THIS gracious woman was born over three-quarters of a century ago at Ardban on the west coast of Ross-shire, a small headland which juts out into the sea a short distance south of Applecross Bay, and here she spent the greater part of her life, finally settling down in the old home where she passed her last years. Bella MacLennan, as she was in youth, had a particularly happy and vivacious disposition, and this fact made the great change when it came all the more marked. This event took place at an early age and from guarded remarks she made on the subject, the ministrations of the eminent Rev. A. MacColl seem to have been the means used to effect it. Like many more of the parishes in the north, Applecross was highly favoured at the time with the awakening preaching of the great Highland preachers whose names have to-day passed into household words. This faithful servant of Christ came to the district when still a student, but even in those days his preaching possessed many of the characteristics which later distinguished it. To this day he is spoken of with terms of affection in the parish, where he was a familiar figure seated on the white pony on which he used to get about the wide district he had to minister to. Before a meeting house was erected for the Free Church, the large congregation met to listen to Mr. MacColl by the sea shore in the open air, and often in the dead of winter it happened that the crowd sat unmoved with the snow lying sometimes almost an inch thick over the congregation quite unaware of any discomfort while they listened entranced to this gracious ambassador of Christ as he unfolded the mysteries of divine grace or enforced the claims of the gospel. Mrs. MacAulay throughout life cherished a strong attachment for Mr. MacColl, which he on his part returned, for his regard for her Christian character was very high. She was brought first to his notice in a singular way. When he came to Lochalsh it soon became her custom to attend his services, and each Sabbath she would set off at a very early hour from Ardban across the hills walking the intervening miles and getting a ferry at Strome, so as to arrive at the church in time for the morning service. She usually arrived above Mr. MacColl’s manse before anyone was up and sat under a hill overlooking the manse till the service would begin. Mr. MacColl soon noticed her, and when he found out that she was from Applecross, he instructed his housekeeper to bring her in immediately she arrived each morning. He admitted her to his friendship and confidence, and right up to the time of his death, she and John MacAulay, who later became her husband, were his constant hearers. Mr. MacColl was no ordinary man, and so clearly did he impress upon his hearers and especially the Lord’s people the marks of his spiritual training, that it was said that those who were converted under his ministry were recognised and marked off from the rest of the Lord’s people, not only by the clearness of their views of the gospel but also by the consistency of their spiritual life.
Both Mrs. MacAulay and her husband bore this impress, and by it they adorned their profession of the gospel with a godly life and conversation. She delighted to recall many of the remarks made by Mr. MacColl which particularly appealed to her, and although she must have heard many able ministers of the gospel in her time, he seems to have kept a special place in her regard. On his deathbed she visited him and asking for a final message, received this, “What I say unto you, I say to all, Watch.”
The course of Mrs. MacAulay’s life was not an easy or pleasant one. Married when just out of her girlhood to Mr. Gollan, her home was visited frequently by sickness and death, and the deaths of her two boys, one by drowning and the other as a result of sorrow over his brother, were specially painful. She lost her husband too in tragic circumstances, he too having met his death at sea, and lost what property he left her, with the result that she had to earn her own living and enough to keep her young family. Like Naomi, however, she was a woman of a chastened spirit, and uncomplainingly submitted to the Lord’s will. It is through much tribulation that we must enter the kingdom, and the truth of this experience was confirmed in her case in other directions as well. She was decided in her religious convictions, and had chosen Mr. MacColl’s ministry as best fitted to help her in her spiritual life, and accordingly her absences from the parish and her infrequent attendances upon the services of the local Free Church minister of the day roused his resentment. Incapable himself of either discerning or even caring about the spiritual wants of his flock, he at once deprived her of her membership without the preliminary of reprimand or meeting of Kirk-Session. Such a happening was quite in keeping with other departures of a more serious nature which were becoming increasingly apparent in the Free Church of the day. When Rev. D. Macfarlane finally placed his protest before the General Assembly of 1893, and severed his connection with that corrupt body, Mrs. Macaulay immediately welcomed his action and joined him in his protest. She was working at Fort William at the time, and as Mr. Macfarlane was minister of the neighbouring parish, she attended his services. Often she used to speak of the joy and happiness of those days; like many others in the Highlands, she felt keenly her connection with a compromising Church which had ceased to give a clear testimony to the truths of the Bible, and felt relieved that at last a way of deliverance had opened. She loved the testimony which Mr. Macfarlane had raised and became heart and soul a friend of the Free Presbyterian Church. By this time she had married again, Mr. John MacAulay who like herself was like-minded with Mr. Macfarlane in his zeal for a pure church and defence of a pure gospel. It is interesting to know that these two friends were united in marriage by the eminent theologian, who at the time was the last of the Disruption Church Professors of Theology, Professor Smeaton. Some time after this, they removed to Ardban, where they spent the rest of their lives and where some members of the family still reside. They have our heartfelt sympathy in their great loss.
