The greater part of this series comes from a paper given at the Theological Conference in 2002. However, the first few articles consist of material not included in that paper.
1. Called by Grace
Rev J L Goldby
In contemplating the life of Rev Donald Macdonald, we should note the many and varied influences which, in the wisdom of God, contributed to shaping his character and ministry, while bearing in mind that this work was “all of grace”. These influences were ordained in providence and no doubt contributed to his coming honourably through the great trials that he was to encounter during the course of his ministry.
The main source for this period of his life is Rev D Macfarlane’s Memoir and Remains of Rev Donald Macdonald, Shieldaig (available at £10.95 from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom and elsewhere), from which we have drawn freely. Mr Macfarlane himself well understood the work of God’s grace manifest in Mr Macdonald’s deep spiritual exercises.
Donald Macdonald was born in 1825, the seventh of 11 children of a tenant farmer at Langash, North Uist (one of the islands of the Outer Hebrides, which lie off the north-west coast of Scotland). His mother died when he was only 11 and his father 18 months later. The loss of both parents at so young an age, combined with early religious impressions, no doubt played a part in causing the orphaned child to give consideration to the solemn fact that here is no continuing city. He completed his early education in the parish school at Tigharry when he was 18.
When Donald was young, laymen such as Finlay Munro were bringing the true gospel to the people of North Uist. The Gaelic School Society contributed largely to the progress of this good work and distinctly Christian schools were opened in various districts.
When Donald Macdonald was 18, Rev Alexander MacIntyre, a probationer from Strontian in Argyllshire, visited North Uist. This was about the time of the Disruption of the Church of Scotland. He had studied for the ministry during the “Ten Years Conflict” between church and state and was a firm supporter of those defending the crown rights of King Jesus against the unjust encroachment of the civil power in the affairs of the Church of Scotland. Most of the Evangelical party, to which he belonged, subsequently left the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church – that is, the Church of Scotland free from unjust state interference. Those who sided with the government belonged to the Moderate party. While a student, MacIntyre was under the Presbytery of Mull, which was dominated by Moderate ministers. They knew that he was firmly of the Evangelical persuasion and unlawfully hindered his entrance on the work of the ministry by delaying, for about two years, his licence to preach. He therefore went north to Ross-shire, where he spent six months before being licensed by the Synod of Glenelg on 17 August 1836. At this time he was about 30 years of age.
Lochaber, we are told, had its first taste of the revival of religion under Mr MacIntyre’s preaching. One hearer wrote, “Wherever he preached, the people from all quarters flocked to hear him, and the effects were wonderful. The earnestness of the preacher, his electrifying eloquence, and his awful description of perdition and the deplorable state of the unconverted, produced such effects upon the hearers as baffles my power of description. The people fell under the power of the Word like the grass before the mower. One night in particular . . . in a crowded church in Fort William, the weeping was so loud and continuous that the voice of the preacher was completely drowned. After repeated attempts to still the people . . . the congregation had to be dismissed. The effects of such times of refreshing from the Lord upon the whole district was truly great and never to be forgotten. The wilderness blossomed as the rose.” Between 1843 and 1847 he made frequent visits to Skye, Mull and Uist, where similar blessings attended his labours. The young people flocked to hear him, and among the many awakened under his preaching in Uist was the young Donald Macdonald.
Halfway through Mr MacIntyre’s first sermon in North Uist, Mr Macdonald and a few other young men rose to leave the service but, from the pulpit, Mr MacIntyre called them to remain until the service concluded. Donald Macdonald was the only one who remained and, before the service concluded, the “arrow of conviction had entered deeply into his soul”. Thereafter Donald attended Mr MacIntyre’s ministry as long as he remained in North Uist. Under this preaching he would be at times “so overwhelmed with a sense of his lost condition that he could not walk home from the place of worship and had to be carried by friends”. At other times Mr MacIntyre’s preaching was the means of causing him to leap for joy. He was in this condition for about two and a half years, sometimes cast down by the law and at other times uplifted by the gospel. When Mr MacIntyre preached in Benbecula, so thirsty was Mr Macdonald for the water of life that, to attend the services, he would with others walk 12 miles each way, including the crossing of a ford three miles wide.
Mr MacIntyre (1807-1878) is a rather interesting figure from a Free Presbyterian perspective. Mr Macdonald regarded him as the most solemn preacher of the law he had ever heard. Many of those who were called out of darkness under his preaching were bright lights in their day at home and abroad and some of them became sharp instruments in the conversion of others. When a minister is used as an instrument in bringing a person from spiritual death to life, his ministry will leave a mark on the one who is thus born again. When we trace Mr MacIntyre’s life and work, it becomes evident that he and Mr Macdonald were kindred spirits in preaching, and contending for the faith once delivered to the saints. From the time that Mr MacIntyre was licensed to preach until 1847, he laboured as an itinerant evangelist in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, followed by three years in Canada under the auspices of the Free Church Colonial Committee.
