From the Free Presbyterian Magazine, Dec. 1995, Vol 100(12):357-363.

The Reverend Donald Beaton Macleod MA

Edinburgh

When, on the 16th day of January, the news of the passing from time to eternity of the Rev DB Macleod spread throughout the church and the wider community, the deep sense of sorrow and loss which was felt by those who heard it bore ample testimony to the regard in which he was held. To the godly, especially, who discerned in him “one who feared. God and eschewed evil,” it was sad and heavy tidings indeed. An alert and faithful watchman had been removed from the walls of Sion and the loss sustained seemed to be irreparable. It had pleased the Head to suddenly translate him to the church triumphant in heaven when we regarded him as being at the height of his usefulness to the church militant on earth. But He who reigns in heaven and earth, who sees the end from the beginning, whose counsel shall stand, and who will do all His pleasure, had so ordered it; and it becomes all who acknowledge His sovereignty to be acquiescent to His will. Surely His thoughts are not our thoughts!

The subject of our obituary was born in the Evelix manse on 16th October, 1929. His father, the Rev Finlay Macleod, a native of Kishorn, had been settled over the Dornoch congregation in 1926 and was to pass through great trials in the course of his ministry there. His mother was a daughter of the renowned and erudite Rev Donald Beaton who was, for more than forty years, a Theological Tutor and also served as Clerk of Synod and Editor of the Free Presbyterian Magazine. The parents were to give the name of his grandfather to their first-born son and, in the Lord’s holy and wonderful providence, he was, in turn, to serve the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in these same offices.

From his early youth, he had set his mind on following a seafaring career. At the age of sixteen he left Dornoch Academy and, after attending the Leith Nautical College for a period of time, he went to sea, first of all as a cadet with the Ellerman Line. In due course he passed the examination which was to place him on the first rung of the promotion ladder, but having by then undergone a spiritual change, he elected to bring his seafaring career to an end; his thoughts were now directed towards serving, in the ministry of the Gospel, the One whom he now owned as his Lord and Saviour. Where, and in what circumstances, the forementioned spiritual change took place we are unable to say; nor have we any information as to the nature of his spiritual exercise in connection with his call to the ministry. He was not wont to speak of these personal matters; they were precious and sacred to him relating, as they did, to the Lord’s secret dealings with his soul. It can, however, be safely asserted, from what others recall, that the young seafarer returning to Dornoch had become ‘a new creature’ and, also, that it was not without searching of heart, and not without receiving light on the path of duty, that he approached the Kirk-session with a view to being received as a student studying for the ministry of the church.

Before any steps could be taken in connection with the resumption of of full-time education, it was necessary for him, now that he had left the Merchant Navy, to do two years National Service in the Army and for most of that period (1952 to 1954) he was stationed in the Isle of Wight instructing soldiers in the art of navigating and handling boats. He had been received as a member in full communion by the London Kirk-session on 12th April, 1952, but the following year his name had been placed, by disjunction certificate, on the Dornoch and Rogart congregation’s communion roll, and it was that congregation’s Kirk-session which recommended him to the Northern Presbytery as one worthy of being received as a student studying for the ministry of the Church. On 2nd February, 1954, he was received by that Court. After obtaining the necessary qualifications for entry to a university, he matriculated at Edinburgh University in October 1954, and three years later he graduated with a Master of Arts degree. One of his degree subjects had been Hebrew and with the encouragement of the Training of the Ministry Committee he extended his period of study of that language over another session while he, also, by correspondence with the Church Tutors, covered the work prescribed for students entering the first year of their theological studies. There followed a full session of theological studies in Portree under the tutorship of the Rev Donald MacLean and the following year he completed his studies, partly under the tutorship of Rev Angus F Mackay, in Inverness, and partly under that of the Rev Malcolm MacSween, in Oban.

