“THE memory of the just is blessed,” for precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints (Ps. exvi. 15). The memory of the Christless sinner is forgotten (Eccles. ix. 5). This worthy man was born some seventy-eight years ago in the township of Ose, in the Parish of Bracadale, Skye. He was like the rest of the fallen race of Adam, born into this sinful and miserable world. He proved by his own conduct in the world the fact that he fell in Adam’s first transgression. The Lord had mercy upon him, calling him by His Spirit and Word to repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was brought up by God-fearing parents. His father was a precious man of God, and from credible reports, his mother was also a humble pious woman. They began to sow the seed of God’s Word in the fallow ground of the unregenerated minds of their children from their early infancy, believing that the Most High would make it grow in His own blessed time. “Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down and when thou risest up” (Deut. vi. 4-7).
The above injunction was enjoined upon the children of Israel under the Old Dispensation, and surely it is not less binding on parents, and others under the present Dispensation. This poor
bewildered generation ignore the Divine precepts of Jehovah with very few exceptions. But the people of God dare not ignore His precious precepts and we can readily believe that the parents of Duncan MacKinnon followed the precepts of God, in speaking often of His gracious dealings and loving kindnesses towards themselves in the presence of their children. It was a pleasure and a duty to do so. It is when the child is young and tender that he generally receives his lasting impressions. We do believe that the Holy Spirit is striving with the people of God from early childhood. They may break the bands, and cast all restraints from them for a season, until they are savingly called by the Holy Spirit to repentance and faith.
Duncan MacKinnon had early impressions, so much so that he began for a season to think within himself that he was really in a safe condition; because he could pray, weep, and rejoice alternately while he had no higher warrant for the feelings that passed through his mind than his own emotions. He knew not his own heart and corrupt nature at that time. He told us, on a certain occasion that at worship in his father’s house, that his beloved father got such an unusual liberty of soul at a Throne of Grace which overwhelmed him in his mind, while listening to his father praying for mercy at a throne of Grace that, immediately after worship was over he betook himself to the barn, and began to pray, and to shed copious tears, far more so than his father, and that he concluded before he came out of the barn, that he had peace with God, whereas it was his own emotions. Oh! the craftiness of sin in the human heart for the precious man of God told us; “I would have been lost forever, if I had been left with the natural man’s religious devotions.” This early dew soon passed away, and he was back with his old companions as on former occasions. He felt that sin was more powerful than his religion, that he was not able to subdue his corrupt inclinations, so that his prayers and tears were given up for a time. The Lord did not give him up, but on the contrary, called him effectually, convincing him of his guilt, and of his responsibility which brought young Duncan so
low in mind and body, that he could not eat much, and his sleep to a large extent was also taken away, so that his physical strength, and energy became so exhausted, although he had a very strong frame, that he had to keep to his bed for a time, owing to the weakness of his body. He was now confronted with eternal realities, the law of God demanding obedience in thought, word, and action; and Justice calling for a speedy execution; “for the wages of sin is death,” “Cut him down, why cumbereth he the ground.” He was shorn naked of all self-righteousness, and found guilty before God. However, his bodily health and strength recovered somewhat, and he began to rise and to take a walk all alone to meditate moodily upon his lost condition before God, and an infinite Eternity. One evening, as he was returning home from his usual walk, and not far from his own home, a passage of the Word of God entered into his soul with such light, power, love and mercy, that Duncan stood gazing, with his whole being at the mercy that could be extended to the like of him. The portion of the Word was Ps. cxviii. 24, 25; “This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it, save now, I beseech Thee, O Lord: O Lord, I beseech Thee send now prosperity.” It was the day of the Everlasting Gospel that dawned upon his soul and his sun rose, no more to go down. He was prospered with all the necessary graces of the Spirit of the Lord until he was called home to be forever with Christ.
We remember the evening we walked together over that same spot of the road. When we came up to it, our friend stood, and said; “Well, this is about the very place where I was standing,” when the verses quoted above came with such power to his mind, that liberated him from the power of sin forever. Christ in His humiliation, obedience, sufferings, death, resurrection, ascension, and in His threefold offices was, by the Spirit of God made altogether lovely to his immortal soul, so that he could say with Zacharias “Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring, from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of
death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Through Christ and Him crucified and by faith in His precious atonement, peace and reconciliation was the song of the soul, so that the trumpet, harp, organ, and the sounding cymbals of the immortal faculties praised the Lord for His mercy which endureth for ever.
