From the Free Presbyterian Magazine of October 1962, Vol 67(6):181-184.

The Late Alexander Macdonald

Scourie and Stoer

On 17th June, 1961, there passed away at a hospital in Aberdeen, Alexander Macdonald, an elder and missionary of our Church, formerly in the parish of Eddrachillis and latterly in the parish of Assynt, a man who bore the stamp of an upright, sincere, earnest and faithful Christian.

Alick Macdonald was born in Scourie in the parish of Eddrachillis and it was here that he spent most of his days apart from a period in the First World War and also the last two years of his life which he spent in Stoer in the parish of Assynt.

‘The Lord favoured him in it being his lot to be born into a family where he had the example of parents attentive to the things of God, his mother being a professing woman and highly regarded in the district. His parents were amongst others in Scourie who supported the testimony raised on the side of Truth in 1893, and who formed the Free Presbyterian congregation there. However, though there be many precious promises concerning those in the line of the godly to encourage such to follow on to know the Lord, yet grace is not hereditary, and Alick Macdonald grew up even as his companions — a stranger to grace and to God. Still, even when very young he was not altogether without impressions regarding his soul’s state for eternity, and had in those days what in later life he recognised to be the strivings of the Holy Spirit. When very young he would be afraid to close his eyes at night lest he should open them in a lost eternity. Yet these impressions of youth were but “as a morning cloud, and as the early dew.”

When Alick first came to a saving knowledge of the truth it is not easy to ascertain with certainty. Those who had very close acquaintance with him in the parish would put the time when he obtained a hope for his soul long before he professed publicly, perhaps as early as the 1920’s, although the way he expressed himself on one occasion to one of our missionaries might suggest a later date. It is often the case with those whose life outwardly is more or less conformed to the letter of God’s Word, that the actual time of the good work being done in the soul is more imperceptible, and Alick himself acknowledged that he could not put a finger, as it were, on a time or a place as some could do, but that the work was gradual. That he underwent a saving and blessed change in his experience was evident to all who knew him. In conversation with him, but especially hearing him speak to the Question on the Friday of a Communion his brethren could well discern the work of grace in his soul. In being brought to a saving knowledge of the Truth he had to confess that he was indebted to no man, but that the work was entirely of the Holy Spirit. This shows us that the Lord is free to work apart from the instrumentality of men, when it pleases Him, in bringing His Word to bear upon the souls of poor sinners.

Alick Macdonald was a long time not professing publicly his interest in the Saviour until the Lord made thiis duty a burden to him. His mind was greatly exercised about it especially in view of the low state of the Cause and also by a word from the Truth, the commandment given by Mordecai to Esther (Esther 4:13-14). On the Saturday of the Communion in Scourie, the day on which Alick came before the Session, one of our ministers in the course of his sermon went over much of what was passing through Alick’s mind and thus made his duty very clear to him. He was encouraged, therefore, to go forward in accordance with the Lord’s command to His people, “Do this in remembrance of Me,’’ and in the path of obedience Alick found, as Esther did, that instead of the threatening being executed, the contrary promise was in due time fulfilled in his case. From this experience he sometimes gave it as a mark of the Lord’s people that they receive good from the threatenings of the Word as well as from the promises.

The Presbytery and Kirk Sessions of which he was a member paid tribute to him as one who had a warm interest in, and a love to the gates of Zion and who was a frequent wrestler at the Throne of Grace, pleading for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom. They record, further, that he was a man well acquainted with the Word of God and well read in the Puritan divines, while in his life he was an epistle known and read by all men. His labours as a missionary were highly esteemed. He was gifted as a public speaker and laboured diligently to bring the claims of Christ before his fellow sinners.

Until the end of 1960 Alick appeared to be in the full vigour of his health but in the Spring of 1961, though only in his sixty-fourth year, he began to decline and was removed to hospital. He came home for a period but it was evident that there was little improvement. His wife said to him at this time that she felt he was going away from her. When he asked her how she thought that, she replied that she did not know unless it was the Lord weaning him from the world. Before long he was again taken away to hospital. On his death-bed in Aberdeen he was often praying and at other times in the Psalms. When his wife asked him whether the Saviour was with him, he answered, “I rest on the everlasting arms.’’ During his last days he suffered much in his body. However, at length the Lord’s time came and he entered, we believe, into that place where ‘‘the inhabitant shall not say I am sick’’, and where that promise is fulfilled, “thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off.”

May Mrs Macdonald, now left a widow, experience the truth of that word, “There is none like unto the God of Jeshuran who rideth upon the heaven in thy help and in His excellency on the sky,’’ and may the Lord so revveal Himself unto the two boys left fatherless that each will have to say, “The Lord is my strength and my song, and He is become my salvation; He is my God and I will. prepare Him an habitation, my father’s God and I will exalt Him.’’      D. B. Macleod