JOHN MACKENZIE was born in North Tolsta, Lewis, in the month of July, 1880. His father, Donald MacKenzie, is one of the elders of the F. P. Church at Tolsta. John saw true piety exemplified from his earliest recollection in his father’s house, and had been instructed diligently in the doctrines of God’s Word. But it requires the quickening and enlightening power of the Holy Ghost to seal instruction on the heart of man. So John lived without God and without hope in the world until he was twenty-three years of age. It is worthy of particular notice that the most of those who are saved are called effectually by the Holy Spirit between the age of fifteen and thirty years. This is not written to dishearten such as have exceeded that period of their life, “for God is rich in mercy to all that call upon Him in truth,” and He continues to offer mercy through the blood of Christ to sinners up to their last breath in the world. It ought to appeal to the young. To spend the days of youth in carelessness and vanity is nothing short of madness. This will be their own opinion of it, if the Lord will deal savingly with them; and if not, it will assuredly be their opinion of their conduct toward their own immortal soul’s interest and the duty which God requires of man, when they will be lost beyond one ray of hope in eternity. This was the opinion of John MacKenzie as regards the manner in which he lived for twenty-three years in the world, and he did his utmost to advise and warn others of the great danger to which such carelessness exposes poor, unwise sinners. No one could be more earnest in warning his fellow-sinners of their danger than he was. He allowed no opportunity to pass of rebuking sin, and of advising sinners to make sure of having an interest in Christ’s finished work and intercession.
When the Boer War began in 1899, the battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders stationed then in Egypt was sent to South Africa, and the Reserves were called up to occupy its place. John MacKenzie, being one of the Reserves, was called up. He remained in Egypt during eighteen months. When he returned home, he went to work for some time in Grangemouth. After being there a short time, he removed to Glasgow, and began to work on the Clyde. Not long after he came to Glasgow, his landlady noticed that he was under serious concern about his soul. This was about fourteen years ago. He continued under deep depression about two years, spending the most of his spare hours daily in prayer and reading the Bible. Before he was awakened to the binding force of the moral law, he travelled on Sabbath to church by the cars, but he gave it up immediately and repented sincerely of his past conduct in that as well as of all other known sins. His repentance was both deep and sincere. When his deliverance came, his rejoicing in Christ was unbounded. This took place twelve years ago. He told Mrs. Macdonald, his landlady, that he would be obliged to her for awakening him every morning at four o’clock, so that he would have time to keep worship before going out to work at five. He continued to rise at that hour every morning for worship till he had to join the Army. The reason why he had to do so was that the time allowed for breakfast was so short that he could not do it then.
Two years after the Lord opened his heart to receive his fill of Christ in the gospel, he came before the Kirk-Session with a desire that he should be admitted to membership, so that he would obey his Lord’s command: “This do ye in remembrance of me.” The Session was highly satisfied with his knowledge and experience; therefore he was received to membership in full communion with the Church. Two or three years after this, he spoke to the writer, while attending a communion in the north, that he would like to see him after he would return to Glasgow. An evening was fixed for the proposed visit. He made known that evening, that he felt a very pressing desire in his mind to go to study with the intention of qualifying educationally for the ministry of the gospel. He quoted also truths that came to his mind when he was considering seriously and prayerfully what his duty might be as regards the serious step which he contemplated taking. He came again before the Session with a view of having the mind of the elders about the matter. After examining him as to his aim and ground for going forward to study for the ministry of the gospel, they were perfectly satisfied that it was, so far as they could discern, his duty to go to school at once, and they recommended his case to the Presbytery. At the next meeting thereafter of the Presbytery, his case was further considered, and all the members of the Presbytery concurred with the Session in advising him to begin to study. So, he left off work, and entered Skerry’s College in Glasgow to begin preliminary studies to qualify for entering the University. His progress was so satisfactory that his teachers, especially in English and Greek, advised him to enter the University the last winter he was in Glasgow. But he was a man that would not be satisfied with any thing that was not thoroughly done, and being conscious of his own ignorance, which is the first proper step in the way of attaining knowledge, he decided to remain another year at Skerry’s College. Before that year came to its end John had joined the Army. This took place in October, 1916.