Duncan was a man of prayer, and the hold the Word of God took of his spirit was evident from the very beginning of his public profession of Christ, to all of the Lord’s people who had spiritual discernment, and was thus early embraced by them as one of the family of God, and received gladly with open hearts and arms into their affection, and love. He was a modest Christian, sagacious and humble, always ready to learn of the weakest of the flock, as well as from the strongest and most enlightened in the faith. The grace of discernment was so evident in him, that the Lord’s people who knew him, and came in contact with him, considered him, not as a mere ordinary believer, but as one of those who had close fellowship with the Most High through His precious Word and that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High. Yet his judgment was so controlled by the Word of God, that he was not of the type of Christians that are ready to put everyone with whom they differ in the pillory.
The parish of Bracadale was blessed with excellent ministers of the New Testament. In this connection we would mention the names of Revs. John Fletcher and James Ross, both of whom were highly esteemed and loved by the Lord’s people. They were looked to and believed to be the servants of our Lord Jesus Christ. They fed the Lord’s people on the finest of the wheat. It was not their practice to offer to the soul of the hungry, chaff instead of wheat. The blessed Spirit of the Lord was leading His faithful and upright servants on the green pastures of the Everlasting Gospel. It was their prayer, desire and aim, to lead the Lord’s people to the same green pastures, as we have often heard from our late friend, how deeply indebted he was to these men in the Lord, and the loving
references he would make about them, and particularly about the Rev. James Ross, we could not but conclude that he was spiritually benefited for eternity from the preaching of the Gospel through them.
The Lord’s people are not fed, comforted, encouraged, and strengthened by everyone who will speak to them in the name of Christ. The sheep know His voice and none but the Lord’s people can know the voice of their Saviour through His sent servants, speaking through them by His Blessed Gospel. Others may be quite satisfied with mere lifeless sounds. The outward forms may satisfy the poor formalist; but lifeless forms shall never satisfy the living soul. When the precious servants of Christ were called to their Everlasting Rest, the Free Church of Scotland, about this period of her history began to lean heavily upon the mere outward forms, and the living began to groan under the ministry of men who became pastors, but the most of them could not differentiate between life and death. When Dr. Kennedy, the eminent Mr. Alexander MacColl of Lochalsh, and other excellent men, as well as those mentioned were taken Home to be forever with the Lord, a class of ministers sprang up in the Free Church, who considered their own pride and learning of more value, than the Gospel of Christ and the souls of men. However, the blessed servants of Christ that had entered upon their rest, warned the Lord’s people, that they were leaving behind what to look for after their decease and therefore, they were forearmed, being forewarned, to meet the onslaught of the rising ministry in the Free Church. A universal declension began to permeate the Protestant Church, not only in Great Britain, but all over Europe, and in the United States of America, and in the British Colonies. Extraordinary innovations were introduced into the Protestant Church, foreign to the Reformed Church, and contrary to the Word of God. Rationalistic theories, Higher Critical opinions, and atheistic notions became quite fashionable in the pulpits of the Protestant Churches. The materialistic conception, and the carnal reasoning of the Professors in the various
religious seminaries, universities and minor institutions, began to bear fruit, so that young men rose, in the Church, that would not blush to preach publicly and write in their periodicals, and also in the public press, that they did not believe in the infallibility, inerrancy, authenticity and canonicity of the Word of God. The Protestant Church of England was hankering after Rome; the Lutheran Church had become so rationalistic, that a Unitarian, an open Atheist, or an Agnostic could mount her pulpits and preach to their people the figments of his own imagination. In the United States of America, a man in the name of Christ, professing to be His servant could act the comedian, and make their people laugh, and make merry as the Philistines did while sporting themselves at their concert before Samson. The Churches of Scotland were not to be behind the fashionable Continental and American modern Churches. However, there were barriers still extant in the Protestant Church of Scotland that would need be removed by the Ecclesiastical functionaries or by the Parliamentary politicians. But as the majority in Church and State were now bent on the ruin and the overthrow of the Protestant religion as it was known to John Knox, Alexander Henderson and others, what was to hinder them to cast down the bulwarks of Zion! They shouldered their axes and grinded them at the flinty stone of carnal reason and introduced their Declaratory Act, in order to change the practice of the Church, so that her Courts might be brought to conform with their unwarranted ideals. The external veneer would have to be perforce brushed aside in the Free Church of Scotland. In her supreme court this infamous Declaratory Act which was passed by a large majority in 1892 and ultimately became the finding of the said court. It gave free and full licence to her young ministry to preach, teach and practise according to their own individualistic inclinations. The old path was out of order. The Lord’s people were groaning, weeping, and sighing under this terrible burden. What was to be done? Was there any more a prophet left among them? Yes, but where was he? When the late Rev.
