Christianity in the Scottish Highlands

This brief biographical account of Dr. Angus Mackintosh of Tain is taken from the  Historical and Biographical Introduction  found in the volume about his son,  Memorials of The Life and Ministry of Charles Calder Mackintosh, D.D. of Tain and Dunoon . The Introduction was written by Rev. William Taylor of Stirling. Angus MacIntosh, D.D., was a native of Strathdearn, in Inverness-shire.(1) Early dedicated to God by devoted parents, and converted by his grace, he was ordained as minister of a Gaelic chapel in Glasgow in 1792, was translated to Tain in 1797, and died in 1831, leaving a reputation for piety and ministerial excellencies unsurpassed by any of the more recently departed worthies of the northern Highlands. His Glasgow ministry was brief, but largely blessed. To Tain he was called by the voice of the people prevailing over an attempt to impose on them, by force of patronage, a minister they did not esteem. The magistrates and elders of that town had...

Under the hand of God, Rev. Duncan Campbell became a Christian through the ministry of Robert Findlater in Glenlyon. Later Campbell became minister in Kiltearn, Ross-shire, the location in which Findlater had grown up. Campbell also married the daughter of John Macdonald, the Apostle of the North, who preached often for Findlater. The inter-connections give an insight into the providential control of God.  Duncan was born at Glenlyon on the 21st August 1796. Despite living an outwardly moral life, he was taught that he needed new birth by the Spirit and was converted at the age of twenty-one. In particular he was helped by a sermon Findlater preached from  Jeremiah 8:22: ‘Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?’  Ephesians 2:4-5 (‘But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he has loved us, even when ...

Alexander Munro grew up in Inverness, where his father was a dyer – the father was also Laird of Kitwell, in Kiltearn, and more importantly his home was marked by devotion to God. Although he had a Christian upbringing, it in itself did not make Alexander a Christian. But the Lord had his eye on him. In the providence of God, Robert Bruce, the minister of St. Giles in Edinburgh, was banished by James VI to Inverness in 1605, which at that time was a very small town of two streets in the shadow of a castle designed to oversee the area. While in Inverness, Bruce preached once every Sunday and Wednesday and took public prayers three evenings a week. The king of Scotland may have banished Bruce to Inverness, but it was the King of heaven who sent him there. Soon large crowds gathered in Inverness to listen to him and they were drawn from all over the eastern Highlands, from Caithness down to Nairnshire. It was while listening to Bruce that Alexander Munro trusted in ...

(This obituary originally appeared in the  Inverness Courier  and was later published in a small book called  Highland Clergymen .) The Rev. Alexander MacColl, Free Church minister of Lochalsh, died on the 22nd of January 1889. Mr MacColl was one of those influential clergymen of the good old school who attained eminence throughout the Highlands by their strong individuality, their earnest devotion, and the power and fervour with which they used their native Gaelic in addressing the hearts and experiences of their countrymen. Mr MacColl was best known in the West Highlands, where he held a position similar to that of Dr Aird in Sutherland and Ross, or of the late Dr Mackay in the neighbourhood of Inverness. For many years, in the time of the late Mr Sutherland, he assisted at the Communion services in connection with the Free East Church, Inverness; but to the younger generation in this quarter his presence was not so familiar. All who knew him personally we...