Rev. Roderick M’Leod, Snizort, Skye.
Among the great and good men of Disruption days a prominent place may well be claimed for Roderick M’Leod; and the Church acknowledged the claim by unanimously calling him to preside over her General Assembly of 1863, thus conferring upon him the highest honour she had to bestow.
Mr M’Leod was born in Glen-Haltine, Isle of Skye, in the year 1794. His father the parish minister of Snizort, was a younger son of M’Leod of Raasay. His family connection thus gave him a position in society, and may also have contributed to the formation of that chivalrous bearing which characterised him through life. He possessed great natural force of character, superior intellectual power, and a fearlessness of disposition that even in early youth made him a hero among his associates at school and college. Having completed his college course at Aberdeen, he was licensed by the Presbytery of Skye as a preacher of the gospel, and was soon thereafter appointed to the mission of Lynedale, in his father’s parish. At this period of his life, and for a year or two thereafter, Mr M’Leod was still a man of the world — gay and light-hearted — and from his gentlemanly bearing was a universal favourite in the society of Skye. He felt little interest in the souls of others, for he was a stranger to the requirements of his own soul and to the love of the Saviour. But, by the perusal of Bellamy’s “Christian Religion Delineated,” he was awakened to a sense of his spiritual state, and when he was thus exercised it happened in providence that Dr Chalmers’ “Lectures on the Romans” fell into his hands. He studied these lectures prayerfully; and to the light and comfort he obtained by means of them he made a touching allusion in his address at the close of the General Assembly in 1863.
At the time of this crisis in Mr M’Leod’s history, there lived in his neighbourhood a remarkable man in humble circumstances whose enlightened views and ripe Christian experience were the means of keeping and strengthening him in the way of the Lord. This man was blind Donald Munro, a name revered in Skye only second to that of Mr M’Leod himself. When the history of living religion in Skye shall be written, one of its most interesting chapters will be the life and labours of this man of God. He was converted through hearing a sermon preached by Mr. Farquharson, an itinerant preacher sent to Skye by the Messrs Haldane; and soon it became evident that God had raised him up to be a faithful and much-acknowledged labourer in His vineyard. He had rare mental gifts, and was mighty in the Scriptures. His meetings for prayer and exhortation were abundant, and the power of the Lord was present in those humble gatherings at the river side in Snizort.
Along with the great spiritual change in the minister, there was seen a very striking change in the Mission House of Tynedale. The preaching was new. The services were multiplied. Meetings were held on week days as well as Sabbaths. Soon these meetings became crowded, for the people flocked to them from the surrounding districts, and many who afterwards became eminent Christians dated their first deep impressions from the earnest services of that time.
When the parish of Bracadale became vacant by the death of Mr Shaw, a minister of eminent piety, Mr M’Leod was presented to the living, and inducted into that charge in 1823. He used to remark that it was with his sword and his bow that he gained this preferment, referring to the manner in which he formerly commended himself to his patron, by excelling in the use of the gun and in other amusements.
His ministry in Bracadale extended over 15 years. Here he had trials, but he had also great encouragement in his work. His church was crowded from Sabbath to Sabbath with eager hearers. Not only his own parishioners, but many from the surrounding parishes resorted to his ministry. Bracadale became famous as the birthplace of souls, and the memories still floating in the Island of the success that attended Mr M’Leod’s labours there would fill a volume.
His views of the sacraments caused him to delay in some cases the administration of baptism, and this unusual strictness gave rise to complaints and appeals to the Presbytery of Skye. His Presbytery had no sympathy with him or his views, and endeavoured to force him into compliance with their own laxer notions. But standing as he believed he did on the firm foundation of God’s truth, Mr M’Leod was not the man to be moved from his strong convictions. And so his refusing baptism to a parishioner came up before the General Assembly of 1824 by reference from the Presbytery.
At three different Assemblies Mr M’Leod’s case was under discussion in one form or another. His Presbytery treated him with the utmost harshness, and gave him no rest. They harassed him, at first with threats, then by suspending him from the functions of the ministry for a year, and finally they proceeded against him by libel with the view of deposing him from the ministry. It was to this treatment that Mr (afterwards Lord) Cockburn, who was Mr M’Leod’s counsel, referred, when in an eloquent speech before the Assembly, he lashed the Presbytery of Skye with his powers of ridicule, describing them as a troop of foxhunters, who had not much to occupy them, and who agreed to keep a bagged fox, at which they might have a run when they wanted a hunt. The case was ultimately disposed of in 1827, when the Assembly appointed a committee of its most respected members to make full investigation and to report to the House. This committee vindicated Mr M’Leod, and recommended that the suspension be removed, and the libel be rejected. The Assembly unanimously adopted their committee’s report, and Mr M’Leod was set free, and returned to his home and his flock a happy man.
