Donald Mackenzie was a missionary in the congregation from 1903-1911.

From the Free Presbyterian Magazine of June 1946, Vol 51(2):34-37.

The late Mr. Donald Mackenzie.

Mr. Donald Mackenzie, who died at the Home of Rest, Inverness, on the 17th day of June, 1944, was nearly 79 years of age at the time of his death, having been born in October, 1867. He was born at Clashmore, Stoer, his father being a crofter there. When he was four year old, the family removed to another part of the same district, called Achnacarnin.

We have no means of ascertaining how this faithful servant of Christ came to a saving knowledge of the truth, but that he did so was evident, as he was for a long period of his life a living epistle of the Saviour, known and read of the many who knew him. He appears to have been blessed by the Lord with spiritual discernment when he was a young man. There are two parts of a diary which he left which at any rate show his exercises of soul when serving as a steward on the S.S. Scot, which was sailing in those days to South Africa. He was then about thirty-three years of age. He told once and again of how he was disliked, and, as far as men dared, ill-treated, on account of refusing to do unnecessary work on board ship on the Lord’s Day. As far as we recollect, he was at last reported to the captain. It was arranged that Donald was given a post in the hospital part of the ship, where, to a great extent at least, he was free from all work except what was needful and of mercy on the Sabbath. As the portions left in his diary show, as far as they go, his exercises of mind, we quote some of them here. From a pretty full account of a voyage in 1900 to Capetewn, we take the following:-

“On entering the Bay of Biscay, each had sufficient to do to hold on by his bed. I was thrown out of bed twice by the tossing of the ship. Being still getting weaker, the thought turned up if this should be the time of my departure, and pondering over it for a time how to appear before the great White Throne, having nothing to justify myself with for a while I was in deep waters, but blessed be the Holy One who has called the light to shine out of darkness. He has shined a ray of the light of His infallible truth in my heart, by which I was enabled to see in some measure the Beloved of the Father making intercession for us at His right hand. After draining up the cup of the Father’s wrath due to us by the fall of our first parents, I thought that I saw the wounds in this Adorable One’s hands and feet and His side, — while He pled with the Father, ‘Father, I will that they whom Thou gavest me be with me where I am, that they may see the glory which Thou gavest me,’ and a glimpse of the Father’s delight in redeeming those for His beloved One’s sake. The glory of being with Him where He is made me cry out, ‘Not my will, but Thy will be done,’ — seeing nothing in the world worth looking after…Very early on the 29th, I rose and scrambled up to the boat deck to view the dreary scene … the waves lashing over the hurricane deck … to my surprise I heard a cock crowing, with which my mind was much taken up. Everything looked dismal, dark and dreary, yet the cock was crowing that the day is coming. To my mind it appeared so little a poor soul in the depth of affliction. On every side there was darkness, — there was danger of being swept into eternity with one wave any moment, and so it is with the awakened soul. But God’s Word is crowing aloud that the day is coming. So, O gracious soul, rest satisfied that the day is coming in which you will be set free from all the waves that may surround you while you are sailing on the sea to the shore of Zion. On my entering among the passengers, I could only hear blaspheming talk against the sea and ship, but none recalling to mind the might of Him who ruleth over sea and land.”

In another portion of July 1901, he describes a dream which he had in which he saw the late godly elder, James McKenzie, and his late grandson, John McKenzie. They all sang Psalm 105, and in the dream Donald was “melted down with the power of love into a flow of tears of joy.” James McKenzie said to his grandson John and to Donald that both of them would yet enjoy it in glory, but John replied that he was already doing so (being already there), but “through a deep sense of my depravity, I kept silent, hoping yet fearing — when a messenger came and handed me a registered and sealed letter, and in opening the letter, I awoke out of my sleep. The truth sung gave me sweet meditation all day. Blessed be His Holy name.”

He left, in addition, many portions of the truth which were evidently made precious to him by the Holy Spirit. He did not refer to his own thoughts upon these portions, but has quotations interspersing them from Bunyan, Boston, S. Rutherford and others, from whose writings he evidently derived some comfort. We note a few of those quotations: —

“Where sin lies heavy, afflictions lie light.”

“If you fled from Satan’s kingdom, you will soon hear from him. Those whom he cannot destroy, he is determined to distress.”

“A family without regular government is a nursery for Satan’s kingdom.”

“Death is the carriage which God sends for His people, lined with the blood of Christ, and the angels drive it.”

