REV. JOHN KENNEDY, KILLEARNAN OR REDCASTLE.
OF all the northern ministers there is scarcely any name that stands higher in the estimation of the Church of God than that of the Rev. John Kennedy, minister of Killearnan. The profound regard in which he was held by the Lord’s people of his own day was reflected in the deep respect in which his name was always mentioned by a generation that is now gone. His son, the Rev. Dr. Kennedy, Dingwall, has written an excellent biography of his saintly father,* and in the preface he feelingly says:—”The minister of Killearnan was my father. I could not forget this while I was writing this memoir. In the only sense in which he was my father while he lived, I lost him when he died. But the memory of that loss I can bear to recall, as I cherish the hope that his death was the means of uniting us in bonds that shall never be broken.” In the facts to be placed before our readers we are dependant on this biographical sketch written with all the warmth of a loving heart.
John Kennedy was born at Rissel, in the district of Kishorn. His father, Donald Kennedy, was the son of godly parents, and well-known throughout the surrounding district. He had studied with a view to the ministry, but never applied for license, though he lived to see two of his sons ministers of the Gospel. He was a faithful attender on the means of grace under Rev. Lachlan Mackenzie, by whom he was greatly beloved and respected. He was a Christian of outstanding piety. Like many of the godly fathers of other days, Donald Kennedy followed an excellent custom which was not without a blessing to some. He was in the habit, when each of his children attained a certain age, of retiring with them to a quiet spot in a wood, and there, after spending some time in prayer, he explained to them the nature of his engagements on their behalf at their baptism, appealed to their conscience to realise their responsibility, and took them under vow to seek and serve the Lord. John Kennedy ever retained a lively recollection of this solemn transaction.
From his earliest years, even from infancy, John Kennedy gave evidence of a work of grace. One day, while he was four years of age, a woman, notorious for wickedness, heard his childish voice lisping his petitions to God. She was arrested by what she heard and gave evidence afterwards of one who had passed from death to life. At the age of six he was seized with small-pox, and for a time he lay at the gates of death. While his father was
* The Minister of Killearnan. It forms the concluding part of Dr. Kennedy’s Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire.
pleading at a throne of grace for his child, a man with the reputation of a seer entered, and the mother, deeply concerned as to the issue and not being free from superstition, consulted the man. The reply was soon given, “Ere the tide that now ebbs shall have touched the shore again, your child shall be no more.” When Donald Kennedy came in he found his wife in tears, through the lying message of the reputed seer, and on asking her the reason she told him what had been said. “The messenger of Satan lies,” said the God-fearing father, “the Lord hath given me the life of my child, the blessings of His right hand shall rest upon his head, and he shall yet serve the Lord in the gospel of his Son.” The child revived, but the false seer, on meeting him, could never look him in the face. But, on one occasion, while John Kennedy was on one of his journeys to college, the man suddenly appeared from behind a rock, and, rushing up to the young student, thrust a sum of money into his hand and departed as suddenly as he came, and without a word. Probably the gift was intended as conscience money, and as a small recompense for the pain he had given by his lying prediction.
In John Kennedy’s student days, the long distance from the student’s home was traversed on foot. The poor student had rarely to pay for a night’s lodgings, as hospitality was generously offered to him on his journeys to and from college. John Kennedy went through the usual arts and theological courses at Aberdeen in five years, the time then required.