In September 1852 he set sail for Australia on the Typhoon in company with Donald MacMaster, who had been spiritually awakened in the same year as Mr Macdonald, under a sermon of Mr MacIntyre on Judges 5:23 “Curse ye, Meroz, said the angel of the Lord”. They encountered such a storm in the Bay of Biscay that the ship was almost lost, and only after a voyage of six months did they reach Melbourne, on 6 March 1853. From then on he laboured diligently in Australia until his death in Geelong in 1878. Mr MacIntyre’s influence was crucial in convincing expatriate Highlanders in New South Wales to resist the union movements in Australia in the 1850s and 1860s. This is noteworthy in the light of Mr Macdonald’s significant part in resisting a similar movement in Scotland. Rev Neil Cameron wrote of Mr MacIntyre that he “was a truly polished shaft in the hand of the Holy Spirit, and many, not only in Scotland but also in Australia, will bless the adorable Head of the Church throughout eternity for making the feet of this witness beautiful upon the mountains of these widely separated lands”.
Returning to Mr Macdonald’s spiritual struggles, we find Mr Macfarlane writing: “Notwithstanding [his] diligent attendance on the means of grace, he was . . . like Noah’s dove flying about without finding a resting place for his weary feet. He was still asking the important question: ‘What must I do to be saved?’ He was for the long space of six years, more or less, under law work before he attained to satisfactory evidence of his interest in Christ. During that long period his mental agony was at times, as he himself said, ‘indescribable’. The doctrine of election caused him much perplexity. He was daily crying to God for mercy and, as he was not getting the relief he so much needed . . . he came to the conclusion that he was not of the number of those whom the Lord purposed to save. This brought him to the verge of despair, and occasioned him to cherish hard thoughts of God: thoughts which he often afterwards described as ‘bordering on blasphemy’. The carnal mind naturally rebels against the sovereignty of God in salvation and, under conviction of sin, Satan is sure to suggest to the self-condemned sinner that he is not of the number of those who are to be saved.” Mr Macdonald later believed that his difficulties about election were caused by the devices of Satan.
“In his despondent state of mind he disclosed his case to one of the good men in the neighbourhood, with the result that his misery was aggravated rather than alleviated. . . . Some old Christians at that time spoke to anxious inquirers in a manner calculated to drive the arrow of conviction deeper into their souls rather than to minister comfort to them in their distress. This did not arise from a lack of sympathy with those in soul trouble, nor from want of an earnest desire to do them good, but from fear lest they should, by expressing a favourable opinion of their case at an early stage, be the means of putting a pillow under their head which might ultimately prove ruinous to their souls. This mode of dealing with persons brought under soul concern, may be a wise one, but it should not be carried too far.”
There were, however, other good men in North Uist who dealt more tenderly with him, and took a fatherly interest in him. In due season, he “is brought from Mount Sinai, at which he stood so long trembling, to Mount Zion, to behold the beauty of Christ, His all-sufficiency, suitableness and ability to save to the uttermost them that come to God by Him. He is enabled to receive Him as He is freely offered in the gospel, and to rest on Him alone for salvation; and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, is communicated by the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to his troubled soul. He feels the great change; the wonderful manifestation of God in Christ to his soul is so evident that he cannot, dare not, for the moment, doubt the reality of it. His joy is great; his cup is running over! As his tribulations abounded before, his consolations abound now. He is brought up out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay, his feet are set upon the rock, Christ, and a new song is put in his mouth, even praise unto his God. He is now in a frame of soul to sing with the Church: “O Lord, I will praise Thee; though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger is turned away, and Thou comfortest me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song: He also is become my salvation.”
Mr Macfarlane says that Mr Macdonald’s happy transition from darkness to light took place in 1849, after being first brought under concern of soul in 1843. Now he had full assurance of his saving interest in Christ, and the language of his soul was: “My beloved is mine, and I am His”. A person may have true saving faith and yet lack full assurance that he has passed from death to life. Indeed Mr Macfarlane thought that his friend may have been a real believer in Christ for a considerable time before full assurance of his salvation was granted to him.
God hath put more honour on His law by the death of His Son than if the whole race of Adam had endured its penalty to all eternity in hell.
Isobel Green