Donald Sutherland, Durness

Below is a somewhat abbreviated version of a booklet published in the early 20^th century by the Highland Christian Literature Society, Tongue, entitled:  Donald Sutherland: Saint and Seer – Inward light or second sight? by a relation of Donald Sutherland, Rev. Alexander Macrae, Tongue.

1. His birth and youth

Donald Sutherland was born in Durine, Durness, Sutherland, in 1811. He was called after his grandfather, who was known among his neighbours as Domhull Chainnich. His grandfather, Donald Sutherland; was married in June, 1772, to Isobel Macpherson, of Sango. He was tenant of a croft in Durine. They had a family of seven sons and two daughters. All the sons enlisted in the Reay Fencibles, and fought in Ireland, on Tara Hill, in 1797. Only one of them, Kenneth, returned home. The rest married Irish girls, and settled down in the land they subdued. Kenneth, who succeeded his father in the tenancy of the land, married Margaret MacKay, Uaibeag, in 1805. She was a daughter of Angus MacKay, a native of Scourie, who married Effie Macleod, daughter of Donald mac Huistean mac Thormaid, of Uaibeag. The family is known to have resided in Durine, and on the same homestead, for over two hundred years. The land of Durine has been in cultivation for many centuries. It is rich soil on a limestone foundation, and yields good returns.

Donald was baptised by the Rev. John Thomson, in the last year of his ministry; and the minister of his childhood, youth, and early manhood was the Rev. William Findlater. Mr. Findlater was a man of some culture, a pronounced evangelical, and a man of deep and tender spiritual experience. His Elegies, especially that on Bean a Chreidimh Mhoir, were well done, the thought and composition being on a high level, while The Life of Robert Findlater, his brother, relating the remarkable revivals that took place during his ministries, both in Ardeonaig and Inverness, is one of the treasures of Highland religious literature. He also helped to collect and edit Rob Donn’s Poems, giving them a more literary form than that of the current colloquial vernacular.

It is difficult to say what influence Mr. Findlater’s preaching and teaching had on Donald’s spiritual life, but it may be no guess to say we can trace it in the depth and prayerfulness of his devotional life. The man who drew Bean a Chreidimh Mhoir fourteen miles through the hills on foot to hear his message on a Sabbath Day, and sent her back to her home rejoicing, must have had a message from God for his generation. He could not have failed to influence the growing life of young believers. Donald Sutherland’s entire life from birth to death was cast in a period of intense religious earnestness and devotion, such as the Highlands have never before or since experienced. The Highland soul was being awakened, quickened, educated, and Durness shared in the movement. His conversion and gracious life of faith was an example of the rich fruits of the revival.

At communion seasons at Kinlochbervie, he was always a guest in my father’s house; yet I have no recollection of him except one. On that occasion, he and John MacKenzie, Scourie, and others, conducted the Saturday night prayer meeting in the Free Church School, Inshegra. I was led there on my father’s hand, and I sat on the floor at Donald’s feet. In the front seat there were a number of women “professing godliness,” whose outward sign of grace was a cloak of heavy blue cloth, whose ample folds reached down to their heels, and whose hoods covered their heads almost concealing their faces. This holy female uniform fascinated me. I took note of how the edge of the cloak, in each case, fell on the floor, just covering their feet; how their hands slipped out through a vertical slit on either side, how a box-pleated, snow-white mutch formed an aureole beneath the canopy of blue, and how its strings were formed into a white bow below the chin, the ends hanging an inch or two. I was particularly attracted by the changing shades of colour in the large buttons by which those ancient habits were fastened, and by their number. There were two rows. I tried to count them, but my arithmetical attainments were not equal to the task. Of the good men’s prayers and addresses or of my uncle’s appearance I remember nothing.