He was licensed to preach the gospel by the Presbytery of Lochcarron, 24th November, 1795, in his twenty-fourth year. Mr. Lachlan Mackenzie is reported to have remarked in connection with others licensed: “The others are only preachers of our making, but the Lord made a preacher of John Kennedy.” After being licensed he was appointed teacher of the parish school of Lochcarron and during this important period of his life enjoyed the ministrations of his beloved minister, Mr. Lachlan Mackenzie, the memory of whose preaching was cherished by him to his dying day. Not long after he was licensed he went to a communion at Applecross. “Mr. Lachlan,” as he was affectionately called, had been appointed to preach on the Saturday, but when the day came so great was his confusion of mind that he sent for John Kennedy and asked him to take the service. The young preacher naturally was reluctant to step into the breach, especially when it was to fill the place of such a preacher as Mr. Mackenzie, but he was told that there was no way out of it. Mr. Lachlan’s advice to him was: “When you are asked to preach on an hour’s notice spend one half of an hour on your knees pleading for a text, a sermon and a blessing, and the other half employ in studying the text and context, and in gathering as many parallel passages as you can find.” The service was held in the open air and the tent was constructed with oars in the form of a cone, covered with blankets, with an opening in front where a board was fixed for the Bible. While
Mr. Kennedy was preaching, Mr. Lachlan, lifting one of the blankets at the back of the tent, entered unobserved. As the young preacher proceeded he touched on a case similar to Mr. Lachlan’s with the result that the harassed saint could not help giving expression to his feelings to the no small discomfiture of the young preacher now made aware of Mr. Lachlan’s presence. “Go on, John,” was the kindly encouragement as the embarrassment was noticed, “I have got my portion and my soul needed it, and other poor souls may get theirs before you conclude.”
Two years after his license he was appointed to preach at Lochbroom where the parish minister had been suspended. This, according to Dr. Kennedy, was in some respects the happiest time of his life. “It was the season of his first love,” he says, “as a preacher; the Lord was very near to his soul, and a manifest blessing rested on his labours. During that time many souls were truly converted unto God, some of whom, in Lochbroom, and some in other places, to which they were scattered, continued till their death to shine ‘as lights in the world.’ Many a sweet hour of communion with the Lord he enjoyed in those days in the woods of Dundonnell!”—(Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, p. 156, 1897 edit.)
In 1802 John Kennedy was appointed missionary at Eriboll. His first sermon at Eriboll was preached from Isa. xl. 11—”He shall feed His flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with his arm,” etc., and through the sermon several persons received their first impression of divine things. The mission of Eriboll had been highly favoured in its missionaries—Mr. Robinson, afterwards minister of Kingussie, and Mr. Neil Macbride, afterwards of Arran, being his predecessors. The labours of these true servants of Christ had been blessed to many. The bounds of his mission extended on the one side to Melness, Tongue, and on the other, to Kinlochbervie in the parish of Eddrachillis. The distances between the different preaching stations were considerable and Dr. Kennedy says his father often walked twenty miles over marsh and moor and preached in clothes quite drenched with rain. Among the noted Christian men and women who sat under John Kennedy’s ministrations, Dr. Kennedy mentions Major Mackay, “a gentleman, a soldier; a Highlander, and a Christian at once”; Mrs. Scobie of Keoldale, “a model of a Christian Highland gentlewoman, whose appearance and bearing were such as would befit one of the highest stations in society”; Mr. Mackay of Hope, “a man eminent for godliness”; Donald Macpherson, of whom Mr. Kennedy said, “Of all the Christians I have ever known, he was the man who lived nearest to the Lord”; Robert Macleod, a warm-hearted Christian whose heart was aglow with love to Christ; Mrs. Mackay (Peggy Macdiarmid), whose “brilliant wit, exuberant spirits, intense originality of thought and speech and manner, great faith and fervent love, formed a combination but rarely found.” With such noted Christians it
need not be wondered at that communion occasions were no ordinary events in the lives of God’s people in the north-western corner of Sutherland. Dr. Kennedy refers to one communion season in particular at Kinlochbervie. Mr. Kennedy preached on Monday, and this is his son’s description of a memorable day:—”On Monday, in particular, so much of the Lord’s presence was enjoyed by His people that, to many of them, it was the happiest day of their life. When the time for parting came, none had courage to say farewell to the minister. They lingered around him, and followed him to the house; and before they separated he and they sat down together to a refreshment in the open air. That over, they walked together towards an eminence over which the people had to pass. On reaching the summit, they stood around the minister as he prayed and commended them to the care of the Good Shepherd of Israel. He then said to them as tears ran down his cheeks, ‘This is pleasant, my dear friends, but it must end; we need not expect unbroken communion, either with each other or with the Lord, till we all reach in safety our home in heaven,’ and, without trusting himself to bid them farewell, he turned away from them, and they, each one weeping as he went, took their respective journeys to their homes.”—(Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, p. 171.)
(To be continued.)