In addition to his Hebrew studies in Edinburgh he, also, in 1959, attended a ten-week course in modern Hebrew in London. This interest in the language of the Jews was an indication of where he felt himself led to exercise his ministry. His desire was to be instrumental in bringing the Gospel to their ears. But it was not to be. Some members of the Synod were of the view that the time was inopportune and that the door to mission work among the Jews was not sufficiently open for him to enter. The Court having come to this decision, he meekly acquiesced in it. It was thus in his native Sutherland, but on its West coast in Kinlochbervie that he was ordained and inducted. This was the newly-sanctioned charge of Kinlochbervie and Scourie and he was thus to be the first Free Presbyterian minister to be settled in these parts. There was, as yet, no manse built so the minister and his wife set up home in rented accommodation in Scourie but when, after some time, the Lairg manse became vacant they moved into it and it was from that base that he was to travel the many miles necessary in order to fulfil his pastoral duties. The Scourie and Kinlochbervie congregation much regretted his departure from among them in 1962 when he accepted a call to the London congregation but the bonds of friendships which were then formed were to remain strong for the rest of his life. After eight years in London, he accepted a call to the joint congregation of Lairg, Bonar and Dornoch, and when the Rev D A MacFarlane’s long ministry in Dingwall came to an end on his retirement in 1973, it was the Lairg minister who was to be his successor. The induction to the Dingwall-Beauly charge took place in the Dingwall church on 13th January 1976.

The Dingwall years were to be perhaps the most eventful of his ministry, certainly the most difficult. It was becoming increasingly apparent that there was in the Northern Presbytery an element which was determined to make the Church a more ecumenically-orientated body and Mr Macleod a=and others like-minded with him did their utmost to resist this movement, knowing full well that in proportion to the extent to which it would prevail, so the witness and testimony of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland would be weakened and impaired. Over the years many difficult cases were dealt with, some of which were to reach the floor of the Synod before being finally disposed of by that superior court. Things came to a head in 1989 when those ministers and elders who were to form the APCs removed themselves from the Synod and the majority of those who followed them came, not unsurprisingly, from congregations within the Northern Presbytery, some of which were left almost decimated. But even in the congregations most affected there remained a faithful remnant. No congregation could possibly be favoured with a more diligent, loving pastor than the Dingwall-Beauly congregation; nevertheless, a considerable number removed themselves from his faithful ministry. The deliberate severing of the tie which bound them to a godly pastor, and which entailed the placing of themselves outside his pastoral oversight and prayers, was a more solemn and serious matter than those concerned realised and for their action in doing so they will yet have to give account. The Dingwall FP minister, over the course of these difficult days and months which followed the 1989 Synod, did not spare himself. Supply was organised, services were arranged, and, largely through his efforts, the Church’s witness continued, even in places where the APCs thought they had carried all before them.

In the south, the Edinburgh congregation was, in 1989, reduced to a very small but a faithful remnant and it was to them that Mr Macleod was to devote the last years of his ministry. His induction took place on 14th June, 1991. Within a few months the APCs voluntarily handed back the Gilmore Place church to its rightful owners and Free Presbyterian services were resumed within it. We have no doubt that Mr Macleod regarded this unexpected development as an answer to prayer. It was certainly an encouragement to him as was also the fact that he was to witness, with the passing of time, a modest increase in the number of worshippers attending. Just when the future appeared to be looking brighter, it pleased his Master suddenly to call him into His own presence to receive His commendation and reward. On Sabbath, 15th January, he preached morning and evening in his own pulpit and apparently in good health, Early on Monday morning, however, he felt unwell and the doctor was summoned but initially there appeared to be no cause for alarm.

The doctor recommended that he should be taken to a hospital for tests and in order to make matters easier for his wife suggested that an ambulance be called. Before the ambulance arrived, however, or the doctor for the second time, our friend and colleague, sitting in a chair, had shut his eyes and quietly taken his last breath; his soul had departed ‘‘to be with Christ; which is far better.’ The funeral, on 20th January, was from the Gilmore Place Church and was very largely attended. His mortal remains were buried out of sight in Morningside Cemetery, there to rest until the trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ shall rise to meet Him.

In one of the obituaries printed in the public Press one writer commented an that the Rev D B Macleod was ‘‘never off-duty’’ by which was meant that he was from morning till night absorbed in the service of his Master. Time was precious to him, a commodity to be redeemed and not squandered, because the days were evil. Every duty undertaken was performed to the best of his ability and it was a source of wonder to many how one frail back was able to carry so many burdens all at once. In May 1966, the Synod appointed him Convener of the Religion and Morals Committee and three years later Editor of The Free Presbyterian Magazine, On the death of the Rev Malcolm MacSween, he was appointed a theological tutor with special responsibility for the teaching of Hebrew, Old Testament , Pastoral Theology and Church History. When the Rev Donald Campbell passed away, he took on, in 1984, the responsibilities of the Convenership of the Dominions and Overseas Committee. He had a very special interest in the Ballifeary Home of Rest and from 1989 was Convener of the committee responsible for its administration. In 1990 he was appointed Clerk of Synod and he performed the duties of that office faithfully and efficiently. For many years he was a member of the Trinitarian Bible Society and at the time of his death was one of its vice-presidents.