“They who have bastard holiness are like common boatmen, who serve themselves with their own oars, whereas the ship bound to Immanuel’s Land sails by the blowing of the Divine Spirit.” “Things which are bitter to Christians in the passing through are very sweet in the reflection of them.”

“Humility qualifies for the accomplishment of the promises. Faith sucks the breast of it, and patient waiting hangs by the breast till milk comes abundantly” (Boston).

“The Christian’s life here is designed to be a life of faith, and though faith may act more easily that it has some help from sense, yet it certainly acts more nobly when it acts over the belly of sense. Then it is pure faith when it stands only on its own native legs — the power and the word of God” Rom. 4:19-20 (Boston).

Donald Mackenzie was clearly a man of God-given experience in the work of the Holy Spirit, and knew deeply the evil and unbelief of man’s heart. He served for many years as a Missionary of the F.P. Church in Lochinver and Stoer, in Kinlochbervie, Plockton and Laide. He was a man who grasped well the constitutional position of our Church — that the late Mr. Macfarlane, by the upholding hand and guidance of the Lord, was enabled to keep intact the constitution of the Free Church as laid down in 1843, when it was shattered by Dr. Rainy and his followers,.

For a number of years, the late Mr. Mackenzie was laid aside from public usefulness through weakness. He lived, and was kindly attended to, in the home of his life-long friend, Mr. James Mackay, Edinburgh. Latterly he came to the well-known Home of Rest in Inverness where he remained, and got all the treatment suitable for him in his state of ill-health, to the end. He was regularly visited in· Inverness as the elders of the congregation there conduct a weekly meeting at the Home, and many friends, having occasion to be in Inverness, visited him.

As it is needless to alter anything in the following, I here insert what Mr. F. Beaton, elder, Inverness, wrote to me on the closing period of Mr. Mackenzie’s life:

“During the last four years or so of his life, Donald Mackenzie resided at the Inverness Christian Home of Rest. For the first two years there, he was able to attend Church services fairly regularly and to pay occasional visits to friends in town. Later, however, the periodic attacks of his trouble confined him more indoors, but, whenever able, he took part in the exercises of the weekly prayer-meeting held at the Home by our Inverness elders. After the meeting, the elders accompanied him to his room to listen to his edifying conversation or to be entertained to their delight, with his rich fund of notes and anecdotes of the worthies of the past, many of whom, he knew, or to hear some of his own experiences. These visits always concluded with worship when Donald was regularly required to lead in prayer, which he did with affecting, humble, holy boldness. He greatly enjoyed being visited by the Lord’s people, and they found it profitable to visit him. During his last eighteen months here his mind was remarkably bright and uplifted.”

He enjoyed much of the Lord’s presence, the adversary was kept at a distance and the carnal mind· held in check by his gracious Lord. His friends noted that he was rapidly ripening for the “rest that remaineth to the people of God.” He suffered a stroke. During the last three weeks he could scarcely speak and passed gently to where “the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick.”

We take leave to quote a few lines from a letter written by Mr. Alex. Mackay, Staffin, and also from one written by Mr. James Mackay.

Mr. Mackay, Staffin, wrote to a friend: “I still well remember, when first hearing about him, I was then called to my present calling as a Missionary, and I was hearing that Donald was a much experienced Christian and an able speaker in public. I, feeling so altogether backward in these qualifications, had a sense of dread in my mind to meet him, but it happened that I went to the Applecross Communion, and was told that Donald was there. He was among those first called to speak to the question, and I had my ears well trimmed for listening. The first remark that he made was that those referred to, as to the question, had a day in which sin was a sweet morsel to them, and when I heard that remark, all the sense of dread that I was under, relative to Donald, melted away as the sun melts the snow in summer. I felt bold enough to go to speak to him after we got out, and it was seldom I have been any time in his company ever afterwards, without finding some edifying.”

Mr. James Mackay remarks:-

“I always held him as a man deeply taught of the Holy Ghost, and faithful in his calling as a Missionary. We can see some things he solemnly warned us of taking place in the present troubles in the Church. Donald Mackenzie was a true friend in time of trouble. May the Lord raise others like-minded to warn this poor generation.”

We conclude with one of Donald’s own notes regarding John Bunyan: – “John Bunyan’s comfort in prison was drawn from 2 Pet. 1:16; John 14:1-4; 16:33; Col. 3:3-4; Heb. 12:22-24. Strengthened by these he feared neither the horse nor his rider.” And Donald Mackenzie is for ever beyond the horse and his rider.