BY THE REV. JOHN R. MACKAY, M.A., INVERNESS.
MY DEAR MR. EDITOR,—I respond with pleasure to your request for a report of my brief mission to our Gaelic-speaking naval men in Chatham and Dover, and wish to be excused for not finding it easy to write you in this reference sooner. The people of our Church respond with their means always liberally to any appeal that has to be made for the financial support of this Mission, and it is therefore but reasonable that the ministers, in whose work they show so great an interest, should on their part do what they can to keep, by reports, the supporters of the work in real touch with what is being done, or sought to be done.
I was in England altogether only for five Sabbaths, that is, for the whole of October and for the first Sabbath of November. Three of these Sabbaths I gave to Portsmouth and two to Chatham. I was able to get down to Portsmouth, where my work commenced, on the Friday before the first Sabbath of October, and thus had an opportunity of meeting in the barracks with a few of the naval men, and of conducting a short service on their behalf on Friday evening. On Saturday I spent some time in a visit to Haslar Hospital, and through my predecessor’s care—the Rev. D. A. Macfarlane—in giving me a correct guide to where the wounded Gaelic-speaking men would be found, my visit was rendered less aimless than otherwise it should be. Patients almost always appreciate such visits with heartiness, and that renders this kind of work the more agreeable, and gives an ampler opportunity of speaking to them concerning “the one thing needful,” which we, at least, try to do. On Sabbath I preached three times—in the morning, in a very large room in the Sailors’ Home; in the afternoon, in a smaller room in the same Home; and in the evening, in the Royal Naval Barracks. This description of what was done during the first week-end in Portsmouth will also answer for the other two week-ends which, later on, I spent in Portsmouth—the programme, roughly speaking, being always a sermon on Friday night, a visit to Haslar on Saturday, and three sermons on the Sabbath.
The attendance at Portsmouth on the first Sabbath was somewhat small—in fact, as I more correctly recall what was done, we had no service at all in the morning, the reason being that on account of the weather the men were not allowed out of the barracks; and even in the evening, when the service was held in the barracks itself, the attendance was small, because a considerable number of the men were still off on “harvest leave.” By the time I returned to Portsmouth, that is, for the third Sabbath of October, the attendance was better, approaching, I would say, seventy in the morning, and a somewhat smaller audience at the other services, because all are not at liberty later on in the day to the extent to which they are in the morning, and there were some I believe present who were there only because they preferred to run the risk of a cross-examination to missing the service. The attendance on the first Sabbath of November at Portsmouth was very like what we had on the third Sabbath of October.
During the time I was in Portsmouth I put up at the Royal Sailors’ Home, and I am bound to acknowledge the great Christian kindness which I experienced at the hands of Miss Weston, and of those who assist her in the Home.
On the Saturday before the second Saturday of October I went to Chatham, the station at which I spent the second and fourth week-ends of my stay in England, and I was comfortably put-up at the Officers’ Quarters, R.N. Barracks. At Chatham the week-day sermon is held by us on Saturday evening, and on the Sabbath only two services are held—all in a large school-room, which is part of the barracks itself. The attendance at Chatham was better than in Portsmouth, there being one hundred reported present on the second Sabbath of October, and one hundred and thirteen on the fourth Sabbath of the same month. As there was a long interval between the morning and the evening service on the Sabbath, it afforded an opportunity of walking out to Gillingham, a not very large town, which lies on elevated grounds nearly two miles nearer the sea than Chatham, where also the Hospital for the R.N. Barracks at Chatham is found. I met with very few Gaelic-speaking men there, but, failing to find many of those of whom I was immediately in search, I began to look out for any Scotsmen there, of whom I found several, and it was quite cheering to observe how much Lowland Scotsmen appreciated on their sick-beds there a ministerial visit from a Highland fellow-Scotsman. The circumstance afforded an opportunity of doing what one might to turn their attention to the things that really matter, and a loud call there is for this when, for one thing, on account of the prevalence of the so-called “Sunday Pictorial newspapers,” even in the sick chamber, and on the Lord’s Day, there is so little in their surroundings to lead to what is best. It is a rather deplorable thing that so little is, so far as one could see, done to supply the wounded in English Hospitals with Bibles. I was sorry my stay in Chatham was so brief. My return on Mondays was, as a rule, to London, and, as was natural, I felt at home at 19 Bryanston Street. It was a pleasure also to have had the opportunity of meeting on the evening of Tuesday for so many weeks in succession with our own people that gather at St. Philip’s Parish Hall. A preacher of the Gospel finds few things more helpful than to meet with so much as one that will, in simplicity of heart, receive the message of salvation through him.
I have to acknowledge the Lord’s preserving care over me while living in England, and all the more so that London is now recognised as being for the War within the danger zone. But my faith or courage was not on this visit sorely tried. By going down to Portsmouth immediately almost after I arrived in London on the Friday before the first Sabbath of October, I happily missed being in London when the great Zeppelin raid came off. On the following Saturday night, in Chatham, word came out that a raid was developing on the other side of the Channel, and so fearful did an earlier disastrous visitation of Chatham prove, that one would say that even very brave men trembled at the thought of a raid again. But in less than an hour we were assured that the raid was not to come off. A third time, and within, I should say, less than a week after the experience now spoken of in Chatham, late at night in London, we had warning that a raid was expected, but, again, in less than an hour the bugle went round to tell that the raid was not likely to reach London, so that one began to hope that one’s work in England might be finished without once experiencing what a raid in London means. But it was not to be quite so. About ten days before I left London, and late at night again, the usual warning of a raid approaching was given throughout the Metropolis, and before very long the sound of our own guns at a distance confirmed the apprehension that we were to pass through the ordeal of a raid. In a few minutes, guns of our own, that were appreciably nearer, could be heard, and then by and bye the Hyde Park guns, which were quite at hand to us, opened fire, and for a considerable time the uproar all over London was terrible. About three o’clock in the morning the welcome bugle told us the danger had passed, although, of course, not without leaving some homes desolate or sad for life. The whole experience gave one a taste of what it means to live in a besieged city, and, at least, ought to have made us sympathise more with those whose lot it is to live always in the danger zone.
Still, my visit to England, taking it all in all, was a pleasant experience. Of course, one sees much to annoy one, and especially in the matter of football playing on the Lord’s day, and of the “Sunday Pictorials,” which latter, of course, are painfully in evidence in Inverness, and in other towns of Scotland, but one need not come so much in contact with them here as in barracks and hospitals in England. But “the Lord is good to Israel” everywhere, and I was glad to have an opportunity of preaching the Word to appreciative audiences in Chatham, and Portsmouth, and London, and of renewing acquaintance with old friends in London and its neighbourhood.—Yours sincerely, JOHN R. MACKAY.
F. P. MANSE,
INVERNESS, February, 1918.