NOTE BY THE EDITOR
I cannot allow Good Words
to close the first year of its existence without addressing a few
Editorial words to its numerous Readers.
When I accepted the
Editorship of this Magazine, my principal motive was the desire to provide
a Periodical for all the week, whose articles should be wholly original,
and which should not only be written in a Christian spirit, or merely
blend "the religious" with "the secular," but should also yoke them
together without compromise. As I have said in a former Number, it was my
earnest wish that our pages should, as far as possible, reflect the
every-day life of a good man, with its times of religious thought and
devotional feeling, naturally passing into others of healthy recreation,
busy work, intellectual study, poetic joy, or even sunny laughter! The
tens of thousands who buy the Magazine confirm me in the opinion, that I
have not misinterpreted the wishes or the wants of the great mass of our
Christian community. There are now, I hope, few who will sympathize with
the old Scotchwoman who remarked to her son whom she found reading a
"religious" book on a week-day, "O Sandy, Sandy! are ye no' frichtened to
read sic a guid buik as that, and this no' the Sabbath-day?"
It is my resolution to
carry out my original purpose more energetically than ever. The faithful
exhibition of Evangelical truth shall go hand-in-hand with every
department of a healthy literature.
I am glad to be able to
add, that the prospects of the Magazine are as bright as could be wished.
In addition to our old and much valued staff of contributors, to whom our
success is greatly owing, and to whom I return hearty thanks, we have been
able to add others, whose names will be familiar to all our Readers.
-
We wish you a good New Year! (Pages 1-4)
By the Editor
-
Doctor Chalmers at
Elberfeld (Pages 5 -8)
-
Anecdote of Dr Heine of
Berlin (Page 8)
-
Meditations on Heaven
I
(Pages 9-10)
-
Sketches in Natural
History (Pages 10-12)
-
Christian Counsel and
Teaching for Young Men (Pages 12-14)
-
Easy Confession, A True
Story (Pages 14-15)
-
Little Things (Page 15)
-
Good Words for Every Day
in the Year (Pages 15-16)
-
The True Rest for Man -
Exposition of Matthew XI. 28-30. (Pages 17-19)
-
In Memoriam - Professor
George Wilson (Pages 19-23)
-
God's Glory in the Heavens (Pages 23-25)
-
To our Bereaved (Page 25)
-
Meditations on Heaven II (Pages 25-27)
-
Protestantism in France (Pages 27-29)
-
True Stories of God's Providence (Pages
29-30)
-
The New Year (Pages 30-31)
-
Good Words for Every Day in the Year (Pages
31-32)
-
Woman's Noblest Attitude (Pages 33-35)
-
Joy Among The Angels (Pages 35-37)
-
Sketches in Natural History - Thoughts on a Coal-Fire (Pages 37-39)
-
Meditations on Heaven III (Pages 39-41)
-
Protestantism in France (Pages 41-42)
-
Christian Counsel and Teaching for Young
Men, Chapter II (Pages 42-44)
-
True Stories of God's Providence (Pages
44-46)
-
Simple Thoughts on Bible Subjects (Page 46)
-
The Last Conflict (Page 46)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
47-48)
-
A Journey by Sinai to Syria (Pages 49-53)
-
A Vision of Life (Pages 53-54)
-
Woman's Noblest Attitude (Pages 54-56)
-
Meditations on Heaven (Pages 56-58)
-
Concerning Each One's Religious History
(Pages 58-60)
-
The Story of Faith (Pages 60-61)
-
Simple Thoughts on Bible Subjects (Pages 61-62)
-
The Legend of Christophorus (Page 62)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
63-64)
-
Bible Records of Remarkable Conversions
(Pages 65-68)
-
Symbolism in the Christian Economy (Pages
68-71)
-
The Crowded Harbour (Pages 71-72)
-
Sketches in Natural History (Pages 73-75)
-
Mary's Birthday (Page 75)
-
Christian Counsel and Teaching for Young Men
(Pages 75-78)
-
"Good Words" concerning the Better Country
(Pages 78-79)
