BY THE REV. NEIL CAMERON, GLASGOW.
JOHN MACQUEEN was born in Uig, in the Island of Skye, in the year 1815. His parents were of the Baptist denomination. After receiving the best education available at that time in his native parish, he, for several winters, relieved students who were sent to the Long Islands to teach during the summer months. But being desirous to further his education, he attended the Normal School of Edinburgh, and when he went through the usual course there, he went to the Island of Mull as teacher of one of the parish schools there. It was during the years spent there that he underwent a saving change. The struggle between darkness and light in his case was long and prostrating. It is told that he could not walk the short distance of half-a-mile between his house and the schoolhouse without going about twelve times to pray in secret. The searching discipline which he passed through at this time gave a marked complexion to his teaching in after years.
He made up his mind at this time to study for the ministry; so he left Mull and went to teach a Free Church school at Glendaruel, in the County of Argyll.
* Written for and read to the Constitutional Students’ Association in Edinburgh, March 1892.
He taught this school during the summer, and attended the University and the then Free Church College at Edinburgh. Having passed the usual curriculum, he was licensed to preach the gospel by the Presbytery of Dunoon in 1852. The same year he became assistant to the Rev. John Macrae (Maighstir Macrath Mor), of the Gaelic Free Church, Greenock.
The following year, 1853, he received a unanimous call from the Strontian congregation, which he accepted, and became the first minister of the famous iron church. In the years 1859-60 the great revival took place in that congregation, the fruit of which remains to bear testimony to the genuineness of the change, but many have gone to their eternal rest. At this time his ministrations were greatly owned and blessed of the Lord in the surrounding congregations, and many of the Lord’s people in the West of Argyll and Inverness-shire trace their conversion to him as the messenger of conviction and also of peace in the hand of the Spirit. He was truly a spiritual father to many souls who loved him fervently, and in whose hearts he received a place uniquely his own. His congregation comprised Morven, Aharacle, and Ardnamurchan, along with Strontian, so that he had to labour where there are four placed ministers to-day.
In the year 1867 he received and accepted a unanimous call from the congregation of Daviot, in Inverness-shire, where he laboured with faithfulness, great satisfaction, and profit to immortal souls till his death on the 7th May 1891. Of the Rev. John Macqueen it could truly be said that he was an Apollos watering the weary heritage of God. He was notable for the clearness and fulness of his doctrinal teaching. Along with this his preaching was richly experimental. The truth presented by him came forth as a living message, which nourished his own soul. It was the outcome of a life “hid with Christ in God.”
By the weight and attractiveness of his Christian character, and by the excellence of his ministrations in public and private, he won and retained the respect and love of his people to an extraordinary degree. He was a man much “exercised unto godliness.” The Word of Christ dwelt richly in him. He was very tender in his teaching, and at the same time very discriminating and searching. His advice to a young man looking forward to the sacred office of the ministry was—”Take care that, when bringing out from the Word of God the evidences and experiences of the saints, you always give the lowest marks you can find, for the weak
and poor require the most tender dealings, and those who are stronger in the faith will be sure to appreciate the milk of the Word.”
Much that passed current in the Church did not satisfy him. Few things were more touching than the strong attachment to him of deeply exercised Christians, whose cases he met and handled in his preaching. He was a mighty expounder of the Scriptures. Calvinistic in his doctrines, he was in his right element when declaring the unsearchable riches of Christ to “the poor in spirit.” His appeals to the unconverted were faithful, solemn, and pathetic. “Christ and Him crucified” was the foundation to him indeed. He never wearied in teaching of the Person, offices, sufferings, death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was extraordinary on the sufferings of the Lord; clear upon the place each doctrine held in relation to the covenant people of God, and to those who are truly His.
He held tenaciously the principles of the Disruption, and felt grieved at heart for the backsliding of the Free Church, which he loved so well and served so faithfully. He abhorred all the innovations introduced into the public worship of God, and looked upon them as the arts of the Evil One to beguile souls from the truth of the gospel. He was twice married, but his wives pre-deceased him, and also several members of his family. The effect of these bereavements was manifest in greater weanedness of disposition from earth, and greater tenderness of spirit and heavenly-mindedness. It pains our heart to think that we shall never again hear his melodious voice, or see his beautiful, composed and majestic countenance, appearing before his fellow-sinners to warn some but to comfort others.
“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.”
A lazy Christian shall always want four things, viz., comfort, content, confidence, and assurance. God hath made a separation between joy and idleness, between assurance and laziness, and therefore it is impossible for thee to bring these together that God hath put so far asunder.—Brooks.
One Almighty is more than many magnates. And these mighty sins, and mighty devils, make not any almighty sin, or almighty devil. “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.”—Sibbes.