MR. ARCHIBALD MACDONALD, GRAFTON, CLARENCE RIVER,
NEW SOUTH WALES.
THE death, on 23rd October, 1918, of Mr. Archibald MacDonald, Duke Street, Grafton, Clarence River, New South Wales, has removed from that district a well-known and highly respected man. His demise is universally regretted. The deceased was a native of Skye, and loved his native isle. He revered the memory of Rev. Roderick MacLeod, Snizort, and the worthy Christians of by-gone days. He was wedded to sound doctrine, and attached to ministers who faithfully proclaimed the whole counsel of God. He was a staunch constitutionalist. Mr. MacDonald was, for many years, in Greenock, in the office of Provost Campbell, who held him in high esteem. He was a useful and diligent member of the late Free Gaelic Church, Greenock, and the Rev. John MacRae (MacRath Mor) had great respect for him.
About thirty-five years ago the state of his health compelled him to go to Australia. He settled in Grafton, and was appointed Secretary of the Clarence and North Coast Farmers’ Association, and subsequently Manager and Secretary of the Co-operative Bread Co. of Grafton. For years he acted as Secretary and Treasurer of the Brushgrove-Grafton Free Presbyterian congregation, and took a special and active interest in the work of the congregation. At times he conducted the services in Grafton; and was mindful of visiting the sick and afflicted in the neighbourhood. It was on his recommendation that the faithful and pious Rev. John Finlayson, Coigach, Ross-shire, a native of Skye, went to Brushgrove.
When the writer of this sketch was in Australia, Mr. MacDonald attended to all the arrangements for the Sabbath services held in Grafton in connection with our Mission. On several occasions, in his home at Grafton, I was his guest, and enjoyed his company. He was very clever and well informed, and possessed a strong vein of humour, in addition to being no mean poet. He was a most interesting conversationalist in both Gaelic and English. Acquainted with a number of the leading old orthodox ministers of the Highlands of Scotland, and being possessed of a very retentive memory, he could reproduce many of their choice sayings. He was knit in soul to two Free Presbyterian friends in Portree, Mr. Neil Mackinnon, merchant, and Mr. Duncan Campbell, fishcurer, and often referred to the pleasure and profit he had enjoyed at home in their Christian fellowship. He had a strong desire to come to Scotland to visit them, but the huge world War came on, and the proposed visit had to be abandoned till peace came. Before peace came, he was called away to the land of eternal peace.
We miss Mr. Archibald MacDonald. We had a faint hope we might again meet him in the Valley of Baca, but that is now forever
gone. “Be still, and know that I am God.” We convey our sincere sympathy to the sorrowing widow and other relatives, and commend them to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build them up, and give them an inheritance among them that are sanctified. D. M’K.
Diary of the Rev. James Calder,
MINISTER OF CROY, INVERNESS-SHIRE. BORN, 1712; DIED, 1775.
Edited from the Original MSS., with Illustrative Notes,
BY THE LATE REV. WM. TAYLOR, M.A., STIRLING.
(Continued from page 356.)
THIS, then, was a year of transition. The great tide of awakening and conversion work has attained its most rapid flow, and is henceforth to be less marked; but the waters do not cease to rise. We go back to give a few extracts:—
“January 3rd.—Conference this morning with two persons craving access to attend our fellowship-meeting—one of them very young, yet very serious, and sweetly exercised to godliness—which was one of the sweetest New-Year’s gifts I could possibly receive, and which I would take to be an earnest and the first-fruits of a rich harvest of souls this year. . . . In a little hut which I visited to-day I met with a precious young jewel deeply exercised, and longing and crying out for Christ, and who seemed to be really in the very crisis of the new birth; brought this young pleasant person along with me for a mile or two, who wept incessantly all the way, and from whom I expect a pleasant visit soon. This was another New-Year’s gift which gave me unspeakable joy!
“March 7th.—. . . Blessed be the Lord that there is ground to hope that this year will be happy in the conversion of souls in this quarter, as it has been already in the singular comfort and establishment of some real and eminent converts. May heaven and earth praise Him for this! Amen.
“April 7th.—. . . [After describing an unexpected meeting with his sons on their way home from the university, while he is engaged in parochial work, he adds]—Thus I always meet with the Lord’s mercies most remarkably when I keep close to Him in the way of duty.
“May 10th.—Yesternight, after labouring to make up peace betwixt my two kind neighbours and heritors, it pleased a gracious God to diffuse through my heart a more than ordinary sense of His own blessed peace and love, the pleasing savour of which I felt sweet and fresh on my mind this morning.
“15th.—Still I am encouraged more and more to wait on the Lord in every emergency; still I have it to say, amid all my languors and all my formality (for which I desire to be humbled), that it is good for me that I draw nigh unto God. Blessed for ever be His name! Amen and Amen!
“July 11th.—Afternoon visited that prisoner of hope, James M’Queen’s wife, confined to her bed for many long years. The Lord is doing her good! I dare not pass by her house, be my hurry ever so great. Great and wonderful was the freedom and enlargement I had in praying with and for this worthy patient this day, and many times before now. After riding a mile or two further, in my way home met accidentally with a pleasant lively Christian, living in a lonely moor, who had received a glorious outgate from soul trouble, thirteen years ago, by a sermon I had preached at Ardclach, on the Monday of the sacrament there, from these words: ‘I was brought low, and he helped me.’ Since that time this worthy person has been growing in grace and holiness, and is now an established Christian. Glory to the Lord for this fruit and seal of my ministry! Amen. . . . Met accidentally with a pleasant young creature under the deepest and most promising exercise of soul, with whom I discoursed for a short time, and who is likely to turn out a great and shining Christian, though as yet somewhat in the dark. [He describes several other happy meetings with Christians, and mentions several pastoral labours.]—This was the busiest and most fatiguing day to this poor body, but the sweetest and the happiest day I have had of a long time. May heaven and earth praise my adorable Lord and Master, for I cannot. Amen! Amen!
“September 9th.—Passed this day very agreeably with the Lord’s servants and people who stayed here. O how sweet will heaven be, when the communion of saints on earth is so pleasing and comfortable! Lord, prepare for that blessed place and society! Amen.
“November 10th.—Had a new specimen—an afflicting one—of my old peevishness of temper; but I trust that it has got a new wound that it shall not soon recover—I hope in God never recover. Amen.
“December 18th, 5 o’clock at eve [after a ‘day of retirement’]—My most gracious and merciful God was pleased to afford me this day, for His name’s sake, much of His wonted and benign presence and the powerful breathings of His blessed Spirit in the several parts of this day’s exercise and work in confession, contrition, humiliation, and the pleadings of faith on the blessed promises with respect to the several things that were tabled before the great and merciful Hearer of prayer. Of new I set my seal to it that He is a prayer-hearing God, and that for me it is good that I draw near to God; and if any of my children after my departure shall happen to cast their eyes on these cursory memorandums, I charge them in the name of the Lord to follow the example of their father in these sacred and blessed retirements when there is a call in Providence—and these calls will be very frequent. I call them blessed retirements, for they have been most remarkably blessed to me for many years. On these occasions I got everything from the Lord that my heart desired—
my evidences cleared, my doubts resolved, my fears silenced, my corruptions mortified, and many sweet promises with respect to my mother the Church of Scotland, with respect to my brethren and friends! Amen.”
The diary for next year, 1767, is lost. We suspect it was important—marking still more clearly the transition-stage from the period of numerous awakenings and conversions to a period of remarkable confirmation and sanctification.