A Hebridean Parish, by Rev. Ewen MacRury, M.A.
There has recently been issued from a Highland newspaper publishing company, a book entitled A Hebridean Parish, by Rev. Ewen MacRury, M.A., dealing with a North Uist parish, of which the author is a native. The name of North Uist will always prove attractive to genuine Free Presbyterians as the birth-place of their ministerial leaders, the Rev. Donald MacFarlane, Dingwall, of revered memory, and his equally saintly and spiritually minded brother minister, the Rev. Donald MacDonald, Shieldaig. Our main reason, however, for drawing attention to the above book is our feeling that the author, so far from manifesting the first indispensable qualification of a historian—accurate, fastidious, magnanimous and scrupulous impartiality—has actually displayed a petty, mean, embittered prejudice against these faithful servants of the Lord and the noble God-honouring denominational testimony they were honourably instrumental in raising in defence of the Truth, as it is in Jesus. Typical Free Church prejudice is obvious in every reference to these two worthy ministers and their Church. Despite the fact that there are no people more fastidiously sensitive and resentful at being called “Wee Frees” than the people of the Free Church, this author invariably refers to the Free Presbyterian Church as “the Secession” and “the censorious Separatism.” There are now over twenty years since this same writer described our witness-bearing as a Church as “the religion of mis-calling.” This is but Satan’s method to make us cease witnessing against his kingdom.
In this book his aim seems to be to disparage the two worthy ministerial leaders. For instance, on page 29, he quotes from that notorious book by the late Rev. Kenneth MacDonald, entitled Social and Religious Life in the Highlands, a statement falsely attributed to Rev. Donald MacDonald, Shieldaig, relative to the Sabbath, despite the fact that Rev. Kenneth MacDonald was rebuked in the Press over twenty years ago for making the same statement. Probably the author gives a sop to his conscience by the qualifying statement, “The Free Presbyterian minister of Shieldaig is not the only one to whom that form of reproof has been attributed.” Why, then, transmit it to posterity in the name of the Free Presbyterian minister of Shieldaig? Is this with the view of conveying the impression that he was an awkward simpleton, not worth following, or taking seriously? This is very unworthy Free Church propaganda. Why quote at all from a book, the author of which was notorious for ecclesiastical buffoonery, in which, with characteristic irresponsibility, he besmirched and denigrated not only the Free Presbyterian Church and its leaders, but, in a still more ridiculing manner, the present Free Church and its leaders. Mr. MacRury’s taste in ecclesiastical Highland historians is more than passing strange—it is surpassing strange. Why quote from a book in which Dr. Begg and Dr. Kennedy of Dingwall are held up to public ridicule and scorn?
What but disparagement and the attribution of ulterior motives to the Rev. Donald MacFarlane, in declining to consider a call to his native Uist, led the author to make the following statement:—”He (Mr. MacFarlane) arrived at this decision in August, 1891, but in the Spring of 1893 he received a call from Raasay, which he accepted. A portion of his congregation followed him into the Free Presbyterian Church, but the Kilmallie congregation did not secede.” The Most High could find plenty of work for Mr. MacFarlane in Kilmallie from 1891 to 1893 to account for his remaining there. I suppose it would be too much for Mr. MacRury to confess that the overwhelming majority of Mr. MacFarlane’s congregation in Raasay followed him.
Referring to Carinish, North Uist, the author says, “No division of any importance was caused in the congregation by the Free Presbyterian secession.” He indiscriminately deplores division, as if those who stood for truth and principle were the real mischief-makers, while the doctrinally-indifferent union-mongers manifested the essence of calm sobriety and propriety. “There must also be heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest.” Thus, in the case of Malcolm MacCorquodale, our author has to deplore, when he ought to praise:—”In the year 1893 he joined the Free Presbyterian secession, a step which severed him from the fellowship of many former friends.” The true side of the picture is as follows:—”Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke xiv, 33).
Relative to the congregation of Paible, our author says: “The Free Presbyterian secession in 1893 rent the congregation in twain,” and the reason why the other half did not do likewise is explained by Rev. John MacLeod, Paible, despite Mr. MacRury’s denial, “the backbone of Moderatism was never broken in North Uist.”
Concerning Rev. Donald MacDonald, of Shieldaig, and his academic studies, our author says:—”As a student he did not show much brilliance, but he was conscientious and painstaking.” If it is any consolation to Mr. MacRury, some of the older Free Church ministers of 1900 said far worse than that about the saintly minister of Shieldaig, but the Great Day will declare it. The author’s explanation of those people in North Uist who were charged with indifferent Moderatism is:—”The Uist people have rejected extremism in religion, whether that extremism was Moderatism or a censorious Separatism.” My own candid opinion is that Mr. MacRury himself would be none the worse of obeying the words, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing.” Uncompromising fidelity to principle is not extremism.
Here is a paragraph from the pen of the author which speaks for itself, and I have personally no hesitation in concluding that it is largely the language of a blind ecclesiastical leader of the blind:—”One of the sections, which professed to stand by that original constitution (1843), called themselves Free Presbyterians, but they were treated with growing indifference, while the remanent Free Church was well-nigh overwhelmed by an avalanche of unfavourable public opinion for the moment. The third section, representative of the majority of the Free Church of 1900, has practically disappeared from view in the Church of Scotland by the Union of 1929. Such has been the fate of the Church of Scotland free. There were a number of thoughtful people in North Uist who regarded the controversies of the period 1892-1900 as retarding the natural development of the Free Church, and who maintained that the present Free Church of Scotland ought to have taken up the trend of that development by returning to the position and practice of the Free Church of 1890.” Whether these “thoughtful people” are confined to North Uist or not, such sophistry will not stand the light of common sense, let alone historic fact, and the judgment of the Great Day. What the present Free Church must return to, penitently and sincerely, is the historical and doctrinal position occupied by the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland from 1893 to the present day. The Most High will yet raise up in Scotland young men and women, and older ones also, who will so thirst for the truth, historically and doctrinally, that no amount of sophistry will be able to enslave them any longer by such magic ecclesiastical designations as “the Free Church of Scotland.” They, as enlightened from above, and made perfectly candid, honest, sincere, and conscientious, will insist upon possessing the kernel with the shell, and not merely the latter. Then we shall have proper leadership, “but not that of the bigot or the opportunist.”
Though typically Free Church, Mr. MacRury’s criticism of our Church and leaders is peculiarly bitter and disparaging in its prejudice. We cannot, therefore, both be right, but the present writer is comfortably satisfied and certain in his own mind that the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland has been initiated, and is continued to this day, by the Holy Spirit. As the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of order, harmony, and unity, whence comes this spirit of prejudice?—J. P. McQ.
He who alone gives life to us gave up His life for us. This giving imports the voluntariness and freeness of the action. He gave Himself freely. He did not sell Himself, but gave Himself, and that willingly and entirely, without constraint. No violence could have pulled Him from the bosom of the Father; but He came leaping upon the mountains; He came singing, and saying, “Lo, I come! I delight to do Thy will, O my God!” There was no necessity lying upon Him but the necessity of love, and of a loving agreement with His Father. Greater is the work of redemption than that of creation; there He was the Giver, but here He is the Gift.—Erskine.