He married Barbara MacRae, daughter of Alexander MacRae, Ardmore, and of Fairley Sinclair, his wife, a native of Dunbeath, who was a Gaelic school teacher in Unapool, where she met her future husband. Barbara proved a good and sympathetic wife. Some of their children are still among us; while many of their grandchildren are living abroad, in Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

Donald became generally recognised as a man of God. He lived the common life of a Highland crofter; followed the herring fishing in the summer season; sought work in the Caithness quarries and elsewhere at other seasons, as so many of his neighbours did in those days. He cultivated his own land, provided fuel for his household’s winter fires, and attended to such stock as he possessed. Early in his life he took a decided stand on the side of the people who professed and followed the Lord. He cultivated their company till he came to be recognised as one of them. It was then the habit to hold a prayer meeting on the first Monday of each month. Only such people as were so devoutly interested that they sacrificed the work of the day for the prayer meeting usually attended. If persons, not communicants, attended with regularity, such attendance was regarded as a sign of desire, if not of grace, and such persons were eventually led into the fellowship of believers and finally into the full fellowship of the church.

He told an experience that indicated the spiritual struggle through which he passed before he came to take a steadfast stand against false shame and worldliness. He was on his way to a communion at Kinlochbervie. There was a mental struggle going on as to whether he ought not to have stayed at home to attend to his household affairs, and as to what right he had to put himself forward as-one of the Lord’s people. As he proceeded on his journey the conflict went on. “When I reached the Big Bridge,” he said, ‘‘I stood in the middle of the road, and with my stick drew a circle about me, saying to the devil who tormented me, ‘I set the Lord between me and thee; and I dare thee in His name to annoy me any more.’ He disappeared in flaming sparks of fire, and left me to my sweet meditations all the rest of the way. Herein was that word fulfilled to me, ‘Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.’”

At the Disruption, he followed his minister, Mr. Findlater, into the Free Church. In the sixties and early seventies, the courts of the Free Church throughout the country, and especially throughout the Highlands, were agitated over the question of a proposed union between the United Presbyterian Church and the Free Church of Scotland. Sides were taken in Presbyteries, sessions, and congregations. So strong was the opposition in the Free Church that the proposal was eventually withdrawn.

The Rev. James Ross, Durness, was in favour of such a union and Donald Sutherland was opposed to it. The matter created a sense of spiritual estrangement between them, which was never wholly healed. Donald died while the controversy was at its height. It was largely owing to the feeling thus generated that he never agreed to become an elder of the church.

In his day the services of the church were conducted in Gaelic and English at such length as occupied most of the day. Many of the people had such long distances to reach their homes that they were not able to come back to an evening service. There was, therefore, no such service held. Donald formed the habit of having evening worship in his house, to which such of the neighbours as chose to attend were welcome. Once begun, that meeting was continued to the close of His life, a well of living water for thirsty souls.

One who was in the habit of attending, Mr. William Mackay, Durine, has preserved one of Donald’s great thoughts on these occasions. Commenting on the eighteenth verse of the forty-eighth chapter of Isaiah; “O that thou had’st harkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea,” he used to remark how the mighty waves came rolling in from the vast deep-and threw themselves against rock and beach till they were utterly broken and spent. Then they slowly receded, going back again to the limitless deep from which they had come, in order to gather volume and power for another attack upon the resisting shores. So the Lord’s people who spend soul and strength battling against the rocky shores of sin till they are utterly exhausted, need to return again to the boundless deep of the Divine resources to renew their strength for fresh attacks upon the hardened shores of sin and unbelief and all ungodliness.

The saying is wholly characteristic of the man and of his habits of life. He knew that the source of his soul’s strength was in the fellowship of God, and he betook himself there by faith in prayer till his strength was renewed for whatever call Providence made upon him. The religious public came to recognise him as a man of God, resorted to him in their troubles, spiritual and temporal, pleading for his intercession, and giving thanks for relief and comfort enjoyed through his mediation. Lewis and West Coast fishermen, who, became acquainted with him in Wick, were in the habit of calling in at Rispond to visit him on their way to and from the East Coast fishing. When he was no longer able to leave home, his spiritual friends made an annual pilgrimage to him at his home to take counsel together. He was well known and greatly trusted and loved throughout the north and west. His devotion revealed itself in his deep interest in a the morals of the people, and in his sensitiveness on a matters of conscience. He was not censorious, and he never scolded, but he showed a tenderness on moral acts and problems that produced conviction and shame.

