Neil Macleod
Among Gordon’s ancestors were men prominent in the religious history of the Highlands. His great-grandfather, John Mackay, had a powerful frame, great mental vigour, and apostolic zeal. From 1707 to 1714 he was minister of Durness, in the far north-west of Scotland, which at that time included the neighbouring districts of Tongue and Eddrachillis. It was an
1Taken with editing from Disruption Worthies of the Highlands. The writer was the Free Church minister of Newport, Fife, and a son of the eminent Free Church minister of Lochbroom, whose principal place of worship was in Ullapool.
area so immense that he used to be three months absent from home when he made his round of parochial visitation. In 1714 he came to Lairg, where he laboured for nearly 40 years. The people were wholly uncivilized; quarrelling and fighting around the church on the Lord’s day were not uncommon. By God’s blessing on his ministry, he lived to see, not only a great reformation in the district, but earnest living Christianity flourishing there.
His son, Thomas Mackay2, was minister of Lairg for half a century after his father’s death. He too was an eminent man of God, though of a different type from his father. He had an affectionate and winning nature. He was the close companion of Hector Macphail, Resolis, and other like-minded men. His great theme was the love of Christ, and he had much unction and power. He left behind him a very fragrant memory.
In his later years, Thomas Mackay was assisted by George Gordon, who married Mackay’s second daughter. Charles Gordon, the subject of this sketch, was born in the Lairg manse in 1799, and lived there till his grandfather’s death in 1803. His father had been settled the previous year in Helmsdale, where he ministered till his death in 1822. Charles Gordon was a divinity student within a year of license at that time. He was early brought to the knowledge of the truth. Angus Mackintosh of Tain was, under God, of much spiritual benefit to him; and between him and the two Mackintoshes of Tain, father and son, there was a lifelong, unbroken intimacy.
In 1825 Charles Gordon was ordained in Assynt.3 Some of the people thought his extremely-youthful appearance an objection. When this was spoken of in a praying company, Neil Bain, one of the elders and a deeply-experienced Christian, said, after a pause, “Let him alone; he is a chosen vessel”.4 Among those who feared the Lord in that part of the country, the feeling thus expressed continued to be cherished toward him throughout his long ministry.
Assynt, with its magnificent mountain scenery, is a pleasant place for a tourist to visit in summer. But in 1825 it was a particularly heavy sphere of labour for a faithful minister. There was no road to it, or through it. It had not been divided into two ministerial charges, as happened later. It was a vast parish, with a considerable population scattered along the rugged coastline. In the heights of the parish, many miles inland, at the head of Loch Assynt, stand the old church and manse. In those days Gordon had seven preaching stations; with his characteristic faithfulness, he carried on tire-
2Brief accounts of John and Thomas Mackay appear in Records of Grace in Sutherland, recently reprinted by the Scottish Reformation Society.
3The west Sutherland parish where Lochinver is now the main village.
4See Acts 9:15.
lessly the work of preaching, visiting and catechising; his solitary and weary journeys on foot or on horseback, through bogs or over rocks, were not without danger.
As most of the people lived 20 miles from the parish church, it was only occasionally, particularly at communion times, that they could gather together. There are pleasant memories connected with these sacramental seasons in the heights of Assynt, at which, among other worthies, John Kennedy of Redcastle5 was always present till his death. Notwithstanding all difficulties, Gordon’s pre-Disruption ministry was a happy one. The parish was blessed by having a large number of godly elders, who held up their minister’s hands by prayer. He had a bright home, on which the cloud of sorrow had not yet fallen.
From its beginning, Gordon took a deep interest and an active part in the Ten Years’ Conflict, prior to the Disruption of 1843. He had very clear, decided views on the great principles involved in the struggle. He was much strengthened through the prayers offered at the Convocation in November 1842, and in touching terms referred to this in his letters at the time. The Disruption was a particularly great trial to him. He had to encounter the displeasure of powerful friends. He had no prospect of being able to remain in Assynt. Unmistakable warnings had been given that there was to be no toleration in Sutherland for dissenters.
He writes in March 1843: “A very mournful reflection for me is that here I shall have no footing after resignation or ejection”. But he had no hesitation as to his course of action. From the first Free Church Assembly he pens these words to his wife, who bravely stood by him through the darkness: “I am now no longer minister of Assynt in connection with the Establishment. In many respects the thoughts of this are overwhelming. But when I consider the clearness with which God points out the path of duty, I do not fear but God will provide.”
On the lawn before the old manse, the first Free Church service was held. The people all rallied round their minister; not one native of Assynt remained behind at the Disruption. But according to the stern rule of the hour, he could now have no home among his flock. His family removed to Tain, 70 miles away. Providentially, a lady in Assynt had a house from which, by some peculiarity in her tenure, she could not be ejected. She gave her minister a room, the best she had. It was very small; so low that only in the centre was it possible to stand upright, so ill-lighted that reading was a work of difficulty, with the raindrops trickling through it, and only two feet of
5Previously assistant minister in Assynt, he was the father of the better-known John Kennedy of Dingwall.
space between the bed and the damp roof. But it was a gift most seasonable and welcome. In it the minister found that “footing” among his people which he feared he would never get, and this humble room furnished him a shelter during three winters.
The year of the Disruption brought to Gordon a heavier trial than any he had yet borne. His family in Tain were one after another prostrated with fever, and his wife was carried to her grave. In the midst of varied griefs, 30 years afterwards, he used to speak of that as the one earthly sorrow that made all others light in comparison.
Yet he was strengthened in his desolation to go forward with his Master’s work. The removal of the minister who had for several years occupied the Stoer district threw once more into his hands, for five more years, the care of the whole parish. He had periods of deep spiritual depression during these trying times, but he found strength and comfort in the truth he preached to others. The policy of coercion and repression continued for a while, but was at last abandoned. Sites were granted in 1844 on which churches were built and, after harassing delays, Gordon in 1846 once more possessed a manse and had his children about him.
The church near Lochinver was now where he most frequently preached, but he tended the more-distant stations under his charge in his later ministry as diligently as in his earlier years. The hardships of the Disruption era left their effects on him, and he never fully recovered from a very serious gig accident in 1859 when going to preach for his friend, George Macleod of Lochbroom. But up to the very last, when each third Saturday came round, calling him to a journey of 16 or 24 miles to Stronchrubie or Elphin, it never mattered to him how wild the storm might be. Summer and winter, he was always at his post. He had God’s work to do, and to the best of his ability he did it.
The great day will declare what were the saving fruits of his ministry of 48 years. In his preaching he was solid and evangelical, setting forth clearly in a plain and practical way the fundamental doctrines of the gospel. He was perhaps more at home in English than in Gaelic. The weight and worth of his personal Christian character was universally recognised. Whilst firm and bold to the end in defending the truth, he was pre-eminent in the milder graces of spiritual life. In his humility, he ever preferred others to himself. In his meekness, he harboured no unkind thought and uttered no harsh word, even against those who wronged him most. In his unselfishness, he was always thinking of the interests of others, rather than his own, while in his guileless transparency, everyone felt how true and genuine he was. Hostility was disarmed by the consistency and beauty of his life.
The year 1873 closed his life. Bereavement and other things hard to bear, saddened his last days. But he had the consciousness, and often expressed it, that the end was very near and that he would soon be at his rest. In September he was prevailed on to pay a visit to his friends in Ross-shire. He spent a week among them, giving them all to understand that it was his farewell. He returned to Assynt on the 24th, and those who met him on the way remarked on his calm, bright cheerfulness. Till now there had been no special sickness, but that night he became ill, and on the morning of the 26th the good old man passed away and was gathered to his fathers.