Mrs. Mackenzie was born at Melon-Udrigle, a little hamlet some three miles in a westerly direction from where our Church building is situated, at Laide, in Ross-shire. She was the oldest of a family of five, three of which are still spared. As to her parents, it is said that her father was upright and orderly in his outward walk and conversation, but never made a public profession; while her mother professed her faith in Christ before the world, and was reckoned by those who knew her as one who adorned her profession. On her maternal side, our subject was a great grand-daughter of the eminent William Urquhart, the Catechist, at Cove. She had many recollections of her visits to her great grandfather’s home in her girlhood days. In Cove, in those days, their place for public worship was a commodious cave by the sea-shore, and it was seated and had a pulpit in it in the ordinary way of things; the remains of these were to be seen when we visited the cave some 20 years ago. Of the services in the cave conducted by her great grandfather, Mrs. Mackenzie used to delight to tell. Her early home training and her contact with the godly in her formative years brought forth its fruit in her character in after days. Those were the days when praying men and praying women were found in numbers in every corner of the Highlands, and they were a terror to workers of iniquity. The odd dance there was kept as secret as possible for shame. Shopkeepers were not tools then in the hands of evil workers, in asking every passer-by to go to a dance or cinema by permitting notices of these in their shop windows, as they are to-day. The peace of the Sabbath was another blessing enjoyed by those of Mrs. Mackenzie’s generation. To-day that outward peace is gone, especially during the Summer and Autumn months, when hordes of people, largely from the South, and no better than heathens, disturb the sanctity of God’s Holy Day. Contacts with the ungodly and their ungodly example are telling on the lives of the young of our Highlands, so that even now, with few exceptions, they are “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.” We state this to show that Mrs. Mackenzie was nurtured in an atmosphere that is foreign to this generation, and had a good deal to do, by the blessing of God, in moulding her future life. We are not saying that a godly example is enough in itself to change a person’s state, but it is a means, and a means often used of God, together with His word and Spirit to the everlasting good of souls. The fact that man must be “born again” must not be lost sight of, and this is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Mrs. Mackenzie had a long period of soul depression and “law work” before she was brought to the “glorious liberty of the children of God.” That liberty came through a portion of God’s word and it is in the 18th Psalm. Though she had the evidence of having passed from death to life, she delayed in making a public profession. It was but 13 years before her death that she got sufficient strength to ask the Kirk-Session to permit her to sit at the Lord’s Table and this they had no difficulty in doing. She was a very lovable and affectionate old lady. This is the impression she would give one at once in coming in contact with her. This love which she gave expression to, had the love of Christ in her soul, as its basis. She was an “epistle of Christ” that could be seen and read of all men.
In the Providence of God she had her own share of the troubles of this world. She lost her husband when the youngest child was but two, and widows of those days had a harder struggle in getting their livelihood than those of to-day. She also lost some of her family. She bore all with patience, and had a sanctified use of all the Lord’s dealings with her, we are sure.
Mrs. Mackenzie was of kindly and hospitable disposition and would like to help any she saw in need. She was attentive on the public means of grace as long as her health permitted. For a few years before the end her memory began to fail, but in reading the Scriptures or praying she appeared quite normal, her daughter, who devotedly attended her for many years, tells. For a period before the end she resided with her son in Peterhead. The day she left for her son’s residence her memory appeared to have been restored for the time, and she spoke much of eternal things and of her end in the world being near. Indeed, for a year before she died she often spoke to her daughter of the time of her departure being at hand. The day her last illness began, when she asked her son to take her upstairs to her room, she told him “the messenger is come,” and so it proved to be true. She reached the good old age of 86 years, and the date of her entering upon her eternal inheritance was May the 10th, 1955. She spent the latter end of her life almost entirely praying, which is a beautiful termination of the wilderness journey. The remaining members of her family, who lost a devoted mother, we commend to their mother’s God and Saviour.—A. B.