D. MacFarlane stood alone against the modern mighty in Edinburgh, he protested against their evilly designed Declaratory Act, and was forced to dissociate with men who were either the prime actors and also with those who were too weak-kneed to follow his courageous example. The revered Rev. D. MacFarlane was one of the humblest Christian gentlemen that it was our privilege and pleasure to meet in this life. We are of the candid opinion that he loved retirement, but when he was, in the Providence of God, called to make a stand and to protest publicly against the innovations of men, it was because of his filial love to the glory of God, and the honour of Christ, and to the inspired Bible and the purity of doctrines and worship that was the supreme object before his mind, when he stood against the mighty alone. All the cavillings of would-be theologians and lawyers can never convert facts into fiction. Pilate would wash his foul hands and thus consider himself justified and say, that he was clean or, in his own estimation, innocent!
Men that were under the Declaratory Act and still are can never take away the guilt incurred, until they acknowledge in mercy their sins, and seek pardon through the blood of Christ. The Lord’s people were relieved when they knew and heard that there was one man, at least—a public servant of Christ, found faithful, upright and sincere, who did not defile the garment of his public profession in protesting against the wiles of the enemy. “And Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal apparel of blue and white, and with a great crown of gold, and with a garment of fine linen and purple, and the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad.” The Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honour. And in every province, and in every city, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a good day. And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them” (Esther viii. 15-17).
The Lord’s people rejoiced at the great deliverance of being saved from men that set up the gallows to destroy the Word of God in Scotland. Duncan MacKinnon was one of the first in the Parish of Bracadale to rise at a public service which was conducted by the then Rev. John R. MacKay, M.A., to thank the Most High that there were men left in the land who loved Christ, His honour, the Word of God, and the Gospel of His grace more than their own lives. From following the Free Presbyterian Church he never wavered, from the beginning until he was taken away to his Eternal Rest. He was perfectly satisfied that he was in the Church of his fathers, freed from the innovations of men and the infamous Declaratory Act. He knew that Mr. MacFarlane stood exactly on the same grounds as the men of 1843, as the Reformers of Scotland, prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ being the Head Corner-Stone. The men of discernment in Skye that feared God and eschewed evil banded themselves together and thus formed the Free Presbyterian Church, which was no other Church but that of their fathers with the simple alteration of a different official designation. Those that they left behind in the Declaratory Act Church were men of very little weight or discernment among the people. We may be permitted to mention the names of some of those excellent and pious men who could not possibly tolerate to subordinate their consciences, convictions, experience and intelligence under the feet of the Declaratory Act innovators. In this connection we would mention Alexander MacLennan, Rona; Alexander MacFarlane, Teacher, Raasay; Donald Gillies, Neil MacKinnon and Duncan Campbell, Portree; Norman Munro, Staffin; Peter MacLeod, Borve; Hector MacPherson, Broadford; Norman MacLeod, Glendale; John MacCaskill, Carbost, Bracadale and Duncan MacKinnon, Struan, Bracadale, men of understanding in the Word of God, pious, humble and highly intelligent. These were the men that followed Rev. D. MacFarlane’s lead. Many more could be mentioned from among the people who were able, sincere, upright and pious men that rejoiced in the testimony raised by the servants of Christ, Messrs. MacFarlane and
Macdonald. In the Island of Lewis, Ross-shire, Harris, North Uist, in Caithness and Sutherlandshire, Glasgow and Edinburgh, in Ontario, Canada, the lay leaders were the salt of the earth and the light of the world, in their own day and in their different places of abode.
The youth of the Free Presbyterian Church can look back with delight that the ministers and men who raised the testimony for Christ’s honour and glory, were men who proved by their life, walk and conversation, that they were in truth the servants of the living God. The future of the Free Presbyterian Church is to the utmost bounds of Christ’s kingdom in the world. Her Gospel is the Gospel of Christ, her Saviour is mighty to save to the uttermost. Jew and Gentile is welcomed, invited and right gladly received provided either Jew or Gentile will humbly and sincerely accept Jesus Christ and Him Crucified as their Saviour from sin and the wrath which is to come.
