in business, and trials which were neither few nor trifling, he enjoyed a considerable measure of domestic comfort, and he closed his accounts with honour.
Up till now he had played but a comparatively obscure part in the Church. There were giants in the land in those days, and little men were to be seen, not heard. But the great worthies were being rapidly removed, and the time of these small reserves of grace had come. There was a change in religion—a change for evil. Wherever there was a spark of grace alive there was a feeling, which came by instinctive sympathy, that this was a time of affliction for Joseph. It was a time for active courage and high resolve. He lost all respect for those who, as he would say, “with their mouth show much love, but whose heart goeth after their covetousness.” He welcomed the testimony of 1893 with the liveliest satisfaction. He never lived to think his decision a piece of heroic folly. Fidelity to Christ and the standard of common honesty demanded nothing less. It was a matter of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Donald kept the faith, his vows, and his conscience, and he had his reward: he got a spiritual resurrection of soul.
Of a warm, affectionate disposition, with the most charitable and catholic sympathy, he would in public and private prayer pour out his heart before God. At these times his peace was “as a river, and his righteousness as the waves of the sea.” Often he would use very simple statements and petitions, but all who heard him, felt and saw that to this man the Word of God was spirit and life. He worshipped God in spirit and in truth. He was direct and pointed in his utterance. There were no preliminaries. He was “under full sail” after a shrug and shake or two. Christ and his love were the fires where he warmed his heart and affections, as they were the sources of his faith and energy. His presence at Communions, especially in Portree and Raasay, was the delight of young and old. Whoever came, or failed to come, the question was asked, “Has Domhnnull Beag an Atha-Cathain come”? His prayers were a treat, a real soul tonic. Job’s words might well express the attitude of many listeners at that time: “And they waited for me as for the rain; and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.” He loved the young, and was in his best element when recommending to them the Son of God who came to seek and to save that which was lost. Whatever impression his prayers may have made upon them, they not only liked but loved him, and his death made a blank in their lives. There was nothing ascetic or repelling about him. He was kind and easy of access, and his speech was always seasoned with salt.
By some he was considered to be simple, innocent, and easily imposed upon. The wisest sometimes are. If to be simple is to be sincere where God’s honour and men’s best interests are concerned, then he was very simple. If, again, in the cause of truth, discretion is the better part of valour, then he was not a good soldier of Jesus Christ, for whatever the congregation might be, he could say, “I have not hid thy righteousness in my heart.” He rebuked and exhorted in season and out of season. If simplicity means a lack of knowledge of human nature, he was anything but simple. He had very shrewd discernment, and, if he could not distinguish the hands, he could make out the voice of insinuating design. Without doubt, he had “the secret of the Lord,” and more than once he gave proof of it.
He had the warmest admiration for the leaders of 1893 and their immediate followers. The rest he described as those who had one language north of the Grampians and another when they got south. The truth of the Apostolic dictum—”Godliness with contentment is great gain”—he exhibited very clearly. He was a lively, bright, and hopeful Christian, and a good talker. With amusing indifference to good taste and discretion, he would have the company in laughter or consternation by turns. While he knew sometimes too well “the heavens over his head, brass, and the earth under his feet, iron,” yet he often had extraordinary liberty in his own house. He was given latterly much to prolonged meditation. Three years ago one of our ministers in the south called on him on the Tuesday evening following the Communion in Broadford. He asked Donald how he was. “Very well, very well,” was the reply, “and so I may. The Lord was here all day without a doubt.”
After Hector Macpherson’s death, Donald was in charge of the meeting held on Sabbath in the school at Broadford. But he was becoming a very old man, and rheumatism gave him much trouble in the injured knee. Feeling that the end could not be very far away, his wish, three or four years ago, was to get one other year to go to a few choice places to Communion and see the brethren. He got his desire and more. A year this time he was able to go to Raasay and Portree. In Raasay he was in an ecstasy of joy. In Portree he seems to have been calmer; so also was he at Broadford, which was his last Communion on earth. Winter came and went, but Donald’s winter of trouble lengthened and lingered into spring. He kept his bed on 27th March. He suffered hardly any pain to speak of in his illness. His deathbed is beyond description. It was a fitting close to a straight and faithful life. It was a succession of raptures of joy. There was no thought of his sinking strength, for the love of Christ constrained him. He would chant the greatest promises of the truth in long connected stretches, very often these: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee;” and 1 John iii. 1, 2. He insisted very much upon the necessity of being faithful unto death, from Isaiah xliii., “Therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God.” Asked by a friend whether he had a really solid hope in view of death, he said, “I have every assurance, Sandy, which a living man can have on this side of eternity.” As his life answered that of the early Christians, so his last moments were like theirs. As he expressed some wonder why his departure was delayed, one standing by his bed said, “Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariot?” Instantly he replied with a broad smile on his face and a ring of cordial delight in his voice, “Sin agad e, sin agad e, sin thu, sin thu, a sheoid”—”There you have it, there you have it; that’s you, that’s you, my best man.” On another occasion he said, “Is it any wonder to you that I have such liberty? I am going home, and a good home it is.” He was suffering some dull pain, and he was entirely helpless. But he was resigned and thankful and only wished that the Lord’s will should be done. A little before the end came, when he seemed to be making one last survey of the Church of God and expressing his admiration of her greatness and glory in Christ, he paused abruptly, and then began to sob aloud, speaking in affectionate terms of ministers of the Free Presbyterian Church. He died at 7 p.m. on Thursday the 16th April.
He was a whole-hearted believer in our absolute ruin by the Fall. Of sin and wretchedness, filth and folly, none was more sensible than he. But he practised what he taught: “If you take one look at your sins, take ten at Christ”—the Son of His bosom, as he would say. And Satan was more than a name to him, and of his devices he could tell a few. He read a considerable amount of Bunyan and Owen and Luther in translations, but the Bible was his text-book day and night. In this respect he was very remarkable. He could almost say with Job, “I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.” To preserve this, the closest friendships must go, even life may have to go, but the truth never. Any irreverence for the truth he could not tolerate, and for error there must be no quarter. Sabbath-breaking he rebuked with boldness and without respect of persons. The average amount of self-righteousness he may have at times betrayed, but the art of hypocrisy, his was not the skill by nature to use. In this respect he was an Israelite, indeed, without guile. He was the embodiment of a truth, so often used by himself, “We are his workmanship.”
Donald Macleod was twice married, and is survived by a daughter. His death is a great loss to the Church. As Apollos was mighty in the scriptures, Donald Macleod was mighty in prayer. His interest in the future of the Church of Christ was powerfully quickened through some discourses by Rev. Mr. Macfarlane, Dingwall, and he followed the movement of political events in Europe with intelligent concern. Now that the crisis has come, and the sword is unsheathed, one thinks of the graphic way in which Donald Macleod anticipated, by the fireside, the carnage of the battlefield and the magnitude of the area of conflict. But the imminence of these events was of first interest to him as heralds that should usher the nations into the peace of the millennium. He “being dead, yet speaketh.”
R. M.I.