Murdoch Macdonald, Durness

Murdo Macdonald had a ministry in Durness of thirty-nine years. He was by all accounts a gifted individual and an impressive character. One modern writer, Ian Grimble, having no sympathy with evangelical religion, yet remarks on the benevolence of Macdonald’s character. 

He  was born in 1696 and educated at the Parish School in Fearn, Easter-Ross and thereafter at St Andrews University, graduating in 1722. He was for a time employed as a tutor in the family of Mackay of Rhenovie in the Strathnaver valley. He was licensed by the Presbytery of St Andrews in 1725 and the following year he was ordained by the Presbytery of Tongue as Parish Minister in Durness.

Most of what we know concerning him arises out of a diary that he kept for many years, which amounted to over 4000 pages of “very small but legible writing.” The contents of this diary has been described in a paper by Mr Hew Morrison published in 1885¹ and a book by Ian Grimble² wherein he used transcripts of the diary from a decendent of Mr Macdonald. The diary itself is not extant. Perversely, for those whose interest is in the spiritual life, Morrison wrote that: 

It is somewhat disappointing to find that the greater part of it is taken up with religion, that is, as a record of the spiritual experiences of the writer. It is an indicator of the rises and falls of the religious barometer. Each day’s sins are lamented and confessed, and the feelings which are supposed to indicate a retrogression are as carefully, though sorrowfully, recorded as are those which show an upward and forward advance in the higher life.

Macdonald is said to have been impressed with religious thoughts from an early age.

He was an evangelical minister and at times during his ministry, the sole one in the Tongue Presbytery. As the 18^th century progressed in Scotland, there was an increasing tendency for moderates to be in the majority in many presbyteries; probably the main reason being the imposition of the Church Patronage (Scotland) Act under Queen Anne that from 1711 had granted the right to the landowner, who was liable for the payment of the minister’s stipend and other temporal provision, the right of presentation to a parish, whatever minister they desired. For a spiritually minded landlord, the motivation was the spiritual well-being of the people, but for a worldly landlord, as they most often were, other factors were usually more significant. Thus to the east in the parish of Tongue the incumbent Rev Walter Ross, an uncle of Macdonald’s, was a thorough moderate who spent his days accumulating wealth and land and not so much in the way of preaching or pastoral duties. Likewise, further east in the parish of Farr, Rev John Skeldoch was perhaps more blatant still in his prosecution of his earthly interests which effectively alienated many of the people in that parish from him.Two notable exceptions to the moderates during Mr Macdonald’s time were, at the beginning, Rev George Brodie of Eddrachillis, and later in his ministry, Rev George Munro of Farr.

The excerpts that we have from his diary are mainly of those that are non-spiritual in nature, selected because of the interests of the writers who have perused it – Hew Morrison for historical insights of the times and Iain Grimble to support his consideration of the poetry of Robb Donn, and, at times, a platform for his anti-calvanist views and Jacobite sympathies. These entries include the following:

December 1937

I have been at more than ordinary pains in public and private with the people to incline them to consider their ways, and particularly because very few of them can read, I have been endeavouring to shame and frighten them out of their unaccountable neglect of getting the questions [Shorter Catechism], wherein the principles of the Protestant religion are most accurately and summarily set down, and my pains to this purpose for some seasons past have not been altogether useless.

16th January 1740:

Just now returned from the public work of thanksgiving, for which this day was set apart in testimony of our gratitude to God for a new year, and his goodness in the old. There was a collection of £416 sterling, which was added to the fund for pious uses in this parish, amounting now to above £60 sterling including the interest: is engrossed in the sum for which we have the security of the person of greatest distinction in the place, in whose hands we have lodged the money. Lord, it is thy goodness that the poor people in this parish have inclinations for such pious deeds, considering the deepness of their poverty which notwithstanding seems to abound to the riches of their liberality.

