DONALD MACKAY died on the 10th day of March, 1941, at the age of 39. Indifferent health was the cause of his return home some nine years ago from New York where he had been employed. During the last few years he was confined for the most part to the house, but able to be up until within a few weeks of his end. Affable in manner and of ready wit, he was one in whom the Scripture “patient in tribulation” was exemplified in a rare degree. His father, the late Finlay Mackay, was a man of prayer, and a devoted adherent of the standard raised by the late James Finlayson and Malcolm MacLeod in the parish of Ness on the side of Christ and His cause in the year 1893.
Donald’s trouble was blessed to him. He was taught from on high his fall in Adam, and the awful depravity of his nature. A fortnight before the end he suffered much and passed through a period of great darkness of soul. In his sufferings such expressions would often fall from his lips as, “O body of sin and death, thou art suffering, and well dost thou deserve it for thy sin,” “This grief I have because Thy wrath is forth against me gone, and in my bones there is no rest for sins that I have done.” “If we had no actual sins to account for,” he would exclaim, “but the depravity of our hearts, it would suffice to cut us off eternity.” “O, our need of making our calling and election sure; the awfulness of building for eternity on a false foundation!”
On the Thursday of the communion 6th March, he took a turn for the worse and was prayed for in the church. His case appeared to be like that of the prophet when he said, “My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord.” To his sister, who lovingly nursed him, he remarked that if the ministers should call to see him on the Saturday they never came across one so dark as he was. On Friday he was very low. The relations were called and the end was expected at any moment. On Saturday morning he experienced a wonderful deliverance. He was taken out of the miry clay of spiritual bondage, his feet set on the Rock, and a new song put in his mouth. Turning to his sister and to other friends who had spent an anxious night with him he said, “Blessed is the man Thou chast’nest Lord, and mak’st Thy laws to learn,” and from then on until he closed his eyes in death he gloried in Christ his Saviour. The physical change seemed no less a miracle than the spiritual. The voice which before was broken and hardly audible was now strong and clear, the breathing regular and the countenance which on Thursday and Friday bore sad traces of anguish and deep dejection of soul now seemed to shine. The lame man leaped as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sang. Again and again he would quote the words, “Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which Thou hast given me: for Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” In the evening of Saturday several of the people who had come to the mount of ordinances, including the ministers called to see him and left his bedside refreshed in soul. When advised that he might be tiring himself by speaking too much, he replied he would want to testify to the love of Christ until his head would drop on the pillow, “But,” he remarked, “we should not do any injustice to the body, it was redeemed as well as the soul.” “O,” he would exclaim, “the love of Christ, the love of Christ, but let us not lose sight of the love of the Father in giving Him.” “Christ to be all and in all.” “O, He was worth waiting for, He is worth seeking.”
On Sabbath he said, “Christ will be visiting His guests at His table to-day. I have a hope of sitting at the table above, and there I will love the soul of the black African as much as I will my father. Natural ties do not enter there, and it will be part of the sweetness of glory that I will love all who were redeemed by the precious blood. I find the more love I have to Christ, the more love I have to His people.” Many instances could be adduced of the tenderness of his conscience with regard to God’s holy day. At night he confessed that he was going through deep waters, but that he was being sustained in his hope. On Monday morning he was again brought into “a wealthy place.” He told it was his last day on earth. “What need,” he said, “of having the seal in one’s bosom to show at the gate! This is a bed that calls for honesty. O that the dead of the village were here to see the struggle of death, that they might take warning and flee to Christ!” Then raising his hands he quoted the words, “Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.” “O, what a blessing that it is the angels of glory that will be around my bed to receive my soul and not the devils of hell!” At worship he requested that the concluding verses of Psalm 87 should be sung. In the evening he passed through a period of intense suffering. “I thought,” he remarked, “I was to be taken home in the fulness I had in the morning, but there is need of further cleansing.” “O Lord,” he would pray, “take me home with clean feet, keep me from repining.” At 10 p.m. calling upon the Lord to receive his soul he peacefully slept in Jesus. “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace.”—W.M.