We might say that Duncan MacKinnon was probably the youngest of the men mentioned above, who took a leading part in forming the Free Presbyterian Church in the Island of Skye, and he was the last of them to be taken away. When John MacCaskill, who was missionary of our Church in the Parish of Bracadale, was called from the Church militant to the Church triumphant, Duncan MacKinnon was asked by our Church to become missionary of our congregation in Bracadale. Although he never aimed at things that the blessed man considered too high to understand yet he was an able expositor of the Word of God. The first time we heard him speak to the “Question” in Portree (he was not known to us then personally) before he sat down, the impression he made upon our mind then, never left it. The awe and the reverence he had to the inspired Word; the grasp he had of Law and Gospel was very uncommon. It was edifying to listen to him for his words were few but well-considered and in scriptural order. The place he had in the minds of our people without soliciting it could be seen on the Friday of the Communion. On such occasions many a weary soul he was the happy instrument to console, in passing
through the wilderness where the Lord’s people are often tried in their pilgrimage journey to the Promised Land above. His faithfulness and integrity of purpose left no room for doubt in the minds of the unconverted that here they had a man of God, who sought in earnest and in love the eternal salvation of their souls. The impressions he made upon the minds of our people who came in contact with him, shall not leave some of them as long as they are left in this world.
We have reason to believe that there were some who heard the Word of God through him and who will acknowledge him as the instrument through whom they heard the Word of God to their eternal benefit. His services among our people in the Parish of Bracadale are sadly missed by them, for he was loved by them, and highly respected, for his life, walk and conversation was consistent with his public profession and our people were conscious of the fact that they had a saintly, praying man in their midst while he was left among them.
When the people knew that the end was drawing near, and that the natural life of their beloved, faithful friend was ebbing out, they began to flock to the house to show their respect for him, but owing to his extreme weakness only a few of them could be admitted into the sickroom. But what struck us to be remarkable and characteristic of the faithful Christian man was that he would quote a passage of the Word of God suitable, in our opinion, to the condition and state of each individual, as he stood before him, by his bedside.
We were with him in his last illness until the precious soul left the tabernacle of clay. His mind, to the very last was on the Word of God, quoting passages, praising and praying. The last words we heard him utter were “Oh, let my soul praise Thee eternally.” He asked us on one occasion how were the ministers in the Church. After we told him as far as was known to us, he began to pray that the Lord would bless them all, and protect them, as they were living in terrible dark days. On another occasion he asked us how the Church was we replied, “We have not heard anything new.” “Oh,” he said, “She
will pass through fiery trials yet;” but as he often said to us in private conversation, “the Free Presbyterian Church has a glorious future in this land and in other lands.” I also heard him say that it was a token for good in these dark times that the Free Presbyterian Church was so ignored by those who had departed so deplorably from the Word of God.
He left a widow, five sons and five daughters to mourn his great loss but his eternal gain. He was married twice, and by the first wife he had one son and two daughters. His first wife died when she was comparatively young but her beloved husband had every reason to believe that she died in Christ, which was life eternal. A son died in Bedford, England, during the war. He was a promising young man and his dear father had every hope that his precious soul was reconciled to God through faith in the blood of Christ before he was called away to Eternity.
May the Lord raise up the sons and the daughters to witness for Christ in their own day and generation, and to seek a personal interest in the Redemption purchased by Him. Let them pray diligently and earnestly that the Holy Spirit may lead and guide them to Christ in the Word of God. Godly fathers and mothers shall be at Christ’s right hand at the Great Day of Judgment and alas! if their sons and daughters are on the left hand on that Day.
The blank Duncan’s death made for us will not be made up in time. The cause of Christ is weaker in Skye by his removal. His walk and conversation was so upright that it had a salutary influence over old and young in the Parish. His neighbours who might not agree with him, could not but respect him. His love for the Lord’s Day was exemplary. His own conduct on that day was the best example—for actions speak much louder than mere empty words.
Our people in the Parish of Bracadale mourn his loss and showed their profound respect to their departed friend on the day that his mortal remains were committed to the dust. Our people from the various congregations of our Church in the
island showed also their love and respect to this precious man of God by the large concourse of them, that attended his funeral although the elements were very inclement at the time. He was laid to rest in the churchyard of Struan, Braeadale, till the Heavens be no more.
We would extend to the widow, sons and daughters, our heart-felt sympathy in their bereavement.—J. M.