-
An Incident in the Artic Seas (Pages 79-80)
-
A Winter's Tale (Page 80)
-
Prayer (Page 80)
-
A Journey by Sinai to Syria (Pages 81-84)
-
Popular Misapplication of Scripture (Pages 84-86)
-
The Power of Prayer (Pages 86-87)
-
Do not Err from the Truth (Pages 87-88)
-
Lady Somerville's Maidens (Pages 89-92)
-
Sonnet (Page 92)
-
Lessons for Young Men (Pages 92-95)
-
Illustrations of Divine Providence (Pages
95-96)
-
The Goblin and the Cowherd (Page 96)
-
Praise The Lord (Page 96)
-
The Story of Ninian (Pages 97-99)
-
Concerning the Better Country (Pages 99-100)
-
The Broken Link in our Social Chain (Pages
101-103)
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One Question, Many Answers (Pages 104-105)
-
A Visit to the Irish Poor (Pages 105-106)
-
Lady Sommervilles Maidens (Pages 107-110)
-
Doctor Sparrow (Pages 110-111)
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The Christian's God Paid the Debt (Page 112)
-
"I did this for Thee! What hast Thou done
for Me?" (Page 112)
-
The Fate of Franklin (Pages 113-116)
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The Moon's Invisible Side (Pages 116-118)
-
Reflections of a Rifle Volunteer (Pages
118-120)
-
Lady Somerville's Maidens (Pages 121-123)
-
Methodism in the Far West, and it's Oldest
Apostle (Pages 123-127)
-
Christ's Appeal to Common Sense (Pages
127-128)
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Home Verses (Page 128)
-
Kentigern (Pages 129-132)
-
1515 versus 1860 (Pages 133-134)
-
Meditations on Heaven (Pages 134-135)
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"He's Risen!" (Page 136)
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"Herein is Love" (Page 136)
-
The Fate of Franklin (Pages 137-139)
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Jonah and Paul at Sea (Pages 140-142)
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Incident at the Deathbed of an Old Scottish
Worthy (Page 142)
-
Pencil Marks in a Book of Devotion (Page
143)
-
Good Words for Every Day in the Year (Pages
143 -144)
-
Visiting the Poor (Pages 145-146)
-
Woman's Noblest Attitude (Pages 147-149)
-
The Fate of Franklin (Pages 149-151)
-
A Leaf from the Annals of a Hidden Life
(Pages 151 - 152)
-
"Faint, Yet Pursuing" (Page 152)
-
Lady Somerville's Maidens (Pages 153-157)
-
Out of the Depths - In Christ (Pages
157-158)
-
Good Words for Every Day in the Year
(159-160)
-
God's Glory in the Heavens (161-164)
-
Unpublished Letter by John Newton (164-165)
-
A String of Pearls (165-168)
-
Love (168)
-
A Journey by Sinai to Syria (Pages 169-171)
-
Latimer in the Pulpit (Pages 172-174)
-
Faith's Question (Pages 174-175)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year
(175-176)
-
John Evangelist Gossner (Pages 177-182)
-
Christian Counsel and Teaching for Young Men
(Pages 182-184)
-
Lady Somerville's Maidens (Pages 185-188)
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When the Night and Morning Meet (Page 188)
-
Preaching on the Stage (Pages 189-191)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
191-192)
-
Missionary Sketches (Pages 193-197)
-
Nuremberg Stories (Pages 198-199)
-
A Cloister Legend (Pages 199-200)
-
Lady Somerville's Maidens (Pages 201-204)
-
The World's Debt to Christianity (Pages
204-207)
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The Boy and the Captive Bird (Page 207)
-
Good Words for Every Day in the Year (Pages
207-208)
-
Alexander Von Humboldt (Pages 209-215)
-
Early Faith (Page 215)
-
Reminiscences of Mission-Work in Ireland
(Pages 217-218)
-
The Destroyed Cities of the Plain (Pages
218-223)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
223-224)
-
God's Glory in the Heavens (Pages 225-228)
-
In the Life of a Village Schoolmaster (Pages
229-232)