Returning from Wick in one of the Durness boats, he was observed to be restless and unhappy about something, though he had started the voyage in a happy mood. On coming through the Pentland Firth, he began to cross-question the men, one after the other, about this and that article in the boat. There was a basket full of herring tightly covered by an oil-skin, of which no one acknowledged ownership or professed to know anything. He lifted it and threw it overboard saying:— “You and I cannot sail in the same boat.” No word of protest was offered. (The story was told by the late Neil MacKay, Kinlochbervie, who was a passenger).

He showed similar sensitiveness in reference to his own family life. While he seemed the happiest and most easy-going of men in his own home and among his children, nothing shady or doubtful was tolerated. He left home on one occasion with one of his neighbours to go to work in the Caithness quarries. They set out to walk all the way. Waving crossed Loch Eriboll, and reached Hope Ferry, he surprised his comrade by saying he was not going further. ‘‘The devil has designs on my home tonight, and I must be there to defend it.”

His friend proceeded on his journey and Donald returned home, where he found a gay party having a high old time. His appearance in the midst of the a carnival, scattered some of the guests, whom he disliked, and sobered all the rest. His wife was paying a visit to her friends in Ardmore, and the house was left in charge of his sister and his niece. There may be no harm in innocent gaiety among young folk, and he did not disapprove of such, but in this case his sensitive soul became aware of moral danger to his children, which they themselves did not see.

To show that his attitude to the amusements of young people was not that of severity and repression, Mr. Alexander MacLeod, of Shegra, relates that when a young lad he accompanied his father to Wick where they shared rooms with Donald Sutherland. One night he was lured out with other young folk to an all-night entertainment without telling his father where he was going. His father searched the streets and all the most likely places for him, and was still out in the grey morning when the boy returned. Donald said to him:—‘‘So you’ve come, Sandy. Your father is out looking for you, and would not believe me that you were quite safe. If he is angry, bear meekly all he says.” He had every sympathy with young people seeking the pleasures of youth in an innocent way.

George MacLeod, one of the men of the parish of Tongue, was engaged in carting sea ware to his land, at Hysbackie, when, as he was ascending the steep rough road to his croft, the left wheel went over the bank, and a the cart, horse, and driver toppled into the ravine below, George lying under the horse. Though not fatal it was a serious accident to a man of his age. Donald Sutherland came to see his friend. The conversation that took place between them reveals the character of both men, and, in particular, it affords a glimpse into Donald’s spiritual sensitiveness.

Both men were of opinion that the accident, as we call it, was intended as a call to greater watchfulness. Donald held that it was the Lord’s way of punishing his friend for some sin of omission, or worldliness of spirit. He quoted Amos 3:2,“ You have I known…therefore will I punish you.” He cross-questioned George. Had he omitted prayer and worship that morning before going out to his work? No. Had he failed to confess the Lord when occasion and opportunity made such a confession a duty? No; not so far as he could remember. It eventually appeared that on the recent Day of Thanksgiving for the harvest George had been so occupied with the duties of his land and home that he failed to join in public worship and thanksgiving. Donald felt himself justified in his view that this was the Lord’s way of punishing a sin of omission and an incipient worldliness of mind. He had failed to acknowledge the goodness of the Lord in His providence, and now he was forced to confess his fault. The other in his penitence acquiesced in that view.

2. The man of prayer

He came to be recognised everywhere as a man of prayer. He had childlike faith in the promises of the Lord Jesus: “ Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” He saw no reason to doubt the Lord’s word. He acted upon it as simply as a child would on his father’s promise. The invisible God was as real to him as any visible friend, and he cultivated the habit of referring everything, however small, to Him in prayer. Most people refer only the great and momentous affairs and events of life to the Lord, but for him there was nothing too small to be made a matter of prayer.