In the opening months of 1943, Mrs. MacAulay, now a widow, began to show signs of declining health and soon it became apparent that she would not recover. She felt very much the confinement to the house, especially on the Lord’s Day, which for such an active woman was indeed a trial. She slowly sank till the end quietly came, which released her from the troubles of life and brought her the peace and rest she craved so much. She was a woman greatly beloved and her like will not be easily found. A life-long friend who knew her during most of her days in the F.P. Church, makes this tribute, which is a sound estimate of the place she held in the affections of the Lord’s people.
“To-day when so many profess to be Christians, it is necessary to turn to the Word of God to examine their life and conversation and in its light how much of the profession of the present day vanishes. Mrs. MacAulay belonged to the class of Christians who followed Jesus to the Cross, and although at times had to stand at a distance because of the solemnity and awe upon her spirit, was like Mary seeking her beloved Lord when absent from her soul. She was one of the most pious women the writer has ever met. She lived near her Lord and in lowly abasement sought the Spirit’s direction and guidance. Her trials, which were not light or easy, and her burdens were brought to a throne of grace, and there awaited patiently and humbly till her Lord and Saviour would come to ease her troubled soul of its grief and pain. We knew her for 35 years and never did we hear her once uttering one word of complaint about herself. In this respect she was like the Psalmist as we read in Psalm cxlii.: ‘I poured out my complaint before him; I showed before him my trouble.’ This was her habit when in trouble, whether tempted by the devil, or tried in her faith, or cast down in her soul for the cause of Christ. She was a true mother in Israel to those in whom she believed the work of grace had begun in reality, both by word and example, nursing, exhorting, encouraging and, if circumstances demanded it, she did not hesitate to rebuke sternly and seriously, but always in the most secret and private way so that it might not be known, as far as she was concerned, that she had administered the needed rebuke. She loved the cause of Christ and was jealous that no creature relationship of any kind, however highly regarded, would come in between her soul and her interest in Christ and His cause. When in 1918 some men whom she loved and respected considered it their duty to separate from the F.P. Church, being convinced that they had acted wrongly, she never wavered for a moment in her loyalty to the testimony of the Church. When the Voluntary Party in the Free Church before 1893 were doing their utmost to crush the evangelical and faithful party who clung to the “good old way,” she with others suffered. Trained under such giants as Dr. Kennedy, Revs. A. MacColl, Dr. Begg, and Prof. Smeaton of Edinburgh, she proved steadfast under persecution and suffering. The minister of the F.C. congregation at Applecross, to whom Mr. Mackay has referred, was a rank Voluntary, and she came on more than one occasion under his scurrilous tongue and pen, but such things did not move her. She welcomed Mr. Macfarlane’s Protest in 1893, and rejoiced at the relief which his faithful adherence to the Word of God and purity of worship brought to her and many besides. Mrs. MacAulay told us that Prof. Smeaton said at one of the meetings held in his own house on Saturday evening, ‘Few, very few would remain faithful to the Word of God, and Confession of Faith, and the testimony of the Reformed Church in Scotland would mainly and generally be supported by young men from the West and Islands of Scotland.’ This statement of the learned and pious Prof. Smeaton made a lasting impression upon her mind. And she saw his prediction largely come to pass, for the Declaratory Act of 1892 was directed against the very foundations of the Christian religion, the cardinal doctrines of the Bible and the whole word of God. Mrs. MacAulay possessed a meek and quiet spirit, her love to the Lord’s people was constant and scriptural, and her catholicity of mind showed itself in the deep interest she showed in the cause of Christ in general throughout the entire world. She delighted to hear of any religious movement in any part of the world, and for many years she prayed fervently for the coming of Christ’s kingdom, not only in her beloved Scotland, but the world over. She was well versed in the religious history of Scotland, the Covenants, Puritans of England, the Reformers, and even the religious leaders in New England. Her grasp of the doctrines of free and sovereign grace was firm and clear. It would have been useless to have tried to impose upon her the Armenian theory of justification by works in place of the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith alone. Her removal from our church has made a deep and lasting blank; we feel her loss personally very keenly for she was the nearest and dearest Christian we have ever met in this world. We mourn her loss, we miss her prayers, her loving, quiet conversation. She is now with her Lord and Redeemer, her soul pure and holy, and able to love the Lord with a pure heart and fervent spirit. We love her memory and mourn her loss.” She died on 26th June, 1943.—A. F. M.