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"Sorrowing, Yet Rejoicing" (Page 232)
-
Lady Sommerville's Maidens (Pages 233-237)
-
On Messianic Prophecy (Pages 237-239)
-
Good Words for Every Day in the Year (Pages
239-240)
-
A Journey by Sinai to Syria (Pages 241-244)
-
On Messianic Prophecy (Pages 244-246)
-
Incident in the Sikh War (Pages 246-247)
-
Ministering to Christ (Page 247)
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"Work" (Pages 249-250)
-
Aspects of Indian Life During the Rebellion
(Pages 250-253)
-
The Divine School (Pages 253-255)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
255-256)
-
Note to the Article "Dr Chalmers at
Elberfeld" [Page 5] (Page 256)
-
Constance De V---- (Pages 257-260)
-
The Rewards which God bestows upon Men, and
the Principle of their Distribution (Pages 260-263)
-
Skeleton Leaves (Page 263)
-
Recollections of Professor Wilson (Pages
263-267)
-
Aspects of Indian Life during the Rebellion
(Pages 268-271)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
271-272)
-
Our Scandinavian Ancestors (Pages 273-277)
-
Idle Words (Page 277-278)
-
Reminiscences of Mission-Work in Ireland
(Pages 278-282)
-
John Evangelist Gossner (Pages 282-287)
-
Charlie's Grave (Page 287)
-
Good Words for Every Day in the Year (Pages
287-288)
-
God's Glory in the Heavens (Pages 289-292)
-
Bees and Beehives (Pages 292-296)
-
Faith and Reason (Page 296)
-
Be Not High-Minded, But Fear (Pages 297-299)
-
Bible Records or Remarkable Conversion
(Pages 299-303)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
303-304)
-
A Journey by Sinai to Syria (Pages 305-309)
-
Latimer in the Pulpit (Pages 309-312)
-
Lady Somerville's Maidens (Pages 313-316)
-
Meditations on Heaven (Pages 317-319)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
319-320)
-
A Summer's Study of Ferns (Pages 321-322)
-
Aspects of Indian Life During the Rebellion
(Pages 322-326)
-
Gone (Page 327)
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A Story of the Eighth Commandment (Pages
327-328)
-
Thanksgiving (Page 328)
-
Missionary Sketches (Pages 329-333)
-
A Friend of Sinners (Page 333)
-
The Spirit of Beauty (Pages 333-335)
-
Good Words for Every Day in the Year (Pages
335-336)
-
What Has Been Done In The Fiji Islands
(Pages 337-349)
-
Saul of Tarsus, A Choice Vessel (Pages
349-343)
-
What of Lay-Preaching? (Pages 343-344)
-
Old Betty (Page 344)
-
A Summer's Study of Ferns (Pages 345-346)
-
Aspects of Indian Life During the Rebellion
(Pages 347-350)
-
Isaiah XXXIII 17 (Page 351)
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Good Words for Every Day in the Year (Pages
351-352)
-
Lady Somerville's Maidens (Pages 353-356)
-
Aspects of Indian Life During the Rebellion
(Pages 356-360)
-
Coming Summer (Page 360)
-
What has been Done in the Fiji Islands
(Pages 361-364)
-
The Evils of Great Cities, and Some Recent
Remedies (Pages 364-366)
-
A Summer's Study of Ferns (Pages 366-367)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
367-368)
-
The Happy Warrior (Pages 369-373)
-
The Story of Cornelius (Pages 373-376)
-
Clouds (Page 376)
-
Dr Wichern and The Rauhes Haus (Pages
377-380)
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Penny Savings Banks (Pages 381-383)
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Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
383-384)
-
St. Columba (Pages 385-389)
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A Summer's Study of Ferns (Pages 390-391)
-
The Grave (Page 391)
-
Seeking (Pages 392-393)
-
Aspects of Indian Life During the Rebellion
(Pages 394-397)
-
Lady Somerville's Maidens (Pages 397-399)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
399-400)
-
St Columba (Pages 401-406)
-
Without and Within (Page 406)
-
A Summer's Study of Ferns (Pages 407-408)
-
What Has Been Done in the Fiji Islands