On his arrival at Cromarty, Satan made a cruel attack upon him, so that he became so unwell through unbelief that he was confined to his bed in hospital for several days. He wrote a friend during this fiery trial:—”I thought the Lord gave me His word that it was my duty to study for the ministry of the gospel, but He has now cut me down and has cast me over the wall. I am praying to Him to restore unto me the joy of His salvation, and to take me away out of this awful world.” The friend wrote him at once, and asked him, “How did he know that ‘he was cast over the wall?’ might it not be true that the Lord had sent him to Cromarty to be a witness for Him there? might it not be true that it was just for the work in the army the Lord had given him His word, and that He meant Cromarty to be the place where he should begin it?” His friend directed him to the eighteenth psalm, and told him that David could not write that psalm with a perfect understanding of the faithfulness, truthfulness, and mercifulness of the Lord had he not gone through the persecution of Saul, the treachery of Saul’s courtiers, and the temptations of Satan, and that the Lord sent him there to learn the same lessons. He advised him to be up and doing all that he possibly could do for the souls of the poor young men amongst whom the Lord, in His holy, unerring providence, had cast his lot, and that he was in the very place where the Lord had work for him to do. John wrote his friend immediately he got this letter, and told him that when he read the letter the temptation left him, and that he would endeavour, in the strength of the Lord, to do all he could to warn his careless companions of the danger to which sin, impenitence, and unbelief exposed them. But his temptations were not long till they returned in another form. After receiving another letter, he replied as follows:—”I am in receipt of your most comforting letter. It was both a comfort and strength to my mind in my confinement. The Lord has been pleased to restore my health again, and He, no less, dealt very graciously with my soul. If I was ever taught to be a close observer of His dealings temporally and spiritually, it was recently here.” Later on in this letter, he says that he felt constrained in his mind to ask leave to attend at the communion at Dornoch. The truth which encouraged him to ask leave was: “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.” After he got his pass he wrote:—”But it (the truth quoted above) gave me some other thoughts which were of no little concern to me. However, the thoughts that are animated with His living breath, are sweet. Oh! the comfort of being made a partaker of the divine nature! I had to preach here last Sabbath night; may the fruits that will follow be repentance and faith.”
Cromarty has been the most highly favoured camp of all the training centres in our army, inasmuch as there were a few praying, godly men there from its beginning. These God-fearing men, kept meetings for prayer and expounding the Scriptures in that camp every Sabbath night and, at least, once every week, on a week night. Some of the praying men who were there are among the number who fell in the War, and are now singing the praises of Him who loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood. There was a union of hearts formed in that camp between these young men which will last as long as eternity. One of them wrote us after some of them had to leave in a draft sent to France: “I feel very sad after the godly men who left us in the last draft, but I am certainly sure in my mind that, if it be the Lord’s will concerning them that they should fall on the field of battle, they will have a blessed eternity with the Saviour whom they loved and served.” John preached often to those of the soldiers there, who would attend the services held by these worthy men. He did this not in a cold and formal and unsympathetic manner, but as one who, knowing the terrors of the Lord against sin and sinners, persuaded men, and beseeched them, in Christ’s stead, to be reconciled to God. He experienced the awful wrath of God against sin in his own soul, and, consequently, could warn men to flee from the wrath to come. As both his letters and preaching revealed, he was one who had drank deeply of the love of God in Christ Jesus. Indeed, his letters manifest that not many in this cold and formal generation have known the love of Christ as he knew it. This appeared even more in his actions than in his words. The love he had to the Lord’s people was one of the most conspicuous traits in his character.
His duties in Cromarty were the training of his fellow-soldiers in bombing. Before he began these duties, he was sent for special training to Troon. The officer in charge there granted him leave almost every week-end to come up to Glasgow. He had to come for further instructions there on two occasions after the first time, and had the same privilege granted him. This enabled him to appear oftener in our congregation than he could have done were he at any other duties at Cromarty. But, at the same time, the writer felt often pained at heart at the thought that, should he have to go to France, the duties he would have to undertake, and the keenness of his nature, would expose him to terrible dangers. He was on several occasions placed on drafts for France, but had his name taken off before they left. At last his officers told him that he would have to go with the next draft, and gave him leave to go to visit his father to Tolsta. Immediately this order was communicated to him the truth came into his mind: “The time of my departure is at hand.” This truth made such an impression on his mind that he expressed to several that he would not return from France. He asked his officer, after his return from Tolsta, if it were possible for him to allow him to come to Glasgow before he left for France, but he told him that he was not in a position to grant it. Later on that day he called John and told him that he would send him for two soldiers who were prisoners in Glasgow, and gave him commission to go for them. So John got to visit some of his friends in Glasgow for the last time. When he was parting with the writer, he said, “I am under the impression that this is the last time we will meet in this world.”
