(Concluded from page 110.)
REV. JOHN KENNEDY, KILLEARNAN OR REDCASTLE.
IN 1806 Mr. Kennedy was appointed assistant to the minister of Assynt, the Rev. William Mackenzie, better known as “Parson William,” one of those poor unfortunates who never should be in a pulpit,* in fact, he was, as Dr. Kennedy says, “all that a minister ought not to be.” The deep attachment of the people in his mission to Mr. Kennedy was shown in no unmistakable manner in the genuine tears shed not only by women but by strong men at the parting. His labours in Assynt were abundantly blessed, but it was while in this district he had to bear what his son calls “in some respects the greatest trial of his life.” This arose through a movement led by Norman Macleod, who, before his conversion, had been known “as a clever, irreverent, forward youth,” and who according to Dr. Kennedy, “began all of a sudden to join himself to the people of the Lord.” Norman Macleod was a man of great driving force, and his influence on some aspects of the religious life of Assynt is manifest to this day. The controversy was very keen, and rather than trust ourselves to describe it, we will fall back on Dr. Kennedy’s account. In continuation of his description of Norman Macleod’s conversion, he adds:—”Claiming to have been converted in a way at least unusual, if not miraculous, he all at once started in the course of profession at a stature and with a courage that seemed never to have known a childhood at all. He began at once to prepare for the ministry. But Norman’s ambition to preach outgrew the slow progress of the stated course of preparation, and cutting short his college studies, he separated from the Church, and began to found a sect for himself. His power as a speaker was such that he could not fail to make an impression, and he succeeded in Assynt and elsewhere in drawing some of the people after him for a time. His influence over those whom he finally detached from a stated ministry was paramount, and he could carry them after him to almost any extreme. A few of the people of Assynt were drawn into permanent dissent, and but for the influence that was brought to bear in counter-action of his movement, the whole body of the people would have been quite severed from the Church. Some, even of the pious people, were decoyed by him for a season, who escaped from his influence thereafter,* and the people remained as a body unbroken”† (Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, pp. 175-6). Though Mr. Kennedy felt this controversy very keenly, the discipline, though trying, was profitable. He learned four great lessons, as his son indicates—it kept him humble; it sharpened his discernment; it doubled his watchfulness in his future dealings with professors of religion; and it gave him an opportunity of estimating the motives in which divisive courses usually spring. It was while assistant at Assynt he was united in marriage to Jessie, daughter of Kenneth Mackenzie, a lady who proved a true helpmeet to him. Concerning her, Dr. Kennedy says:—”The partner of his temporal lot was one who, by her watchfulness and wisdom, preserved him from many an annoyance that might have fretted his spirit and interfered with his work.”
In 1813 Mr. Kennedy was inducted to the parish of Killearnan or Redcastle. His first sermon as minister was on the words:—”God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He preached three times every Sabbath, held a fortnightly meeting on Monday, and a monthly meeting on Thursday. He catechised his people every year, and visited the sick. He delighted in preaching and remarked on one occasion to a brother minister:—”No wonder though I should enjoy it, for if ever I had a foretaste of heaven’s own joy on the earth, it was while preaching Christ crucified to sinners;” “and never,” he said on another occasion, “did I truly preach the Gospel but while I felt that I myself was the greatest sinner in the congregation.”
Many souls were given Mr. Kennedy for his hire, and some of these were men and women of outstanding attainments in the Christian life. Dr. Kennedy mentions quite a number of these in his biography, but there was one in particular, “Foolish Mary,” as she was called, that showed as clearly as any what grace could do. Dr. Kennedy says he used to wonder why his father admitted this witless woman into his study, but the time came when he himself accounted it one of the highest privileges of his lot that he could admit her to his own. “Of all I ever knew,” he says, “she was the one who seemed to enjoy the greatest nearness to God in prayer.” “Foolish Mary” (Mary Macrae was her name) was a native of Lochcarron, where she lived until she was fifty years of age. She was regarded as a simpleton and good for nothing. One Saturday a thought came into her witless mind that she should go to Killearnan, and, without more ado, she threw on her cloak and set out on her journey. When she reached the end of her long and lonesome walk, the people were assembling for public worship and she went in with them to God’s house and heard Him for the first time speaking to her. Killearnan became a Bethel to her, and she made a resolve that she would remain the rest of her life in that place. “Every fear was met,” says Dr. Kennedy, “every difficulty solved, that distressed and troubled her; and she, whom the ‘wise and prudent’ would despise, seemed the special favourite of heaven among all the children of Zion who were fed in Killearnan.”