(Pages 408-411)
-
A Door Opened in Heaven (Pages 411-415)
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Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
415-416)
-
The Deformed Child (Pages 417-418)
-
The Serampore Missionaries (Pages 419-423)
-
A Summer's Study of Ferns (Pages 423-424)
-
The Caravansary of Bagdad (Pages 425-426)
-
Lady Somerville's Maidens (Pages 427-431)
-
A Living Chattel (Page 431)
-
Consolation (Page 431)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
431-432)
-
The Song of Antioch (Pages 433-438)
-
The Railway Station (Page 438)
-
True Commentaries (Page 438-439)
-
A Summer's Study of Ferns (Pages 439-440)
-
Lady Somerville's Maidens (Pages 441-445)
-
The Story of Cornelius (Pages 445-448)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Page
448)
-
Dr Wichern and The Rauhe House (Pages
449-453)
-
Journey by Sinai to Syria (Pages 453-456)
-
On the Atlantic (Pages 457-461)
-
Lady Somerville's Maidens (Pages 461-463)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
463-464)
-
God's Glory in the Heavens (Pages 465-468)
-
Highlanders at Home and Abroad (Pages
468-472)
-
Lady Somerville's Maidens (Pages 473-476)
-
Was it Spirit-Knocking? (Pages 477-479)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year (Pages
479-480)
-
Dr. Wichern and The Rauhe Haus (Pages
481-486)
-
Summer Sadness (Pages 486-488)
-
Lady Somerville's Maidens (Pages 489-492)
-
Life and Death (Pages 492-493)
-
Kidnapping (Pages 493-495)
-
Good Words for Every Day of the Year
(Pages 495-496)
-
A Woman's Work (Pages 497-500)
-
The Soul's Parting (Page 500)
-
The Gold Thread (Pages 500-504)
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Song (Page 504)
-
The Fatherless One (Page 504)
-
The Lord's Prayer
(Page 506)
-
Massacre of
Christians in Syria (Page 545)
From the 1875 edition edited by the Rev.
Donald MacLeod
Good Words
for 1878
Edited by Donald MacLeod, D.D., one of her Majesty's Chaplains for
Scotland.
Other volumes of Good Words
can be read on the
Internet Archive
and also on
The Online Books Page
Farewell to Fuinary
IT may not be uninteresting to those readers
of Good Words who remember the “Reminiscences
of a Highland Parish,” by Norman Macleod, whether as they first
appeared in these pages or in their subsequent form, to hear something
more of the old home, although in this case it is the closing chapter in
the history of the family of the Manse.
My chief difficulty in writing on such a subject arises from the natural
delicacy experienced in speaking of near relatives. But this is in a
measure overruled by knowing that the interest springs not wholly from
what was personal to them, and that it may not be without use for us who
walk in the conventionalisms of modem life to have our thoughts for a
while directed to other times and simpler ways.
It is now an open secret that the Highland parish of the Reminiscences
was Morven, in Argyllshire. For the long period of one hundred and eight
years this parish was under the pastoral care of two men, father and
son, respectively named Norman Macleod and John Macleod. Norman Macleod,
the grandfather of him who wrote the Reminiscences, was minister there
for nearly fifty years. Sixteen children were born to him and to his
calm, courageous wife, Jean Morison, in the Manse of Fuinary. Of these
only two sons survived manhood. The eldest, named after his father,
became distinguished elsewhere and the youngest, John, succeeded him,
when the old man — having become so blind with age that he had to be
placed in the pulpit with his face to the people when he addressed
them—retired from active duty. This son, the late Dr. John Macleod, of
Morven, continued to minister in the same place for fifty-eight years,
till he entered into his rest last May.
