The worth of Christ accept for me
And at my hand seek them no more.
In Him atonement let me find,
Me in his love’s communion keep;
Give me a place among the flock,
Though I have been so lost a sheep.
DONALD MATHESON.
Matheson, a sacred bard of considerable originality and spiritual insight, was born in the parish of Kildonan, Sutherlandshire, in 1719. At that time there was much religious fervour and feeling in that part of the country as well as throughout the north in general. So the “Sacred Poetry of the North” towards the end of last century makes a pretty large volume. While Buchanan was tuning his sacred harp in the central Highlands, Matheson began his religious strains in the far north. Matheson cultivated a small farm, and lived to the age of sixty-three, his death taking place in 1782. He exercised great religious influence in his own parish—his power of satire contributing much towards this influence. A single poem of his was declared by the parish minister to have done more good than all his own preaching for a series of years. As a poet he stands as high as his countryman Rob Donn, with whom he has many points in common, although Matheson’s poetry [is decidedly sacred], which Rob Donn’s is as decidedly not. His Gaelic is frequently unintelligible to the western and southern Gael, which is one reason why his poems have not been in greater request among them. The following verse shows his manner in Gaelic:—
Ar sinnsear o thùs,
’Nuair chaill iad an lùth’s,