Margaret MacDonald, Staffin
The news of the passing of Miss Margaret MacDonald, Stenscholl, Staffin, was received with profound grief in this congregation on Monday, 7th June, 1976. Margaret, who after a lingering ailment, departed we believe to be with Christ in the heavenly habitation. She led an exemplary life and was greatly respected locally and further afield, not only as a school-teacher, but more especially as a trophy of grace. The evidence of this fact was illustrated by the large concourse of men which assembled to bear what was mortal of this excellent lady to the graveyard which will be her resting place, in the ordinary course of events, until the great day on which the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Our late friend was brought to realise her lost and ruined state, by nature, through the teaching of the Holy Spirit while listening to the late Rev. Neil Cameron, Glasgow, who, on that occasion, used as a basis for his discourse, the parable of the prodigal son. She was so overcome and so engrossed in the preached word and its relevance to her own state that she was, at first, unaware of the silent tears that flowed copiously from her eyes to the floor. Her broken and contrite heart was full and overflowing as the preacher continued his discourse and spoke of what she had so clearly experienced and of what she found in her own heart, that she was brought to hope that even she was offered everlasting salvation through Christ. Her demeanour, subsequent to this experience, shewed that she desired to lay hold of the Prince of Life and to “be found in Him.” She earnestly sought to hide from others her concern and her desire to be found under the shelter of the atoning blood of the Crucified Saviour. Finally, however, she was brought to say with Jeremiah, ” . . . His word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.” On one occasion on returning home after coming from church she lay upon a couch, prostrated by the conflict within, when she suddenly arose, obviously relieved, and her mourning was turned into joy. She later told her sister that the words which gave her relief were: “Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is the health of the daughter of my people not recovered?” Consciousness of the plague of her own heart invariably caused her to doubt her saving interest in Christ, but time and again she was brought to see the cleansing efficacy of the shed blood.
Her time of deliverance came while listening to a sermon preached by the Rev. D. A. MacFarlane, late of Dingwall, and now retired in Inverness. He was the human instrument through whom she found relief but it was very obvious that its source was heaven. To her astonishment her situation and secret fears were unfolded to her and she learned from inward personal experience of the preciousness of the blood that cleanseth from all sin. She made a public profession of her faith in the One Who loved her and gave Himself for her, in July, 1939, and was kept from bringing any reproach upon the Cause of Christ to the end of her days. Her life, walk and conversation revealed that she had been with Jesus and had learned of Him. Her faith was sorely tried. Writing to a bosom friend and relative, after one of her sore trials, she said: “Well, my dear, you will be pleased to learn that once again the Lord has delivered me out of the horrible pit and darksome cave in which I laboured for so long. Words fail me when I try to describe my plight a week to-night, I could not have been much nearer the border of despair, but early on Tuesday morning I got Christ for my soul and I felt as if freed. What now shall I render to the Lord for all His gifts to me? I am pretty feeble in my body after this sore trial, but my soul is at rest. May I be enabled to praise and magnify His Great Name for the gift of Precious Jesus and may I be kept from the hideous monster, unbelief.”
We, as a congregation, sadly miss her prayers and presence in our midst and we pray that the Lord will raise up faithful witnesses to fill the empty places left by those who had Christ as their sure hope notwithstanding their trials through the carnal mind, sin, Satan and the world. Margaret continued to attend the Means of Grace until senility and its consequences became too much for her. Over a prolonged period her sister devotedly attended to her needs until they both succumbed under the strain and were removed to hospital. To the sister, the only survivor of the family, we tender our sympathy in her grief and seek to commend her “to God and the word of His grace.”
Rev. J. McD.