Running parallel to the story of the Manse was that of the little
cottage by the shore, where “Ruari Beag”—best of boatmen and most
faithful “minister’s man”—and his son Alastair lived. A hundred and
eight years ago Ruari (Anglicl, Roderick, or “Rory”) I do not dwell here
on the career and character of our revered father, Norman Macleod, D.D.,
of St. Columba, Glasgow, as I have had an opportunity of doing so,
however briefly, in the Memoir of my brother, Norman Macleod, D.D. had
come with the minister from Skye to be his servant, and, by a species of
apostolic succession, not without its own sanctities, Ruari’s son
Alastair succeeded his father in the cottage, with its relative duties,
just as the son at the Manse succeeded the old minister. Now, as
Alastair predeceased his master by little more than a twelvemonth, we
have the rare picture of a service faithfully and continuously rendered
for more than a century.
Dr. John Macleod, better known in the Highlands by the sobriquet of “the
High Priest of Morven,” was in many respects a remarkable man, and his
life, from its nobility and simplicity, is instructive as it was
picturesque. He was a giant in stature—measuring six feet nine
inches—and of an iron frame. No one could meet him, however cursorily,
without experiencing a certain wonder at the vision of this notable
figure, with its grand head of snow-white hair, towering above the
crowd. Many of the freshest pictures of that open-air training of the
boys of the Manse, which give a charm to the “Reminiscences of the
Highland Parish,” are borrowed as much from the life of John Macleod as
from that of his elder brother.
He had been trained in seamanship by Ruari Beag, taught by him to hold
the helm when the weather was fair, or to obey orders when the little
boat was steered in the teeth of the gale by the old boatman, with the
one eye that glittered in the hour of danger with wakeful anxiety as it
took in the force of the coming squall or the “set” of the tide. Trained
in such a school he himself became an accomplished steersman, and was
possessed of a thorough knowledge of every rock and tide-way for many a
league round the stormy Western Isles. He had a passion for the sea, and
gave vent to his love in more than one fine boat-song — in Gaelic as
well as English — breathing the very spirit of the waves and of the
sceneiy of the lochs and breezy headlands. In his youth he had been a
keen sportsman, and not a few of the best stories he related in his old
age were taken from his hunting adventures after wild cats on the hill,
or from the feats of favourite terriers dragging out huge
otters from their haunts at the Clachorain (Otter-rock) on the lonely
shore.
At a very early age he was ordained successor to his father, and the
cure of such a parish entailed such toils as are little dreamt of in the
rural districts of the Lowlands of Scotland or in the rich English
counties. The Highlands had not then undergone the transition which has
depopulated the glens and effaced so many of its best traditions. Morven
was then—and is even yet in its desolation — intensely Highland. The
stream of tourists passes its shores, but few ever care to land there,
and the consequence is that, to the present day, little. English is
heard among the people, while not a few of the older inhabitants
scarcely understand it. The parish is enormous, containing 130 square
miles, and having something approaching 100 miles of seaboard. At the
commencement of his ministry there were in it 2,000 inhabitants (now
there are about 600) scattered in hamlets and in lonely cottages. There
are two parish churches, nine miles apart, where services have to be
maintained. Yet, for many a day, every person in this wide region was
regularly examined once a year; a book was kept in which the state of
the religious knowledge of each individual was carefully entered, and
the subjects noted which had been recorded for preparation before the
next “visitation.” The labour which these duties implied, in addition to
those of visiting the sick, marrying and baptizing, and holding prayer
meetings in distant parts, was very great. Often had the young minister,
like his father before him, to be away for days and nights in his open
boat, sometimes, when benighted or storm-stayed, being compelled to take
shelter behind a wall or rock till the day dawned or the weather
moderated. Olten had he to stride across mountain and moor to visit some
dying parishioner, not completing his thirty or forty miles’ march till
“late in the gloaming” when followed by the terriers, his unfailing
companions, he returned to Fuinary.