His prayers were brief and to the point. He told the Lord whatever matter burdened himself or his friends. He entered the Divine Presence, told what he wanted, and waited to receive a reply. His words were few, clear, and definite, and he expected the answer to come with equal clearness and definiteness. He did not utter his prayer and then run away. He waited to get his reply. How often he got a clear, true, reply is not known, but that it came is common knowledge.

A Durness man had two sons, boys, Donald and John. Donald became seriously ill, and the parents, becoming anxious, sent for Donald Sutherland. They believed that the “prayer of faith shall heal the sick.” John Munro, the elder, was at the boy’s bedside, waiting impatiently for Donald’s arrival. When he did arrive, John said:— ‘‘Man, what has been keeping you so long?” Donald looked at him and said quietly, “The dove could not come back till he got a billet in his beak. And what have you got?” asked John. “Ah, poor Johnny!” was his only reply. Johnny was at the moment playing in apparent good health, while his brother’s life was hanging in the balance. That night he amended, and soon recovered, while Johnny took the trouble, and in a few days was carried away by it.

A neighbour woman, whose husband and two sons were away fishing in the same boat, felt anxious about their safety, when, after a gale of unusual severity, they did not return home. She went to Donald to seek comfort in her distress. The barn was his favourite place of prayer, where he sought audience, and presented his petitions. He went in, and presently returned without an answer for the woman. Again he went and returned without sign. This only increased the woman’s fears and anxiety. After a time, his wife pled with him, for she believed in his spiritual intuition and insight and in the efficacy of his prayers, to go and wait till he got an answer. A third time he sought the privacy of his sanctuary and came back saying, “Be at peace; they are safe;” and they were.

When the fishing fleet were returning from Wick a severe storm broke out as they were rounding Cape Wrath. After two days two of the Loch Inchard boats had not arrived. The anxious friends sent messengers to Donald Sutherland to enquire for the safety of the men. When he saw them, he knew their errand, and, before they had time to speak, said: “I know your errand. Your friends are safe. Return home, and you will find them before you.” So it turned out. When the messengers arrived in Achrisgill the crews had already landed, and were enjoying a refreshing home-cooked meal.

Donald MacKay (Domhull Thomais), a shepherd in Carrachan Dubh in the service of Mr. G. G. Clarke, of Eriboll, missed a number of sheep from his hirsel [flock], and failed to find them after diligent search. He resolved to go to Durine to consult Donald Sutherland. He found him at home, but felt shy to tell his errand. He rose to go away, and the two went out together. There was at that time an inn in Durine into which the two went. The shepherd ordered two whiskies, and the seer reverently took off his cap and asked a blessing. The shepherd then told his story. Sutherland put his elbow on the table, rested his chin on the palm of his hand, and closed his eyes. He remained in that position for what seemed to the shepherd to have been ten minutes. Then he said, ‘If you go to (mentioning a spot) you will find your sheep.” “I was there already, but they were not there,’’ said the shepherd. “That may be so,” replied the other, “ but they are there now.” MacKay lost no time in reaching the spot indicated, where, to his joy; he found every hoof of the missing sheep. (The writer heard that story in Eriboll in 1905 from the shepherd himself when he was well over eighty.)

Somewhat similar is the following. A boat from Durness on its way to Stornoway was overtaken in the Minch by a heavy gale. The women folk at home, knowing that the boat could not have reached Stornoway when the storm broke, were anxious about the safety of their men. Some of them went to Donald Sutherland, “who, after his usual time of secret prayer, reported that the men had reached Stornoway safely, but that he had lost sight of them in some fracas in a public-house.

On their return home the wife of the skipper chided him for his behaviour on the night of his arrival after such a miraculous deliverance from the storm. Instead of denying her allegation he asked her, ‘‘Who has been telling you?” She replied that it was Donald Sutherland. “ Well, then,” he told her, with an oath, “before we go from home again we’ll pull out his . . . tongue.”