Mr. Kennedy was now drawing near the end of his earthly journey, deeply respected by his hearers and having an innermost place in the affections of God’s people. For a few weeks before his death he preached every Tuesday evening from the words, “We are come to God, the Judge of all.” His last sermon was preached on the Tuesday evening before his death, and it closed the series of discourses on this text. At the close of the service he intimated, says his son, that on Thursday he would preach in the schoolhouse in the eastern district of the parish in order to take a “last opportunity of wiping off his skirts the blood of the people who resided there. The congregation then was dismissed by him under the assured persuasion that he and they would never meet again on earth. On coming out of church he stood for a few minutes looking to the people as they were retiring under the clear moonlight. ‘My poor people,’ he was heard exclaiming by one who had come up beside him, and whose approach caused him to turn away, and to hurry on to the manse” (Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, p. 231). At this time there was no indication of approaching death. He preached on Thursday with great unction. On Friday his throat was pained, inflammation set in and continued. But his family had no anticipation of danger. When asked as to how he felt he always answered, “I’ll soon be quite well.” On Sabbath, 10th January, 1841, he fell asleep to enter into the rest that remains for the people of God. Great crowds attended the funeral and many lingered around the closed grave. Dr. Macdonald, Ferintosh, knowing well their feelings, said “You will never see John Kennedy again, till you see him on the last day.” So ended the labours of one of the most saintly and honoured of God’s servants in the northern Highlands. On his tombstone it is recorded:—”The ministerial gifts and graces of primitive times, when on the glory of Zion there was defence, in his person were seen realised, attracting the love of believers, and in every utterance refreshing their souls. They were glad in his light. In every ordinance of the sanctuary richly replenished in spirit, close communion with God, of intimate standing in the mind and counsel of Christ, with holy unction, fervour, wisdom and love, he watched, warned, and nourished the heritage. Sinners in Zion were afraid. Full of faith and the fruits of the Spirit, abounding in labours and ripened for glory, he fell asleep.”
* Mr. Sage, in his Memorabilia Domestica, p. 69, 1st edit., gives a brief account of this notorious minister, of whose pulpit appearances he says that, “they were not only lame and unprofitable, but absolutely profane, calculated as they were to excite the ridicule of his audience.”
* Among these may be mentioned Rev. Alexander Macleod, a native of Stoer, afterwards minister of Uig, Lochalsh and Rogart, respectively, who, as a student, came under Norman Macleod’s influence. The Presbytery of Tongue refused to license him until he acknowledged that he had “wholly renounced the party which he once had joined” (Tongue Presbytery Records, 19th October, 1818).
† Norman Macleod went to Cape Breton about 1817. He was ordained by the Presbytery of Geneva, New York. In 1851 he sailed in a vessel, built by himself and his followers, for Australia, where he remained for about two years. He then sailed to New Zealand, and finally settled in the district of Waipu, about 70 miles north of Auckland, where he died in 1866 at the patriarchal age of 86. It is said that the life and doctrines of a certain class of ministers in the Church of Scotland, and the teaching of some of his college professors, were the cause of his separation from the Church of his fathers. There is a short account of his Cape Breton ministry (with portrait) in the Presbyterian Witness Diamond Jubilee Number (December, 1908, Pictou, Nova Scotia). Reference is made to his New Zealand ministry in History of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, pp. 78-80. Mr. Macleod was an ecclesiastical warrior who gave an open ear to the injunction “spare not,” and specimens of his controversial style are preserved in a number of badly printed tracts which were collected in a small volume: The Present Church of Scotland and a Tint of Normanism contending in a Dialogue. No date, nor publisher’s name is given, but the preface is dated from Cape Breton, 30th October, 1841. Among those who come under his lash in these tracts are Rev. Lachlan Mackenzie, Lochcarron, and Rev. Archibald Cook, Inverness.