In old ways of sinning;
The corruption widespread
In the vineyard has left me,
Like a poor withered tree—
Of all bloom it bereft me.
When Matheson’s Poems were first published early in this century, they were accompanied with a preface from the hands of the Rev. Dr Macdonald of Ferintosh and the Rev. John Kennedy of Killearnan, in which the natural gifts of the poet, and his great Christian graces are referred to in very high terms: “Though destitute of the advantages of education,” say the writers of the joint preface, “he was one of the most celebrated Christians in that or perhaps any other country. He possessed a clear and comprehensive view of Divine truth, and discovered a deep and practical experience of its power on the heart and life.” In the imperfect sketches of Matheson’s life which have been preserved there are strong indications of the religious and ecclesiastical discontent which prevailed among the laity in those northern districts at the time, and of the latent dissent which subsequently developed. It is interesting to read that “at one time the parish church being vacant, Matheson headed a deputation from the people to their Presbytery in quest of a minister. Finding the Presbytery stiff to move, ‘I could sooner accomplish my errand with the great Hearer of prayer,’ he said, ‘than with the Presbytery.’ One member, a clergyman of the unmitigated old Moderate school, or as our Anglican friends would express it, of the extreme High Church party, ridiculed him as not possessed of education or influence entitling him to be heard. ‘You may mock,’ he replied, but I can tell you the word of Scripture by which the Lord first wounded my conscience. I can also tell the word by which Christ was made precious to my soul;—I suspect that is more than you, sir, can say.’” If poor Burns had been fortunate enough to have a little of this spirit his contact with the graceless members of the Presbytery of Ayr might have had a happier issue for himself.
There were clergymen of considerable culture in Caithness and Sutherland in the days of Matheson. Interesting sketches of some of them will be found in local religious histories such as Auld’s “Ministers and Men in the Far North.” Kennedy’s “Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire” is another pleasant, gossipy work, in which the struggle of light with darkness is vividly pourtrayed. At the same time there were many spots in the central and western Highlands where the truths of Christianity were scarcely known. Among these places was Abriachan, on the north-west bank of the romantic Lochness, some ten miles west of Inverness. To this day it is difficult of access, notwithstanding the recently well-made winding road from the level of the loch to the villages. It is a wild and barren-like gorge, surrounded east and west by hills of a similar character. To the north lies a dreary moor, which declines in the direction of Beauly.
The character and habits of the people at the beginning of the eighteenth century harmonised well with the nature of the place where they fixed their habitations. From this rather inaccessible nest they carried on for years with impunity a regular system of smuggling. They had every natural advantage on their side; they were reluctant to give up a profitable though nefarious traffic, with the lawfulness of which their consciences were not much concerned; and so hitherto they had refused to submit themselves to the more civilised conditions under which the people around them began to settle. This was the sphere of labour assigned by the Society in Scotland for Promoting Christian Knowledge to the poet-evangelist MacLauchlan, who was virtually the first to preach the Gospel to the people of Abriachan.
LAUCHLAN MACLAUCHLAN.
This bard-evangelist was born about the year 1729. He came of a family who occupied for generations a portion of the farm of Kinmylies, called Balmaclauchlan, near the town of Inverness. He was about sixteen years of age when the Rebellion of 1745 broke out, and remembered well seeing the wretched fugitives from that disastrous field of battle being cut down in their flight by the English soldiery. While quite a young man he was selected by the society already mentioned to be one of their evangelist-teachers at Culduthel, some three miles from Inverness. After a few years of successful labour there he was sent to Abriachan, where by the weight and general excellence of his character and the judicious exercise of his talents, the people soon became quite transformed. It is said that the godly people of the district used to travel ten and even twenty miles to hear the bard MacLauchlan exhort. He was twice married, but had no family by his first wife. In his second wife he found a truly congenial companion. While he was an admirer of the famous Hector Macphail, minister of Resolis, she was equally devoted to the no less famous James Calder, minister of Croy, the two being, along with Mr Alexander Fraser of Kirkhill, the most eminent ministers in the north at that time. The poet died in the year 1801, and his remains lie interred in the churchyard of Kirkhill. MacLauchlan was evidently a remarkable man in his day, and appears to have possessed very fair culture. An English letter of his addressed to his son, a divinity student, afterwards the Rev. James MacLauchlan of Moy, shows how well he could write English, and how well versed he had been in evangelical theology—“I say when two things are awanting, to go along with either the doctrines of law or gospel has little or no effect; i.e., when either wants a homely or particular application. It may be sound morality or sound gospel (even when both differ), yet so general that attentive hearers may hear, and never be made to cry out, What shall we do to be saved? Secondly, when law or gospel is not attended with the operation of the Spirit of Christ, what can be expected to be the consequence?... There is no wind so proper to winnow Christ’s corn as that of the gospel.... I might say a great deal on this subject, but one thing I find is, when some would maintain that never man spake like this Man, yet when Christ would address Himself with particular homeliness the very same lips would cry out, Crucify Him! Crucify Him! And this is come on the Church of Scotland, that she is now filled with a silly general strain of preaching when and where soundest fearing if truth is told so homely as to say like Nathan to David ‘Thou art the man,’ the speaker would become a prey; and if such is the case with such as can preach orthodox law and gospel, what can be said of such as can but lecture out harangues that are neither true morality nor gospel?... I think some, and no small part, of the distinction between a picture and the real being of grace is first in the begetting, next in the birth, then in the feeding, next in the growth, &c.” This letter, like his poetry, shows what a keen insight into human nature the bard possessed, and how well he understood the causes of the religious deadness of his day throughout the Church of Scotland. The poet makes here the “silly general strain of preaching” the cause of this deadness; elsewhere, in one of his poems he attributes the sad state of things in the Church to patronage. He was right in both cases. It was the patron that forced on the people preachers of the “silly general strain” stamp. The revival of religion in the first quarter of this century owes much to the good seed sowed by such earnest, faithful men, as MacLauchlan; and not a few of our ablest ministers of the present day have descended from such worthy ancestry. The late Rev. Dr Thomas MacLauchlan of Edinburgh, the eminent Celtic scholar and eloquent preacher, was a grandson of the poet-evangelist of Abriachan; and one of the doctor’s sons, Hugh, is possessed of poetical endowments and literary talents worthy of his great-grandfather.