The youngest of his brothers-in-law, a lad in his teens, went with others to the Wick fishing for the first time, and when the fleet was fully manned he had failed to find a berth. On a Monday morning he asked Donald if he would advise him to return home. ‘‘Have patience, my good lad, death is preparing a berth for you,” was the startling advice he gave. That afternoon the lad stood on the quay watching the fleet setting out and thinking of his friend’s saying, “ Death is preparing a berth for you.” A fresh breeze was blowing; the men had not as yet found their sea legs; one of the boats lost a man overboard, and returned to harbour to report. The young man got the vacant berth!

Returning home at the close of the fishing season in the boat of which his brother-in-law, William MacRae, was skipper, he advised them to remain in Rispond over night. William was a man of strong character and of great resolution. “No; we are going round the Cape now,” he said in his determined way. “Go, then,” said Donald, “you will reach safety but not home tonight.” They were forced to take shelter in sight of their homes, to the lee of Eilean an Eireannaich, and were not able to land till next day.

His cupboard was sometimes bare enough, but he was ever ready to share his store with those who were in want. On a Saturday night he went in from his secret devotions at a late hour. The children were in bed. “What have you in the house?” he asked Barbara, his wife. She asked why he was asking, and what did he want, before committing herself. He told her that a certain family in Lerin were starving, and that he could not rest with plenty food in the house while the children were crying with hunger. Barbara got some things together in a basket, put a shawl round her and walked about two miles to the house he mentioned. When the door was opened and the gifts handed to the anxious mother, she let them fall out of her trembling fingers, while tears of gratitude fell fast from her reddened eyelids. She confessed she had spent the evening in prayer, but did not expect that an answer would come in that form. There was no food in the house for the week-end.

The most commonly reported story about him is the following. In the spring time two friends from a distance arrived unexpectedly to give them a day or two’s work ploughing and sowing. His wife was greatly put out at this unlooked-for claim upon the resources of her larder. “I have only a piece of meat,” she said, ‘‘which I have been keeping for the peat-casting day, and if I use it now I’ll have nothing left for that,” she explained. “Cook what is in your hand today, and you will get meat from Russia for your peat-cutting,” was his remark, which was to her equal to a command. “Oh, that’s you and your way,” she said, as she felt there was nothing for her but to obey.

The spring work was done, and arrangements were being made for the peat-casting. Captain Robert Ross of Wick, a native of Loch Laxford-side, traded between Wick and Thurso and the Baltic ports. He and Donald Sutherland were brothers in the Lord, and between them there was a spiritual understanding of uncommon intimacy. One night Donald could not rest. He was up all night, engaged in passionate prayer for someone he knew to be in distress. The agony of intercession went on for hours. At length the burden on his soul passed away, and he and his household slept. Next day Captain Ross put in at Rispond, and went to Durine to see his friend. He had with him two of his crew bearing between them a basket containing among other things a piece of beef from Russia. As the basket with its contents was handed to Mrs. Sutherland, Donald, being a man, did not say, ‘‘Did I not tell you so?” The two men compared notes regarding their experiences on the previous night. The Captain told that he was rounding Cape Wrath when a dead calm set in, and he was driven on to a rock, known as Leac an Dusgaich, from which nothing but a miracle had saved them. He said to Donald: “I saw you beside me just as all hope of safety had left me, and I knew all would be well.” By the aid of boat-hooks they kept the ship off the rocks. Donald was able to tell him the minute at which he had passed out of danger. It is an item from the log-book of two seafaring souls.

Mrs. Roderick MacKay, Badcall Inchard, daughter of John Gunn, Rhuvoult, was seriously ill for eleven days at the birth of her first-born child. Three doctors were in attendance, but they could do nothing to relieve her. The science of obstetrics was not them so advanced and so helpful to motherhood as it is now. On the second Sabbath of her illness her friends despaired of her life. Her neighbour and bosom friend from childhood, Mrs. Alex. MacRae, was constantly at her bedside. That morning she noticed that Donald Sutherland was among the people who came to church from Ardmore. She went out to meet him, and told him of her friend’s illness. ‘‘I will come to see you after the service,” he said, and passed on. She thought her friend might be in eternity before then. After church-time Donald went to pray in the cleft of the rock below Craig Mhic Ghriogair, and when he came to the house he said: “There is a dead body lying in front of her house there, and as soon as it is removed she will be delivered.”