Mr Macleod had a great interest in, and concern for, our congregations in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. He not only visited them himself as a deputy; he, also, did his utmost to move others to do. However busy he was, he still found time to correspond with friends overseas and for that reason, among others, they felt his death keenly. As a member of the Jewish and Foreign Missions Committee, he took a very active interest in our African mission. When the prospect of extending our mission work beyond Zimbabwe to Malawi and Kenya became real, it was he, who, in 1987, willingly undertook to spend three months in Africa, at Ingwenya most of the time, patiently tutoring in theology three Kenyan and three Malawian men who had been recommended as likely to be useful in the service of the Church. From then on he endeavoured to visit these countries as often as he could and it was very evident that his desire and prayer to God on behalf of poor benighted African sinners was that they might be saved.

For twenty-five years he edited the Free Presbyterian Magazine and in doing so did his level best to produce, month after month, a periodical which maintained the standard of spirituality set by his predecessors while including polemical and topical articles as the circumstances required. His “Notes and Comments’’ indicated that he was alert to all that was happening in the world around him, in both the secular and ecclesiastical spheres, and when it was necessary to make known the Church’s view on moral questions, he did so in very plain and unequivocal terms. The number of letters which were written by appreciative readers of the magazine, some of them living far firth of these shores, bears eloquent tribute to his abilities as an editor. The proofs of the February issue were in his hands for correction at the time of his death. It was very significant that his last editorial, written just before laying down his pen forever, bears the title: “Death, Judgment and Eternity.” The tenor of the article reveals that the writer was much aware of these solemn realities himself and one wonders if, as his pen flowed, he was not somehow aware of the fact that he was shortly to finish his own course and that the time of his departure was at hand.

His diligence as a pastor was well known. Many will remember him, and not only within the bounds of his own congregation, as the one who punctually arrived at their homes seeking to comfort them when passing through affliction or experiencing bereavement. Many a hospital bed he stood beside praying for the sick and directing attention to the greatest Physician of all. He often recalled words which one of his Primary School teachers often drew attention to and urged her pupils to live by: “I shall pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do, let me do it now; for I shall not pass this way again.’’ Her loving advice was not lost on him. As a preacher of the everlasting Gospel he set life and death solemnly and faithfully before his hearers. Christ and Him crucified was a theme never far from his mind and never absent from his sermons. He was well-endowed intellectually but his humility and modesty were such that this was perhaps properly appreciated only by those who were in close contact with him as, for instance, the students who attended his classes. In church courts he was wise, discerning and balanced in his judgment, and ever faithful to the Church’s constitution and testimony. He was invariably courteous and honest in his dealings with his fellow-men and evinced the spirit of His Master to a wonderful degree in that “when he was reviled, he reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not.”

A few weeks before his induction in Kinlochbervie, in 1960, he was joined in marriage to Miss Una M Macleod, of Edinburgh, and she was to be a faithful support and helpmeet to him over the years until death did them part. To them was born one son, who died in infancy, and four daughters. To his widow, daughters and sons-in-law we would desire to extend anew our sincere sympathy. We would, also, express our sympathy with his brother in London and his three sisters domiciled north of the border. The Edinburgh congregation has been bereft of a loving, faithful minister and we trust that the One who removed him will, in due time, provide them with another pastor, one after His own heart.

Donald Beaton Macleod entered upon his adult life a seafarer and he thus knew by experience what it meant to arrive at peaceful havens after having weathered mid-ocean storms. He saw menacing, fearful waves ahead, bearing down on the ship, but, on arrival, only to break themselves on her bow and fo’c’s’le head and then spend their remaining energy in the foam astern. His course through life was answerable to that. The storm has now been changed into a calm and the waves thereof are still; he has crossed over to Immanuel’s land.

“Then are they glad, because at rest

And quiet now they be:

So to the haven he them brings”

which they desired to see.”

John MacLeod