THIS good woman died on the 16th of September, 1949, on the very spot of God’s earth where she was born, eighty-four years before. This place is known as Arrat, a small peninsula at the entrance to Loch Torridon in Wester Ross. The place is not accessible by road, except a rough track through massive boulders fallen from the cliffs above, but it is quite easy to get there on the sea. The Lord had witnesses in Arrat, as He had in many other isolated places in the Western Highlands. Mrs. MacRae’s parents were not communicants, but they are said to have been orderly, as to their walk and conversation, and they brought her up “as it becometh the gospel.” She used to tell that they were very strict about the observance of the Lord’s Day. It is not known what means the Lord took to translate Mrs. MacRae from darkness to light, but that she was one of Christ’s dear people was evident by her example of faith, and patience, and watchfulness, and heavenly-mindedness. From her early childhood she took an interest in the Scriptures and had her early impressions. One of her earliest recollections of being impressed under the preaching of the Word was when she was six years of age. It was at Shieldaig, probably during a Communion season. The sermon was preached in the open air. The preacher was the Rev. Mr. Fraser, of Rosskeen. His text was: “King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon. He made the pillars thereof silver, the bottom thereof of gold, the covering of it of purple, the midst thereof being paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem.” The part of the sermon that impressed her young mind most of all was the preacher’s oft repeated words: “There is still room in this chariot for sinners.” It seems that the Holy Ghost was then teaching her, and that the Saviour by his kingly office was subduing her to Himself. Another sermon which made an indelible impression on her mind, and from which she loved to quote to old age, was on the text: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” This sermon was preached by the pious Rev. Duncan MacBeath, who was minister in Ness, in Lewis. The labours of this eminent servant of Christ were blessed to many. Mrs. MacRae, however, never forgot the ministry of the minister of her own congregation—the saintly Rev. Donald Macdonald, of Shieldaig. By his preaching she benefited. To his sermon on the words: “I am the rose of Sharon,” she often referred.
It was in middle life that our subject asked the Kirk Session of Shieldaig for permission to sit at the Lord’s Table and confess her Lord publicly. The Session being satisfied with her life and experience, according to the records, she was joyfully received as a member in full communion with the Church. The Lord’s people get grace not only to be saved, but also to glorify God in the world: “Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.” Mrs. MacRae was very quiet and reserved and had not much to say in company, but her “light so shined before men.” Her love to the Sabbath and to all the means of grace was evident. As an example of her desire for God’s house and the fellowship of His people, she walked to Gairloch on a Communion Sabbath all the way from Arrat, and having left an infant at home she walked back at night. The distance is reckoned to be in the region of sixteen miles through a rough hill ground. She would say, in relating this incident, that she tasted of God’s gracious goodness that day.
During the last twenty years of her life she was more or less a cripple with rheumatism, but still with the aid of a stick she would get down the shore and into a boat and off to Shieldaig in order to be in God’s house, where she loved to be. At the end she was assured of her eternal inheritance. She told her family two days before she died that her Lord was coming for her and that she was going to glory to be with Him. Her husband predeceased her by twenty-nine years. She left a son and two daughters, who were very devoted to her, to mourn her loss. May the inheritance of a beloved mother be the inheritance of each of them.—A. B.