Hugh Mackenzie, Rhimhichie, on the opposite side of the loch, had died on Friday, and was to be buried on Monday. As soon as the funeral procession passed out of sight next day Mrs. MacKay was safely delivered of a son. After the funeral Donald gave thanks for a living mother and a living child.

Between the dead man and the suffering woman there was no connection whatever. The only explanation of Donald’s cryptic utterance which proved such a clear forecast of events is that he had received a vision in which the two events were seen to take place simultaneously.

William Munro, innkeeper, Kinlochbervie, was seriously ill, and the doctor declared that his recovery was beyond human skill. His friends gave up all hope, and were making preparations for the end. It is not known whether Donald Sutherland was sent for to see the dying man or not, but he went in to the inn and found the kitchen table covered with sheets and grave clothes to be in readiness for death which might come at any moment. He looked at the women, and then at the linen, and said: ‘‘ What are you doing with these things? Fold them up and lay them past till there is need for them. They are not needed yet.” The man lived for many years thereafter.

That he fully expected the Lord to reveal to him what he asked for in prayer may be inferred from the following story. While he was attending Communion services at Lairg, a young man not supposed to be mentally sound, went a missing. Search parties were organised, and were searching for him. Donald was invited to dine with the ministers at the Free Church Manse. (It was during Mr. MacPherson’s ministry.) At dinner the conversation turned on the subject of the missing lad. One of the ministers, aware of Donald’s reputation as a seer, asked him: “What is your opinion? Is the young man alive?” “If he is alive,’ he replied, borrowing the language of Elisha (2 Kings 4:27), ‘‘the Lord has hid it from me.” Next day the lad’s body was discovered.

On his way home from Creich on one occasion, he reached Cashel Dubh in the evening, where the shepherd at the time was Donald Munro. Donald Sutherland was received as a welcome guest for his own sake, but especially on that occasion because a daughter of the Munroes lay seriously ill. As his manner was, Donald went out to pray at night, and, to use the current phrase of the time, ‘got into grips’ for the child. He received no assurance of the child’s recovery to begin with. Time and again he prayed and waited, till at last the answer came. He went in to the parents saying: “Be of good courage; your daughter will live.” By morning she was definitely improved. When Munro went out next day to attend to his stock he found his fattening pig dead in its sty. He complained bitterly of his loss. After listening for a time, Donald said to him: ‘‘What would you have said if the pig were alive and your daughter dead? Death had work to do here last night, and he did it. Rejoice, and beware.”

There is an intriguing story told about Neil Matheson, Nial a Bheallaich, and his wife. Neil was a diminutive man, while his wife was an abnormally big woman, tall and muscular, weighing fifteen stones. Neil was offered an appointment as a shepherd in Polla, but as the house was reported to be haunted no one would stay in it. Though not superstitious herself, Mrs. Matheson sought advice from Donald Sutherland before she would agree to accept the post. He advised her to go, and assured her that nothing would disturb her. If she set the Lord before her she could rest in peace. He quoted the last verse of the fourth Psalm :— :

I will both lay me down in peace,

and quiet sleep will take;

Because Thou only me to dwell

in safety, Lord, dost make.

On one occasion Donald went to visit a dying friend in Thurso. He walked to Tongue, arriving there in the evening, expecting to get a seat on the mail gig next morning. Sandy Bremner was the coachman that day. He had all his seats booked by a party from Melness, who were crossing to Scullomie to meet him at Strath-Tongue. Donald proceeded afoot. The morning was bright after a keen frost. When Sandy reached Strath-Tongue his fares were not before him, and there was no sign of them. So he sped on his way empty. On reaching Apagill Brae he suddenly ran upon a sheet of ice and both horses slipped and fell. The back wheels of the machine slid into the side drain, and the machine lay across the road with the horses pinned and strapped so that they could not rise on the slippery ice. Sandy, being alone, was not able to free and lift them. On Donald’s arrival he greeted Sandy with: “I see you’re waiting for me.” There was no serious damage to either horses or coach. Sandy declared that he held Donald in higher respect ever afterwards. There is a rock at the roadside still called “Craggan Dhomhuill Chainnich.”

