Only a few of the godly are now left in our midst of those who left the Balnakille Parish Church in 1928 to join the Free Presbyterian Church. The subject of this short obituary was one of them. Mrs. Maclennan was of a quiet, humble, and reserved disposition. Hence the reason that she never divulged to us as to how she was brought to the knowledge of the Truth, as it is in Jesus. Nevertheless, we believe, the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, captivated her heart in the days of her youth; as the blessed promise of the Gospel states, “those that seek Me early shall find me” (Proverbs viii., 17). Although she had but little schooling, like her brother Angus (whose obituary is in the July, 1953, issue of the F.P. Magazine), she had a grasp of ecclesiastical affairs in her own day, and when the Balnakille Congregation could not conscientiously unite with the U.F. Church, with its voluntaryism and Arminianism, and rotten to the core with Higher Criticism, she, along with the vast majority of the aforesaid congregation, sought refuge from this flood under the auspices of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Of course, it was not until 1892 that Voluntaryism and Arminianism became the new Creed of the then Free Church.
Our friend was a faithful Free Presbyterian, and most exemplary in her life and conversation and attendance upon the means of Grace. As a clear indication of her love to the Word of God preached in its purity, as she used to hear it in her young days, she, along with other worthy women from Uig, frequently attended Communion seasons in Breasclete, and other parts of Lewis, before actually joining our Church.
On more than one occasion she told the writer that long before he was born they in Uig heard of the noble, faithful, and courageous stand of Rev. Donald MacFarlane, Raasay, and Rev. Donald Macdonald, Shieldaig; when the former placed his Protest on the table of the Free Church Assembly, and bade farewell to that Declaratory Act Church, thus raising a Testimony on the side of Truth in Scotland, which shall continue until the dawn of better days, we believe.
In a good old age, Mrs. Maclennan left the vale of tears behind her to be where her sun shall no more go down. In expressing our sincere sympathy with her sons and daughter, who loved and nursed her to the end, we would say, seek ye, also, “a City that has foundations whose Maker and Builder is God”—J. A. Macdonald.