Once a brother minister from the Lowlands was on a visit at the Manse
and insisted on accompanying him on one of these long ministerial walks.
This Lowlander was a big, soft man, not a little conceited nor
indisposed to sneer at the “imaginary” difficulties of a Highland
parish. Nothing would now dissuade him from braving the hills and seeing
“the worst of it.” A cottage here and a hamlet there were visited in
passing, and at last the far-off sickbed having been reached, and the
chief object of the day being accomplished, a different and shorter
route was taken for home. Hitherto the Lowland brother had greatly
enjoyed his outing, for the scenery had been wild and romantic. But as
evening began to fall his increasing silence betrayed increasing
fatigue. At last a point was reached where there was in front a broad
tarn and beyond it a dark mountain wall. The terriers plunged into the
water and swam straight off. “Where is the road?” anxiously inquired the
Southerner. “That which the dogs have taken,” was the reply. “What,
through that loch?” “There is none other,” said Macleod. This was too
much for the critical visitor, who then and there declined to budge a
foot. There was no help for it, so stooping down and getting the weary
Presbyter on his back, the giant minister strode through the loch and
deposited his burden on the farther shore. Nor were his adventures then
over, for as night fell on the long slope leading down to Fuinary, the
strength of the good Lowlander fairly deserted him, and the Manse had to
be reached by the parish minister undertaking once more the burden with
which he had crossed the tarn. The life indeed of the minister of this
Highland parish was more like that of such missionary bishops as Selwyn
or Pattison, making a large demand on physical energy as well as on
pastoral zeal.
A fine feature in his life was his love of the old home and of his
parishioners. The living—never valuable—was long a miserably poor one.
Yet although frequently offered promotion to some of the best parishes
and offices to which a clergyman of the Church of Scotland could aspire,
he never could summon courage to bid farewell to the familiar scenes of
his youth or to the flock, every member of which he reckoned a personal
friend. There was something of the grotesque in the manner in which,
after being at first tempted for the sake of his family to entertain
these proposals, he inevitably experienced the rebound of feeling which
as inevitably ended in the sudden declinature. Once when he went to see
an eligible parish the presentation to which had been put within his
power, he overtook an old woman on the moorland road leading to it.
“They tell me,” said she, seeing he was a clergyman, “that we canna be
forced noo to tak’ ony minister a patron may present.” “That is true—but
there is also another law.” “And what may that be?” inquired the old
body, peering curiously up to the countenance that towered above her.
“Only this, that neither can any minister be forced to take a parish!”
This is not the place, nor is it my object, to speak of his personal or
ministerial gifts, nor of the good work he did for his Church and for
the Highlands. His power as a preacher, great as it was, was not equal
to his gifts as a debater and pleader. “I am thankful that that big
uncle of yours was not a barrister,” an eminent counsel said to me after
an ecclesiastical “case” in which the minister of Morven had gained his
point over a strong opposing bar, “for few of us would have had a chance
with him.” The Church he served bestowed upon him the highest honour in
her gift, and the Queen showed her appreciation of his useful and
consistent life by conferring on him the offices of Dean of the Thistle,
and Dean of the Chapel Royal.