He rarely gave information or advice if he was not asked for it. There was one case in which he volunteered information that proved tragically true. A Mrs. MacKay from Kinlochbervie was paying a series of visits among friends in Durness. When a guest in the house of Hugh Macpherson,. Donald called on her early one morning and told her that her presence was required at home. Turning to Hugh, her host, he told him to yoke and send the lady to Gualin as soon as he could. When they pressed him for information as to what had happened, he told them that her sister was now a widow. That was enough. On arrival at Gualin they heard that the lady’s brother-in-law, MacKenzie Morrison, had been drowned on the previous night off the Oldshore coast.

It was generally supposed by the public that Donald Sutherland possessed the gift of second-sight. If he had he was not conscious of it. Indeed, it is highly questionable if such a thought ever occurred to him.

Those who were gifted with second-sight showed certain characteristics that were wholly absent in his case. It is said that visions came to them unsought and unexpected; that they startled and terrorised those who saw them; that they were often accompanied by facial and other physical contortions that alarmed those who observed them. As a rule, persons having the gift wished they did not have it.

If he had visions they certainly did not frighten him; nor did they surprise him. There was no physical or emotional excitement that his friends had ever noticed. He was not known to have told anyone how he received the insight which every one knew he possessed. He never spoke of these things; they were sacred; and no one dared question him on a subject which his contemporaries generally believed was a secret between himself and his Lord.

His insight, which was undoubted, was not that of a shrewd man of the world. It did not arise from the mere calculation of probabilities. It was the insight of a peculiarly spiritual mind. He was capable of seeing what to others and to ordinary sight is invisible, of hearing what to others is inaudible, and of believing what is to others unreliable. He had such clear spiritual vision, such quickened sympathies with the things of the spirit, and such unwavering faith in God as constantly fulfilling Himself through the experiences of His people, that he treated his own soul with the respect due to so sacred a thing as the sanctuary of God in human life. The secret of his insight is to be found there.

He knew the secret of waiting upon God. To him prayer was more than asking. Having asked, he waited in expectancy for a revelation of the Lord’s mind. In the stillness of his soul he listened for the Lord’s reply, which usually came, in words which he inwardly heard, in pictures or visions which he inwardly saw, or in impressions or convictions which were to him the equivalent of a revelation.

He cultivated the habit of trustful and expectant receptivity… He seems to have had the power of closing his soul against the world and its clamant calls, and of adopting an attitude of absorbed mental attention to the eternal silence, waiting for the Lord’s reply. When the message came he accepted it as from God, and he gave it to those who were most concerned with it in a spirit of unaffected simplicity, sometimes mysteriously uttered, but often telegraphic in directness and brevity.

His part in asking and receiving was never referred to. He was but a messenger who went his errand, and delivered what he had received.

That was the common view of the people who knew him best. Twenty-one years after his death the late William Morrison, Old Inn, Kinlochbervie, when in doubt as to his duty relative to the Declaratory Act, was known to have said: ‘‘ Would that Donald Sutherland were here. He would have a reply for me from heaven quicker than I can have a reply telegram from Scourie. (The telegraph system had just been introduced to the district.)

People consulted him about personal and family affairs, matters purely temporal, seldom about spiritual difficulties. That does not need to surprise observant Bible readers. When Saul failed to find his father’s straying asses, he thought that Samuel, the man of God, who was credited with knowing the secrets of the All-knowing, would be able to tell him where they were. Nor did he seem to be in the least surprised when the seer greeted him, saying: ‘‘As for your asses that were lost three days ago, do not worry about them; they have been found.” His mind was then directed to higher things, till he heard the voice of God offering him a kingdom.

