There was one place in the Island of Skye where the minister used to preach. It was in the parish of Duirinish, in the northern part of the island. A little girl — Mary Bethune — lived there, and was one of his hearers the last time he was there. She was then a girl of about eleven years of age. In listening to him, she was particularly struck with his text. It was in Psalm lxviii., 19-20 — “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death.”
Under this sermon her young mind began to think, and the two subjects which filled all her thoughts were — death, and the deliverance which God can give.
Her occupation was that of goat-herd, and while out with her flock day after day she kept meditating on these themes; she found it impossible to do anything else. Whomsoever she met she questioned about God, who could deliver from the jaws of death, and when she came home in the evening these were still the subjects of her conversation.
The minister who had so preached to her conscience left the place soon after, and she never saw him again. The minister of her own parish gave her no help; for, after conversing with her, he agreed with her parents and neighbours in the opinion that the girl’s reason was beginning to be unhinged.
However, she was allowed to attend to her duty of keeping the herd of goats; and so she watched for opportunities of putting questions to any she met on the matter that was her great concern.
After continuing thus for some time, finding none qualified to give her information as to how she could get acquainted with that “Jehovah” to whom it belongs “to rescue fully from death” (as it is in the metrical translation of the Gaelic Psalms), and feeling more and more the necessity of being able to say, “Our God is the God of salvation,” she came to the conclusion that she could not arrive at the privilege her soul hungered after while remaining in the neighbourhood in which she was. She therefore resolved on prosecuting her inquiry elsewhere.
At that time all necessary commodities not of home growth were procured from Inverness, and conveyed to Skye on horseback. In her girlish simplicity, Mary Bethune concluded that since so many and such extraordinary things were to be found at Inverness, surely “Jehovah” must be found there too! At all events, she resolved on proceeding to inquire after the knowledge of the Lord elsewhere, and not to give up the search, even if she should need to go as far as Inverness itself.
There were in those days none of the present modes of conveyance from place to place, even in localities more favoured than the districts lying between Skye and the Capital of the Highlands. There were no roads from one part of that country to the other. There were many rapid rivers and streams intervening, and none of them had bridges over them, while also the rapids of Kyle-Rhea flowed between Skye and the mainland. But of all that she took no heed. Soul-concern had complete mastery of all her thoughts, and all her affections too.
When she had her mind made up, she at once girt herself for the journey. Her toilet cost her little thought, and less time. She merely washed her hands and face in the stream that ran past her, smoothed her hair as well as she could with her fingers and bound it up with a snood. She threw her tonnag (a square piece of cloth) around her shoulders, and fastened it across her breast with a wooden pin or skewer, and then, bareheaded and barefooted, she proceeded in quest of the object on which alone her heart was set.
Now, it may be very properly asked, why she did not ask her parents’ consent? It may also very likely be suggested, that having thus set out in disregard of the fifth commandment, she was not likely to obtain the blessing which her soul was so very anxious to gain. But let me here observe that the fault was not solely hers. From what is well known of the state of matters in the place of her nativity at the time, I plead in her behalf her never having been instructed in the knowledge of any part of the truth; and further, her certain knowledge of what the result would have been had she first revealed her resolution to those who were her natural guardians, for assuredly they would have bound her hand and foot, and confined her as a maniac. Hence, in her case, her offence was pardonable, and her resolution was justifiable. Her remaining where she was would, humanly speaking, have resulted in her growing up in as much ignorance of the true God and of the Saviour as did the kids of her flock. Accordingly, from hamlet to hamlet did Mary Bethune proceed, questioning all whom she met. See her now on the way. Some put her off gruffly; some ridiculed her as meddling with what was not suitable for a person of her years. The most regarded her as a person under some strange hallucination.
There was, however, no fear of her starving for want of food; no fear of her being any night without a bed. The county was not then so much populated as it is now. There were hamlets, consisting of from four or five to perhaps a score of households, within short distances of each other, over the greater part of the way, in places where now no traces of houses are to be seen. It was, too, the summer season, when everywhere through the hills she would come upon shielings, occupied by persons engaged in tending the flocks and attending to dairy produce. A poor helpless girl would never fail of meeting with kindness, and sharing in such comforts as the people had. Indeed, the general belief as to her being out of her mind would draw out pity towards the wanderer, whatever some might have thought of her questions, and even they who would at first have spoken roughly, would soon be melted again, so as to help her forward on her journey. Still, there is no doubt she must have had trials and hardships by the way not a few.