February 1740:

Baptised two children who were brought from another parish, whose minister Mr Brodie is indisposed for some weeks past… Lord, be gracious to that distressed brother and prepare him for life or death, and let his concerns learn submission to the divine will. That family had been for some time past flourishing, but Oh, how soon may they wither.
Yesterday preparing for this, having besides my personal indisposing infirmities, interruptions from the foolish conduct of some neighbours of whom better things might have been expected. I have in the meantime grounds of thankfulness that such disturbances are so rare and that I am helped to manage them with so little vexation to myself and offence to others.

3 April 1741, concerning a project instigated by Mr Pope, minister of Reay:

This morning acquainted that a certain project in which I was somewhat concerned, is blown up : I have the more Peace in this, that I did put a Blank in God’s Hand, with respect to it, and thus I am bound in the event to submit to His better Will. There are many, perhaps, who are pleased at the disappointment who probably will make no better of the matter than I meant to all concerned.

17^th October 1745:

The rebellion in this nation is come to a greater head than was at first thought. The city of Edinburgh on 17th of last month came into the hands of the enemy and the pretended King and his son the present Knight’s Errant were proclaimed with great solemnity at the Cross. Some time thereafter there was a battle fought about seven miles to the east of the city, wherein the King’s forces were obliged to yield themselves mostly prisoners after the slaughter of some hundreds of them. This puts the victorious mad; and accordingly they vaunt themselves as if the cause were entirely gained; but there is still a stronger possibility for their being mistaken. Lord! Thou art the great man of war, for “Lord of Hosts” is thy name.

16^th December 1745, in Eriboll:

I discoursed the landlady for some considerable time on the state of religion in her family; the rather that at many former occasions I have been at no small pains with her husband in order to bring him under due concern for his soul, but to very little purpose hitherto if I judge according to appearance. The man being the grandchild and great-grandchild of ministers, and the woman a minister’s daughter, I look upon myself as nearly allied to them, and in proportion would gladly contribute my best endeavours to their advantage. I gave her proper instructions for being useful to her husband this way, as she has made some advances in profession beyond him, and she has undertaken to follow the advices given.

23^rd February 1746, on the late Jacobite rebellion:

The withering state of my soul, keeps me from recording anything about the public, which continues embroiled by the unnatural rebellion which still rages in the bowels of our nation. There was another engagement about 17th of last month near the famous Torwood, the particular account whereof we have not yet, but are told that there was considerable slaughter on both sides. We now hear that the enemy, after being driven from England and met with the brush above, are on their way to the north in two bodies, the one coming by Aberdeen and the other the Highland way towards Inverness; and that the King’s army is pursuing them with the Duke of Cumberland on their head: for which reason it is thought they may yet give some trouble. Though almost dispersed, there are new levies of men ordered to be made and march to meet them forthwith. O Lord of Hosts, arise and let thine enemies be scattered, and let them who hate thee flee before thy face.

April 1746:

All this time my family is almost in extreme want of necessaries, my own victual is spent a while ago, and what I get in borrowing is scanty and ill to draw. Such as would cannot, and such as can will not supply us; and this at a time when we dare not send to Caithness where my living mostly is.
I find myself as feeble as a child, and every lith and limb fettered with pain do I move my body or any member of it; nor can I with ease cough, yawn or sneeze… How good art thou O my God, that there’s not a worse account of me, when my body might have been a feast for worms, and my soul already prey for devils, my house might be desolate, my wife a widow, and my children orphans, my post vacant, and my name and memory quite extinct.

July 1747, at a meeting of the Synod in Dornoch, referring to two ministers of Tain and Edderton:

I had occasion to understand a most melancholy scene, occasioned by the discord of two ministers, whose flourishing circumstances from without made them such objects of envy and esteem, that some think they were ripe for a Providential check, lest they should be exalted above measure. This they got by an out-cast among themselves, whereby they fell foul of one another in such an outrageous way as that the one of them is like to bear the marks of it for life.