He left Cromarty about the end of March, 1918. He arrived in France on the last day of March. Within a few days after his arrival he was drafted into the 2nd battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders, and sent forward toward the front. He wrote several letters after he entered the fiery furnace of the front trenches. In one of his letters he writes: “It is a marvellous opportunity, indeed, in the midst of all the dangers with which we are every minute surrounded here, that I could endeavour to write you this scrawl; but where our Lord is there is peace. . . . We had a lot of rain yesterday, which is not desirable, especially in the trenches; but ‘Tommy’ is well trained to this way of living, so much so that I was made to marvel at their patient endurance of whatsoever they had to face. By seeing this, the cavilling of my mind was speedily silenced, and I thought—well, if natural men have derived such splendour and beauty from being used to such a life as this, how much more should men, having the grace of God in their hearts, benefit by such an ordeal?” He met in the trenches one of his God-fearing comrades who left Cromarty before him. This was a great comfort to him. There were also two other young men in the company with whom he was comforted in the midst of deaths often. On the seventh day of June, he wrote:— “How I am as one residing in the secret place of the Most High! He hides me in His pavilion, and then my soul finds pasture. Oh, what a comfort and felicity it is to have Christ as our high tower in such trying circumstances! ‘His name is a strong tower, the righteous fleeth into it and is safe.’ Of none others but those who are reconciled to God in His beloved Son is this true; so that to them He is made precious—to them who believed and received Him as their own personal Saviour. He gives me strength and confidence in Himself, and teaches my fingers to war.” He wrote the above two days before he fell in action. On the 9th day of June, 1918, a shell burst quite near him, and wounded him so severely that his comrades saw that he could not live long. While they were mournfully binding up the terrible wounds made on him, he opened his eyes and said to them: “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.” These were, so far as we could gather, the last words spoken by our dear friend. While he was being carried to the nearest dressing-station, he passed away through loss of blood. Thus passed the spirit of John MacKenzie into eternal glory, while his body rests in France until the last trumpet will blow to call all men to the judgment-seat of the Great Judge. It will rise that day a glorious body, and soul and body united again, shall enter into eternal glory.
John MacKenzie was a young man, even before his conversion, of a very warm disposition. He was frank, very obliging, faithful to duty, and, withal, modest in his manner; but he was even then faithful to the dictates of his natural conscience. He refused to work on the Sabbath day in Glasgow, and gave up a good place rather than violate his conviction. He did this two years before any concern about his soul had been observed. But, at the same time, his natural conscience allowed him to indulge in other sins forbidden in the decalogue on the Lord’s day. As soon as he was convinced that these were sins, he gave them up, and there was none in the city more opposed to them than he. His straightforward but very sympathetic nature caused all who had the privilege of knowing him to love and admire him. There was a combination of manliness and kindness noticeable in his countenance that drew his friends more and more towards him, and that gained the respect of such as felt his reproofs and rebukes galling to their unrenowned hearts, so that his mourners were composed of such as loved him in the Lord, and of the careless, who felt that they had lost a friend who never flattered them in their sinful courses in order to retain their friendship. They felt that the truth: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend,” was verified in their experience of his faithful rebukes. This was not true of all, but it was true of the most.
Owing to the fact that he had been a student of our Church for more than two years before he joined the army, and that he had been during that time going out to supply our congregations in the Southern Presbytery, he was well-known to all our people in the south. He was known also to some of the congregations in the north. So that we may say that most of the people of our Church feel that his removal has left a large blank in our midst. It is not a small token of the wrath of God against this generation that such promising young men are taken away.
One thing, which appeared very conspicuously in John MacKenzie, caused the writer to conclude that he was either to be a minister of rare love to Christ and to all that belong to Him in the world, or that he was not to be left long with us. That was the fact that his first love seemed never to have waned in the least. His mind was continually meditating on some portion or other of the Word of God. He might say: “O, how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.” He might truly say: “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” His love to the Lord’s people was both warm and constant. We mourn deeply for our loss, but we rejoice in the assurance that he is now singing the praises of his Redeemer, who loved him and washed him in His own blood.
We desire to express our sincere sympathy with his godly father and with each member of the family in their deep sorrow. We intend to publish some of his letters in the Magazine later on. N. C.