People who consulted the Lord in the days of His flesh were mostly interested in their own bodily health or that of some one dear to them. Blind men, epileptics, infirm invalids, came to Him, or were brought to Him. Others sought His help for a suffering son or daughter, or a beloved servant. Apart from the disciple band, few came to Him for light on personal spiritual difficulties. A Nicodemus, or a rich young ruler, did not, to begin with, prove satisfactory inquirers. But no one who came to Him with some temporal trouble was allowed to go away without realising the necessity of personal faith in God in order to enjoy the benefits of His grace.

In the Highlands there was a widespread and deep-rooted belief ‘‘that the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him,” and that He reveals His secrets to His praying people. They believed, like Daniel, that “there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets;” that “He knoweth what is in the darkness.” People consulted the man of God about their missing herds, about the safety of their sea-faring folk after a storm, or about the fate of some sick relative. Their problems were often solved and their anxieties allayed, while they were directed, like Saul, to the Kingdom, with its deeper secrets and its higher purposes. Those who consulted Donald in a purely superstitious spirit often left him with a deeper and a clearer faith. They approached him about some passing incident of Providence, that deeply affected them for the moment, and they left with impressions of the eternal realities of the Kingdom and a desire to be within it.

3. From faith to sight

Donald’s final call home was heard with sorrow by a wide-circle of friends throughout the far north. He had been ailing for two or three months before the end came. Letters of inquiry and of sympathy, bearing practical expressions of goodwill were numerous, and when the end came, what was then considered to have been a large sum of money was collected for the widow and children who were but young.

According to newspaper reports, his funeral was very largely attended by people from almost every parish in Sutherland, while some had travelled from Caithness, where his devotional character was highly appreciated.

Ishbel Chainnich, as every one familiarly called his sister; who had always made her home with him, was somewhat eccentric. She feared God but did not regard man. When her brother died, the ground officer was sent by the estate to warn them that since there was now no head of the family and no visible source of income they might be called upon to quit the house and croft. As there was no fixity of tenure then many eyes were turned on a desirable holding and offers made to the estate. Ishbel and the widow knew this well. They did not leave the officer in any doubt as to their intention to hold the home together.

He reported his interview to the factor, Mr. Evander Maciver, who, in spite of much natural goodness, was a terror to the people. On rent day Ishbel went to meet the factor instead of her sister-in-law, whose personality was less forceful. He suggested in the most suave and kindly manner that they would be better without the burden of the land with its rent and rates. He spoke in tones of real concern for the widow and children. She recognised the wolf in sheep’s clothing. “We do not intend on any account to give up the land,” she said firmly. “Have you considered the burden it will be to pay the rent and rates annually? ” he pled. “Yes,” she replied, ‘it will be a much greater burden to be without it.” “But where can you get the money to pay?” he asked, pointedly. ‘‘The Lord will provide,” was her reply; ‘‘when He fails us you may have the land.” He has not failed; and, thanks to Ishbel’s faith and fortitude, his descendants are in undisturbed possession to this day.

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According to the Statutory Death Records Donald Sutherland died in 1871, aged 60.

The following Anecdote concerning Donald Sutherland was told by Rev Neil Macintyre, Edinburgh, in a sermon on: “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.” Malachi 3:16). [ From the Free Presbyterian Magazine, March 1939, vol 43(11), p444.]

Now the Lord deals, as it were, with His people on credit but with the wicked with ready money. It is not in this world that He is to reward His people for what they do and suffer for Him but in heaven; but all the good things the wicked get they get in this life. It is told of a communion held at Scourie that great hospitably was shown by the people to the strangers who gathered that the godly men held a prayer meeting on Monday evening to plead that the Lord would open the treasurers of the sea to help the poor people who showed such kindness. The eminent Donald Sutherland, Durness, prayed and said: “Lord thou and thy people will eternally be reconciled for anything they did in connection with thy cause in the world, but those who will not give thee credit pay them with ready money.” The fishermen went out that night and came back next morning with their boats loaded. There was great rejoicing but the godly Robbie Mackay began to weep. When asked the reason he replied, “Did you not hear what Donald Sutherland said in his prayer, that those who would not give the Lord credit that He would pay them with ready money and I am afraid that this is all we are to have.