1747

Attended two meetings of Presbytery, held within three days of each other, on the affairs of a certain member [Skeldock] of our small number who gives himself and others a great deal of trouble, perhaps unexcusably, nay, unaccountably. I have been this man’s friend, while it was possible for me to do so, consistently with charity and honesty; and this from a conviction of the hard measures I thought he always had from his parishioners, whose ways with him are to this day somewhat odd, ever lying at the catch for his halting, which should teach him the most cautious walk; but instead of this, when I find him continually involving himself in things that common prudence might make him shun, nay, when his worldly mindedness breaks out in such glaring instances, as might even be reckoned faulty in a Laick, and all this in opposition to the warmest admonitions to the contrary from myself and others privately and publicly, I must in all likelihood change sides, and that without the imputation of a feeble or uncharitable disposition, as far as I can be a right judge of my own actions.

8th June 1747, on the same subject:

This day se’en-night I set out for a meeting of Presbytery, which met at Farr on the perplexed and thorny affairs of one of our few members [Skeldock], who is like to involve himself more and more notwithstanding the many reproofs he gets, and the many resolutions under which he pretends to put himself from time to time… By reason of his strange conduct in secular affairs, as to which he never gets better though often reproved.

8th July 1750, on the same subject:

There are still more traces of his worldly than spiritual industry about his house. Everything goes on with the utmost exactness that concerns the outward man, though he has the least call of any man of my acquaintance so to vex himself or others, and yet though he be now from home upwards of three months few of his people wish for his return. O! may I be more and more reduced as to the things of a present life, rather than be in such an otherwise situation.

Mr Morrison wrote:

Mr Skeldoch died on the 25th June 1753, having been minister of Farr for twenty years. He was succeeded by Mr George Munro, who was ordained 23rd May 1754. He seconded the attempts made by the minister of Tongue to curtail the Communion ‘occasion,’ and Mr Macdonald generally calls him the “shadow” of Mr Ross of Tongue. ” His failings,” says Mr Macdonald in 1761 , “are greatly drowned in that one consideration of his shining benevolence.”

5th May 1762:

On my arrival at Port Chamil [Loch-Eriboll] I found an express with a letter from Mr George Munro, entreating me to come to Tongue, as our correspondent from the Presbytery of Dornoch, without whom there could not be a quorum, would come no further. In the letter there was, by order of the Grandees here, a boat to be sent for me next day, but finding myself greatly the worse of my walk to Port Chamail, I returned the express who was to be at Tongue in such time as might hinder the offered boat from setting out. In expectation whereof, I went the next day to Island Chorie, to which place notwith- standing all my precautions, the boat came at night with a feather bed and blankets for my accommodation at sea from Lady Reay, together with a second letter from the minister of Farr earnestly pressing me to come over all impediments to the Presbytery’s seat, by the positive orders of said lady in absence of her lord. However surprising and disconcerting this new command was, finding the sea so very mild on the morning of Wednesday, I came off early and before 12 o’clock we arrived at Tongue.

Saturday, 3rd July 1762, before preaching in the Church of Farr:

Yesterday we had a sort of meeting, long in desuetude at such occasions, till of late by the ignorant zeal of the populace supported by some clergymen who affect ecclesiastic patriotism… The nature of this meeting of old was to give opportunity to the ordinary swarm of professors for displaying their talents in putting and answering questions concerning what they call experimental godliness. But, as it was ordinary in such conventions to start questions either frivolous or ill stated, and to allow ignorant people to harangue on them at random, perhaps without touching at all, or very superficially, on the subject in debate, while the ministers present allowed them without control, correction, or direction, to ramble on in their indigested stuff. I, yesterday, after consulting my few brethren, offered to read a piece of Henry on the Sacrament, and ask about in the congregation who best understood and remembered what was read. This took, and the burden of the work was laid upon myself. I know not yet how this innovation as it may be thought was relished by the giddy people, but as this is my way at home, I find good by it.

