(These letters were written to Mr. Thomas MacDonald, elder, presently residing in his old-age at Eston, Sask, Canada, by the late Rev. Malcolm Gillies, who finished his course at Stornoway. Mr. T. MacDonald sent these letters to us lately.—Editor.)
514 McGee Street,
Winnipeg, 4th March, 1919.
My Dearly Beloved Friend,
Your welcome letter came to hand some days ago, glad to hear that you have a measure of good health. We are all very well in body, but we need a visit from the Good Physician that we might know how ill we are spiritually. The first thing He had to do with the Laodicean Church, when He paid her a visit was to show her that she was poor and miserable and blind and naked, and then He wrote out a wonderful prescription for her and told her to use it.
It is high time we all paid a visit to His store where he dispenses gold tried in the fire that we may be rich and fine raiment that we may be clothed that the shame of our nakedness might not appear, and the precious eyesalve to anoint our eyes that we may see.
There is a sect nowadays called the Christian Scientists who make out that there is no such thing as sickness or pain or death. These are not the only people who are left to that delusion; this is the position of men in general. Long ago the people used to be afflicted with the scurvy, but that disease is hardly known now. It is the same with the disease of sin, people used to be bothered with it, but you will travel a long way today before you meet with one who has this disease so bad that no doctor will do for him but the Great Physician.
Where ever this man is, he wants this Doctor to do two things for him; He wants Him to apply a medicine called grace, which subdues the power of the disease, and he wants him to perform an operation on that day appointed for his removal to a better house, which will rid him forever of the cancer which made him weak and sickly all his life.
We have our other elder in with us at present, Mr. Ross, and we sent a petition to the Synod asking them to send us out an ordained man in the fall, if I was to go home. We heard that there are five or six young men about to begin their studies for the Church, so that the Cause will likely be upheld in spite of the new secession. By these things men live, by the difficulties, not by outward show and prosperity. We should take these things as a sign of Divine favour, for it is the lot of the true Church to wander about in sheepskins and goatskins, and she has to keep them by her all the time in case of emergency. You will notice they were not lionskins or asses skins, neither were they crocodile skins that would keep them from feeling the blows, but the skins of clean animals used in sacrifice, namely sheepskins and goatskins.
But it is time I had concluded, we are all well and Mrs. Gillies sends her best respects; she was disappointed you did not manage the length of Winnipeg, but we hope you will be able to come before we leave the Country. We need to be at the well’s mouth, asking not only for a drink, but for a rope and bucket. The One that gave us the well must bestow the means of drawing, for we have nothing better by nature than a spider’s web rope (Isaiah LIX, 5), a bucket without a bottom, and a withered hand. But all the same, He is all sufficient.
“Let brotherly love continue,”
“Till the day break,”
Ever your own sincerely,
Malcolm Gillies.
514 McGee Street,
Winnipeg, Manitoba,
3rd July, 1919.
My Dear Friend,
I received your welcome letter this afternoon and was glad to know that you were well in health, though I am sorry that your mother is failing in health.
I am hearing there is a great drought in Sask. and that in more ways than one. The worst drought of all is the dryness that comes upon our souls for want of a drink from the Well of Bethlehem. David knew that there was such a well but he knew also that the Philistines were between him and it. Would that we had the three mighty men, Faith, Hope and Love, who would break through the host of the World, Devil and the Flesh, the Philistines that keep us from the fountain of living waters, so that we also might get enough out of the fulness to pour it forth again in thankfulness and praise before the Lord.
How often does it happen to us as it happened to Hagar when she left Abraham’s house with Ishmael. The pitcher of water she took with her soon was dry so that she in despair threw Ishmael on the ground and walked away saying:—”Let me not see the death of the child.”
But the well “Beer lahai roi” “The well of Him that liveth and seeth” was just beside her and when the Lord opened her eyes she saw the provision that was made to meet her desperate case.
It is a precious thought that the Saviour was everlastingly appointed to His work of saving His people. Who can realize the depth of that expression of His:—”I was set up from everlasting” His love and purpose concerning His Church is co-extensive with His own being which is from eternity to eternity unchangeable.
We are told that the Tree of Life was in the very centre of the Garden of Eden and that there was always a way to that tree. Sin caused that for a time the flaming sword of Divine Justice stood there. But even along with that, there was the cherubim, which had reference to the coming Messiah. One who would be truly man and yet who would be more than man.
Indeed mercy and grace are seen to go hand in hand with truth and justice right through the whole Bible.
All the threatenings spoken in the Garden of Eden have the Gospel enclosed in them. In the curse pronounced on the serpent, there is the promise of the Seed, the woman was to have children and was to have a guide, Man would not be without bread, even though he had to eat it with the sweat of his brow.
I understand from your letter that you may be going across to Scotland with your parents sometime in the fall. I had a letter today from Mr. Beaton saying that Mr. Macleod was to sail on the 16th of July on board the “Lapland.”
I will conclude at present with kindest regards from all of us hoping to see you soon. Mrs. MacTaggart is very poorly and may be taken away any day. She has a good hope that He who showed her so much of his mercy in grace and providence in the past will take her safely through the swellings of Jordan to that place where she will see the face of the Beloved in peace.
“Let Brotherly Love continue,”
Your Sincere Friend,
Malcolm Gillies.