MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR.
THE following sketch of the author appeared in the Celtic Magazine for December, 1881:— In our last we intimated the death of the Rev. Alexander Macgregor, M.A., of the West Church, Inverness, on the 19th of October, from a shock of paralysis. We then scarcely realised the great loss which Inverness and the Highlands had suffered, and have not done so, even yet, to its full extent. It is, indeed, difficult to realise that we shall never again see him —he who for years scarcely ever failed to make his daily call, until within the last twelve months, when he was perceptibly getting frail and we were further out of his way. Even then he would pay us a visit two or three times a-week, and have his interesting chat, his quiet, enjoyable laugh, and his puff; for he heartily enjoyed the calumet of peace, though he never carried pipe nor tobacco. His fund of anecdote, Highland story and tradition, was inexhaustible; and the various incidents in his own life-experience, which he enjoyed to recapitulate in his characteristically modest and charming manner to his more intimate friends, were most delightful and instructive.
He was for ever doing good. The number of letters,
petitions, and recommendations which he has written for the poor is scarcely credible. No one asked him for such favours in vain. He was the means of starting many a young man in a successful career, especially from the Isle of Skye, among whom may be mentioned Mr. Rowland Hill Macdonald, of the Glasgow Post-Office, and Mr. Matheson, late Collector of Customs at Perth. He often related the particulars of their humble beginnings ; how he was instrumental in securing their first civil appointments, and how interested he continued to feel in their success. Among other acts of goodness he succeeded in securing pensions, of ,£100 each, for the late Misses Maccaskill, and for years before their death he personally drew the money for them.
In his ministerial spheie his labours were incessant. He was always busy, visiting the dying, the poor, or the distressed in spirit; going to a marriage, a baptism, or a funeral. And it made not the slightest difference to what faith they belonged. The sympathies of his large heart extended to every denomination, Catholic, Episcopalian, or Dissenter; while, at the same time, he stood firmly by his own beloved Kirk, and fully believed in her as the Church of Scotland. Though his own congregation in recent years largely increased—more than doubled during the last fifteen —he was as often consoling the last moments of the dying of other denominations as those of his own flock. He was ever in request at the supreme moment to sooth and encourage. He left those of his profession who had been cast in a more contracted ecclesiastical mould to thunder out the law. His favourite theme was the Saviour and His
Gospel of love and peace to men. He was constantly smoothing away any difficulties that occurred between his friends, and he almost invariably succeeded in bringing them again together. Some of his most intimate personal favourites were adherents of other denominations; and one was as sure to meet him at the funeral of a Roman Catholic as at that of a Presbyterian. His large heart, his truly catholic spirit, his boundless charity knew not the mean, selfish, repulsive creed of those that would scarcely admit to Heaven any but those who could see eye to eye with them in mere matters of ecclesiastical form and ceremony. Children almost adored him ; they would run after him, meet, and cling to him. He loved them ; they instinctively knew it; and they loved him in return; and there are no better judges of the man who deserves to be loved than they are. He endeared himself, in short, to all who knew him—old and young.
We must now, however, deal more with his career as a minister and a man who left his mark, deeply impressed on the literature of the Highlands. And we cannot more appropriately introduce the subject than
advertisement