MR HUGH MACKENZIE, CREICH.
MR HUGH MACKENZIE was born in Kilmuir-Easter, in 1728, and, when a very young man, he was brought to know the truth. After enjoying for a time the peace and rest of the Gospel, he was assailed with dark temptations, tending to infidelity and atheism. Having gone to his minister, Mr Porteous, and told him of this, he received the following rather singular answer:—”Ah, are you assailed with these dreadful temptations? I had thought that Satan reserved these for us ministers. You must look to God Himself, man can do nothing for you. One comfort, however, I can give you. Whilst these temptations continue, you are in no danger of becoming careless—the wheels of your soul will gather no rust.” After a severe struggle, he was not only delivered from these temptations, but a foundation was laid for that strong, child-like faith which was, all his life, the most striking feature in his character. At the age of twenty-five, he was advanced to the eldership; and some years after, he left Ross-shire, and came to reside in Sutherland. He there enjoyed the ministry of the late godly Mr Rainy, father of Dr Rainy, of Glasgow University. On Mr Rainy’s death, a Moderate minister was settled in Creich at the point of the bayonet, and the whole population, with Hugh Mackenzie at their head, deserted the parish church. They did not, however, leave the Church of Scotland. When the weather permitted, they went to neighbouring parishes to hear the Gospel; and when this could not be, Hugh Mackenzie, who was now near eighty, assembled the people on the Lord’s Day at a well-known “rock” in the parish, and there he and others engaged in devotional exercises, and read the Scriptures and evangelical sermons—frequently those of Boston. This, of course, excited the wrath of the parish minister, and for some years no other minister was permitted to admit Mr Mackenzie to the Lord’s Supper. Having two sons in the ministry, he went to reside with one of them, and there I met him for the first time. I was at once struck with his cheerfulness, and the marvellous confidence he had in God. It is this that has led me to refer to him specially; and I must give some examples of it. An eminent minister, who had often met him, was struck with his habitual assurance, and, that he might know the foundation of it, he went to visit him a distance of thirty miles. To draw him out, he said to him—”Mr Mackenzie, you are a man to be envied; you know nothing of doubts and fears; you always enjoy the full assurance of hope.” The old man replied at once—”Yes, yes, I understand you. Many a man speaks of my strong faith that does not know all it has to struggle with. But I shall tell you what my faith is. I am the emptiest, vilest, poorest sinner I know on the face of the earth. I feel myself to be so. But I read in His own Word that He heareth the cry of the poor; and I believe Him, and I cry to Him, and He always hears me, and that is all the faith or assurance that I have got.” The venerable minister, on telling me the incident, made the remark—”If I know anything of true faith, Mr Mackenzie’s faith is a most scriptural and a most rational one.” Some years before his death, I happened to be at his son’s house when the Lord’s Supper was dispensed in the parish. On Monday, Mr Mackenzie went to the tent to hear an old minister with whom he had been long intimate, and the text was, “He will speak peace to His people, and to His saints.” The wind happened to be high, and when the sermon was over, the minister said to him—”I fear, Mr Mackenzie, you were not hearing well.” “Yes,” was the answer, “I was hearing all day, and believing too.” In the evening I accompanied his sons to call for the old man. When the question was put, “How do you feel to-night?” his answer was, “My case is more easily felt than described. You read that there is a ‘peace of God which passeth all understanding,’ and a ‘joy unspeakable and full of glory,’ and that is just my case to-night.” When further questioned, he remarked—”I got into this state of mind whilst hearing that precious sermon to-day;” and then, addressing his sons, he said, “Don’t think that I despise your preaching. You preach the Gospel, and I bless God for it; but you have not the experience of the old minister. The preaching we had to-day about the ‘peace,’ is what suits my soul.” In 1829, he began to sink, and his son was sent for. On being asked by his son what his views were now as to the things of eternity, he answered, with beautiful simplicity, “I leave it all in His own hands. I am not able to think much; but I know He won’t send me to hell.” When his end was evidently near, and when asked how he left, he was able to whisper, “He has been entertaining me with a promise,” and soon after he breathed his last, in the one hundred and first year of his age.
—Rev. A. Macgillivray’s “Sketches of Religion and Revivals in the North Highlands during last Century.”