Macdonald held monthly fellowships meetings for the men in his own congregation. Afterwards he invited them back to the manse to discuss the issues of the day from a Christian perspective. He had a strong desire for the education of his parishioners and worked to that end. He was a refined and cultural man who communicated with writers and poets such as Pope, Fielding and Young. Ian Grimble wrote concerning the writing in the diary:

Macdonald’s English prose is of an extremely high standard, especially considering that he spent most of his life speaking in his native Gaelic tongue, and he rarely betrayed that he was writing in a foreign language by such misuse of words. It may appear from the English writings which his colleague the minister of Reay published that this was a common accomplishment, but a study of the Reverend Alexander Pope’s unpublished compositions leads to the conclusion that his published prose had been carefully edited, and that he possessed nothing approaching Macdonald’s facility as an English writer.

He had a great love for music too with “a strong and melodious voice.” This seems to have had a marked impact on his family, his children having embraced that love, even to an idolatrous extent, for we read the sad account of his daughter in her latter days in Golspie from the sharp pen of Donald Sage:

Closely associated with all my recollections of olden times at Kildonan, is an individual who largely contributed to our amusement. She was a Mrs. Gordon who died at Golspie, a daughter of the Rev. Murdo Macdonald of Durness. She was then a widow with an only daughter called Peggy. Inheriting her father’s taste for music, she played beautifully on the violin, and was a periodical visitor, and an almost constant residenter at the houses of the Sutherland gentry…. She was universally known under the name of ‘Fiddlag’; Her fiddle was her god. When on her deathbed nearly her last words were to ‘spread a cloth over the fiddle.’ When told that it was her soul that should then be her chief concern and not her fiddle, she replied, “I leave all these good things, as I ever did, to the worthy man, Mr. Keith [her minister].” Memorabilia Domestica, p136.

Hew Morrison wrote:

Mr Macdonald was a great reader, and a close student of the works of men of his time, especially of those who wrote on religious questions. We find him writing long criticisms of such books as Henry Scougall’s “Life of God in the Soul of Man,” Boyle’s “Seraphic Love,” Gurnal’s “Directory,” Boston’s (who, he says, borrowed from Gurnall) Fourfold State, Bennet’s “Christian Oratory,” which he read in public, and Hervey’s “Meditations,” etc, etc.

It was during Macdonald’s ministry that the gaelic bard, Rob Donn, composed many of his poems and songs. He was greatly influenced by Macdonald and had a very high regard for him, and perhaps it is in the elegy that he wrote some time after Macdonald’s death, which occurred in 23^rd August 1763, that we have the clearest light on some of the positive influences of the minister of Durness in his parish.

Elegy for Murdo Macdonald, translated by John Mackay, Montreal (Rob Donn, TGSI vol 5:81-97).

        O, mouth of eloquence! O, lib’ral heart!

        O, mind with wisdom stored and soul of grace!

        Hand without stint or meanness to impart,

        A smile of loveliness, and frownless face.

        In grief’s sad wilderness I tarry long;

        Amid the gay I shed the secret tear;

        No more I care for wisdom or for song-

        No song can please me which thou canst not hear!

        They changed their manners now since thou art dead,

        No more they care the heavenly crown to win;

        They heed no more what thou in love hast said,

        And God has given them over to their sin.

        Some, when thou first departedst, wept for thee;

        But grief grows old, no longer now they sigh;

        But not so soon will grief depart from me,

        Here, at the year’s end, sad, O sad, am I!

        I love thy little ones, I love thy kin,

        I love thy fame, which ever shall abide,

        I love the songs which thou wert wont to sing,

        The very churchyard ashes at thy side!

        Oh, that two generations we had had

        Of thee! My sorrow for thee cannot die;

        The year departing, leaves me no less sad;

        Here, at the year’s end, sad, O sad, am I!