His later years were spent in pathetic loneliness. He had seen his
parish almost emptied of its people. Glen after glen had been turned
into sheep-walks, and the cottages in which generations of gallant
Highlanders had lived and died were unroofed, their torn walls and
gables left standing like mourners beside the grave, and the little
plots of garden or of cultivated enclosure allowed to merge into the
moorland pasture. He had seen every property in the parish change hands,
and though, on the whole, kindly and pleasant proprietors came in the
place of the old families, yet they were strangers to the people,
neither understanding their language nor their ways. The consequence was
that they perhaps scarcely realised the havoc produced by the changes
they inaugurated. "At one stroke of a pen,” he said to me, with a look
of sadness and indignation, “two hundred of the people were ordered off
--. There was not one of these whom I did not know and their fathers
before them; and finer men and women never left the Highlands.” He thus
found himself the sole remaining link between the past and present —the
one man above the rank of a peasant who remembered the old days and the
traditions of the people. The sense of change was intensely saddened as
he went through his parish and passed ruined houses here, there, and
everywhere. “There is not a smoke there now,” he used to say with pathos
of the glens which he had known tenanted by a manly and loyal peasantry,
among whom lived song and story and the elevating influences of brave
traditions. His domestic solitude for twenty years was even more
touching. Bereaved of wife and daughters, and with his sons gone from
him into life, he was left alone in the old home which had once been so
full of happy voices. But those who visited him will not easily forget
the patriarchal dignity of his bearing and the courtly manners of this
Highlander of the old school, nor those quiet strolls by Fingal’s Hill
or down to the favourite seat overlooking the Sound of Mull —Rory’s
cottage nestling on the shore beneath, the white-winged sea-birds
screaming over the tide-way, and the grand mountains of Mull beyond
flooded with the splendour of the western sky. It was then that the old
man delighted to pour forth his stores of anecdote and legend. Sometimes
he would point out the blackened ruins of a distant homestead, and
recount the annals of the family who had dwelt there. Sometimes he would
tell of phases of Highland life and character long passed away—of the
old woman, for example, who lived in a far-off glen, and who seemed to
be filled more with half-heathen legends than Christian ideas. “Often
have I gone to see her, determined to press religion home on her heart,
but no sooner had I talked a little than she would break out — 'Very
true, minister, and what you say puts me in mind of the Black Knight and
the Waterfall, and how he was freed from his doom,’ and then would she
give in graphic Gaelic some legend so remarkable in its mythic teaching
that my interest became absorbed, and, to my great discontent, I found
when I came away that I had been more of a listener than an instructor.
Once to our astonishment the poor body appeared at the Manse. How she
came so far I know not, but nothing could exceed her weird look as she
addressed the house—‘Oh, Fuinary, Fuinary! you are smiling to-day, but
well do I remember when you and many another house in Morven was smoking
to heaven,’ alluding to the suppression of the rebellion in I745-” .
The solitude and silence of the place in those later times were quite
“eerie,” and yet for twenty years he abode there alone without a murmur,
doing good work for his Church and country. In his loneliness he made
friends with the birds, and it was something to see this gigantic man as
he paced down the gravel walk followed by the robins and chaffinches he
had tamed, or to notice how they would perch upon his feet or flutter on
his shoulder as he sat at the door. The cawing rookery in the trees was
a continual study. There was not a crow there whose character he did not
know. “There goes that old scoundrel again,” he would say with a ripple
of appreciative mirth; “his one object in life is to avoid labour and to
steal the sticks the others have carried. Look at the rogue!”
The rest of his life was in sweet keeping with its previous course. He
was able, almost to the last hour, to go out and gaze on the scenes he
loved so well; but an accidental fall so hurried the close that his
sons, who had been constant in their attentions, were unable to reach
home before the end came. As he had lived, so he died. Calling his
household round his bed, he offered up, with a strong calm voice, prayer
in Gaelic for them and all he loved—and soon afterwards, and without
speaking another word, he fell asleep in Christ.
