A child joyful, beloved,
Early from time removed,
From the breast to the grave they bore me;
Though brief was that state
I have much to relate
To the many I see before me.
REV. JAMES MACGREGOR, D.D.
Macgregor (1759-1830), sent by the General Associate Synod to Nova Scotia in 1786, has written hymns (1819) which have been highly valued by sections of Highlanders at home and abroad. He was a native of St. Fillans, in Perthshire, and wrote and spoke Gaelic with greater purity and elegance than the natives of that county in the present day are able to do. The University of Glasgow conferred on him the degree of D.D. in recognition of his arduous and successful labours in the Colonies among his countrymen. His poetry, although not of the first order, is yet sweet and natural—metrical effusions in which the simple truths of the Gospel are rehearsed with earnestness and freshness. The following verses are translated from his poem on The Resurrection:—
Great must be that might,
Keen must be that sight,