Mr M’Leod continued his ministry in Bracadale till the year 1838, when, on a vacancy occurring in the parish of Snizort, the people petitioned the Home Office, praying that Mr M’Leod should be presented to the charge. The application was successful, and he was accordingly translated to Snizort. It was now the period of the “ten years’ conflict”, and into that movement Mr. M’Leod threw himself with all the ardour of his heart. His sympathies were entirely on the side of the spiritual independence of the Church and the spiritual rights and privileges of the Christian people. The circumstances of the time called for a large amount of extra-parochial duties, and perhaps no man passed through more bodily toil and privation in the service of the Church than Mr M’Leod did on to 1843. But however excessive his labours may have been before, it was the Disruption in that year that laid on him a burden which demanded all the mental vigour and elasticity, and all the physical strength, with which the Lord had endowed him. The Island of Skye, containing eight ministerial charges, with a population of 20,000 souls, was the field he was called to occupy, and he held it for years single-handed. Of his brethren in the island, none stood by him when the day of trial came, except one who was called to another charge a few months after the Disruption. But it was not only Skye which he had to hold for the Free Church. That portion of the Long Island which extends from Harris to Barra Head, with its population of 16,000 or more, and with only one minister who joined the Free Church, was added to the Presbytery of Skye, and demanded a large share of Mr M’Leod’s thoughts and labours. He did not however shrink from the work, but courageously and cheerfully set his face to the duties before him. His labours for some years after the Disruption were not exceeded by those of any minister in the Free Church. It was no uncommon thing with him in those years to preach to congregations on the hillside in the midst of a snow-storm; and although he felt no injurious effects at the time, privations and continuous exertions, which were far beyond what any ordinary human strength could bear, left their mark upon him. But in the midst of it all no one ever found him desponding. He was always cheerful, and often even playful. By degrees relief came to him, and his labours were lightened. One after another of the island charges was filled up; and before his removal he saw the whole island supplied with ministers from Rhu Hunish to the Point of Sleat.
Mr M’Leod was married to Miss Anne M’Donald, of Skeabost, in whom he found a partner who sympathised with him in all his labours, and who strengthened him in his various trials. They had a family of thirteen children; and before it pleased the Lord to visit them with bereavements, the well-ordered and happy household greatly impressed many a visitor to the manse. But one after another they were taken away, until at the time of his own removal, only four remained. His bearing in connection with those family sorrows was very remarkable. He meekly and quietly took all from a Father’s hand.
Mr M’Leod continued in robust health till he neared the threescore years and ten. But at length the iron frame began to yield. In the year 1864 he had an illness which confined him to the house for several weeks; but he rallied again, and continued to labour with unabated zeal for some years longer. It may be said of him, that he fell in the field; for it was on returning from South Uist, after several days of preaching, that his last illness came on. He performed this long journey in an open boat, where there was neither shelter nor comfort. Exposure to storm and wet, for a night and a day, left evil effects behind, and his strength rapidly forsook him. The end was like a summer sunset, calm and tranquil. There was no ecstasy, and there was no fear; and without a struggle he passed away.
It is difficult now to credit the “gross darkness” that covered the population of Skye at the commencement of this century. But a reformation period arrived. A tide of religious feeling set in through the island, and the trusted leader of the movement was Roderick M’Leod. No one acquainted with the religious history of Skye can doubt that he was an instrument specially raised up by God to guide and mould the revived spiritual life of the people at that time. But Mr M’Leod was no mere revivalist. He was a man of wide sympathies, who took a deep and intelligent interest in all matters civil and ecclesiastical. . .
Those who had the privilege of intimate acquaintance with him, found him a man of very warm affections, a most congenial companion, and a confiding and steadfast friend, who could be relied on in any emergency. Among his younger brethren, instead of seeking to lord it over them, he often made them feel ashamed by refusing to take the place that they thought belonged to him of right. In their manses none was a greater favourite with the little children. Such a man could not fail to be beloved by the people of his native island, and his sufferings for righteousness sake gave him a place in their hearts that no other man has ever had. It will be indeed a degenerate race of Skyemen that will cease to cherish with reverence and love the memory of Mr. Roderick M’Leod.
J. S. M.