His funeral was most impressive. I went with the others to Morven in a
day of glory, and there are few grander scenes in Europe than that which
meets the eye between Oban and Loch Aline: Linnhe Loch with the massive
ranges of Glen Coe and Ben Nevis; Loch Etive with its guardian
“Shepherds” and the giant Cruachan; the coast of Lome and its frontier
of scattered islands reaching into the shimmering haze of the Atlantic;
and then Mull with Duart; and on to the precipices of Morven, by lonely
Unnimore and the grey Ardtomish, till Loch Aline (Loch of Beauty) is
reached. The drive to Fuinary was through a portion of the Highland
Parish which had become, like so many other districts of the Highlands,
sadly depopulated. Even a stranger must be struck by the marks of
change; but to those who knew something of “what once had been,” all
appeared intensely melancholy. A tree and some grassy mounds marked
thespotwhere stoodthehouse of the good Samuel Cameron, the schoolmaster
described in the Highland Parish and with whom Norman Macleod lived as
aboy and gained most of the little Gaelic he had and an insight into
much healthy Highland life. And then came some roofless walls marking
the home of the old tacksman of Auchenaha, where the first minister
found the best of wives, the good mother of the sixteen children ; and
then the mill of Savary, where had lived “Donald of the Mill,” of whose
blood came David Livingstone. Donald had been out with the Prince in “
the forty-five,” and had secured at Culloden the colours of his chief by
running off with them wrapped round his body. Many a story had our
father told us of the old Cateran—of how he used to gather secretly his
brother Jacobites once a year to drink “a health to Charlie,” and after
quaffing the whisky, how he would crush the pewter stoup in his hand and
fling it away, lest any other name than that of the Prince should be
associated with it. When he was old, “Donald of the Mill” was crossing
Savary when the stream was in flood. Donald, in his kilt, had got
astride between two stepping stones, and, stiff from age, found that he
could not lift either foot without falling into the torrent that raged
between, and so there and then our father, who was then a boy, found the
old savage in a towering passion and pouring out curses in Gaelic on the
evils of old age! All are gone, and the place that once knew them knows
them no more! The hillside, which had once borne a happy people, and
echoed the voices of joyous children, is now a silent sheep-walk. The
supposed necessities of Political Economy have effected the exchange,
but the day may come when the country may feel the loss of the loyal and
brave race which has been driven away, and find a new meaning perhaps in
the old question, “Is not a man better than a sheep?” They who “would
have shed their blood like water” for Queen and country, are in other
lands, Highland still, but expatriated for ever—
“From the dim abieling.on the misty island,
Mountains divide us and a world of seas,
But still our hearts are true, our hearts are Highland,
And in our dreams we behold the Hebrides.
Tall are these mountains and these woods are grand,
But we are exiled from our fathers’ land.”
The funeral was next day, and nearly the
whole male population of the parish, rich and poor, were there, with
others from a distance, and the Roman Catholic priest of the district
among them. Old men were there with wrinkled faces and weather-bleached
hair, and home-spun garments redolent of peatreek, and young fisher-lads
and strong shepherds with their plaids and cromachs. In Highland fashion
the huge coffin was carried all the way for five miles to the grave, now
shoulder high and again upon stretchers, and borne along by eighteen
stalwart men at a time, almost every parishioner taking his turn. As the
dark procession left the empty house and wound down the familiar path to
the shore, there seemed to be more than the living present there. The
forms of the dead and gone, and the happy voices of old times seemed the
nearer because of the very solitude of the land through which we moved.
The tones of my father’s song, written more than seventy years ago, and
which every West Highlander knows so well, were ringing in my heart:—
“Eirich agus tingain, O,
Eirich agus tingain, O,
Eirich agus tingain, O,
Farewell, farewell to Fuinary.
A thousand, thousand tender ties
Awake this day my plaintive sighs;
My heart within me almost dies
At thought of leaving Fuinary."
And so amid the sunshine and shower which
mingled their light and shadow as in sympathy with thoughts at once
bright and sorrowful, was the good minister of Morven carried to the
church-yard of Kiel, past the green hill crowned with the ancient Iona
Cross —standing in relief against the distant landscape of sea and
mountain—and there by the reverent hands of those who loved him, his
ashes were laid among those of his own dear ones.
Good Words 1882
Edited by Donald MacLeod D.D. (pdf) |