THE REV. LACHLAN MACKENZIE, LOCHCARRON.
(Continued from p. 227.)
BUT it was not merely outward reformation, good though that was in itself, that Mr Lachlan aimed at. He longed for the conversion of those over whom he had been placed as pastor. And the Lord answered his earnest prayers. He often made mention of and pled for the fulfilment of the words: “There shall be an handful of corn in the earth on the top of the mountains, the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon” (Ps. lxxii. 16).
He had his own trials with his brethren in the Presbytery who belonged to the Moderate party. On one occasion he was appointed by the Presbytery to preside at the settlement of an unacceptable presentee. Mr Lachlan refused to obey, but the Clerk sent him a threatening letter, informing him that legal steps would be taken for his deposition if he refused to obey his Presbytery. Mr Lachlan yielded, and in writing to Dr Ronald Bayne, Kiltarlity, about this matter, he says:—”I was that day like blind Samson in the temple of the Philistines. It is true the presentee to that Gaelic parish did translate a chapter in Isaiah to Gaelic.” In his latter days he was much troubled over this affair.
As one deeply interested not only in the spiritual but worldly welfare of his flock, Mr Lachlan protested strongly against the depopulation of large parts of the Northern Highlands to make way for sheep. He preached a series of sermons from Is. v. 8—”Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed in the midst of the earth! In mine ears, said the Lord of Hosts: of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.” His attacks on the new system were keenly resented by the sheep masters as was to be expected, but this did not keep Mr Lachlan from giving utterance to the afternoted remarkable deliverance, as recorded by his biographer:—”When one in private conversation mentioned to him that many thousands of sheep had been lost in a snowstorm, and took occasion to say that Mr Lachlan’s predictions were thus in the way of being fulfilled, Mr Lachlan replied that it was not in this way that he anticipated a change; he was not looking to present appearances—it was
neither the snow of winter, nor such heat as would dry the tongue of the raven, that would bring deliverance from the system of oppression and grinding the face of the poor.” It is very remarkable that these words should now be receiving their fulfilment in the re-peopling of the glens and straths of the Highlands from which the people in the early nineteenth century were driven.
As a Christian Mr Lachlan enjoyed a more than ordinary nearness to God. Dr Kennedy, in his reference to this feature of the saintly minister’s character, says:—”His prayerfulness was the leading feature of his Christianity. Much of his time was spent on his knees, and many a sleepless night has he passed, sometimes wrestling, as for his life, against the assaults of the tempter, and at other times rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God.” The nearness to the mercy seat, to which he was sometimes admitted, was quite extraordinary. Proofs of this might be given, because of which we cannot wonder that he had the fame and influence of a prophet among the people of the North. Avoiding the extreme of a superstitious credulity, on the one hand, and of the formalist’s scepticism on the other, it is altogether safe to say that Mr Lachlan enjoyed peculiarly familiar intercourse with God, and received such distinct intimations of His mind, in reference to the cases which he carried to the mercy seat, as but very few of God’s children have obtained” (Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, 1897 Edit., p. 61).
Mr Lachlan never married, and in his poetical account of the parish written for Sir John Sinclair’s Statistical Account of Scotland he refers to his happy state in the well-known lines:—
“The parson has no horse nor farm,
Nor goat, nor watch, nor wife,
Without an augmentation too,
He leads a happy life.”
A year before his death Mr Lachlan was stricken with a paralytic stroke. “Mind and body alike,” says Dr Kennedy, “succumbed to the blow, and, before the year had closed, the friends who loved him best were willing that he should leave them to enter on the rest for which his soul was pining. It required such a visitation as this to reconcile them to his death. He had survived his usefulness to the Church on earth, and there was no inducement to wish him longer ‘absent from the Lord.'” He fell asleep on 20th April 1819, in the 65th year of his age. On being asked near
the end how he was, he replied—”I am taking a faith’s look into heaven.” The following inscription, composed by the Rev. Dr Ross, Lochbroom, was placed on his tombstone:—”Here are deposited the mortal remains of the Rev. Lachlan Mackenzie, late minister of Lochcarron, who died April 20th, 1819, in the 37th year of his ministry. A man whose simplicity of manners presented a picture of apostolic times; whose heavenliness of mind still spurned the vain objects of time and sense; whose vivid imagination shed a bright lustre on every subject which he handled; and whose holy unction in all his ministrations endeared him to the people of God, and embalmed his memory in their hearts. His praise is in the churches. His parish mourns.”
A number of his sermons from MSS. in the possession of his sister (Mrs Ann Mackenzie) were published with other pieces of his writings, including a poem on redemption, in a small book edited by the Rev. William Mackenzie, North Leith. A small booklet, under the title, “Gleanings, Gaelic and English, from the Sayings and Writings of the Rev. Lachlan Mackenzie, Lochcarron,” was published in 1877. Most of these Gaelic gleanings were a reprint from “Dioghluim o Theagasg nan Aithrichean.” The latest edition of his sermons was that published at Glasgow in 1896, under the title, “Sermons and Verses.” There have also appeared in pamphlet form the following Gaelic sermons:—”Ros o Sharon” and “An t-Uisge Béo” (a Gaelic version of the sermon on Is. xlv. 3-5). Perhaps reference should be made here to the affecting story of the conversion of Ceit Mhor (Muckle Kate), for though not written by Mr Lachlan, he was God’s honoured instrument in this marvellous triumph of divine grace.
As a preacher, Mr Lachlan occupies a place in the front rank of northern ministers. His most famous sermon, according to Dr Kennedy, was that on “The Babe at Bethlehem,” a summary of which may be given in a future issue. We conclude our sketch with Dr Kennedy’s description of Mr Lachlan as a preacher:—”His preaching was always remarkable. His great originality of thought and manner, his apt and striking illustration, his clear and emphatic utterance, the unction and authority with which he spake, his close dealing with the conscience, his dexterous and tender handling of the cases of the tempted, his powerful appeals, his solemn earnestness, and his frequent outbursts of impassioned feeling, could not fail to win for him a measure of acceptance, as they gave him a measure of power beyond that of any other of his
brethren. His was preaching to which all could listen with interest. His striking illustrations, often homely, though always apt, would arrest the attention of the most ignorant and careless. There was an intellectual treat in his sermons for such as could appreciate the efforts of genius. The scoffer was arrested and awed by the authority with which he spoke, and every hearer seeking the bread of life hung upon his lips” (Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire, 1897 Edit., p. 62).