Bishop Murdo Mackenzie

This short extract from a book called Historical and Traditional Sketches of Highland Families, and of the Highlands by John Maclean records the career of an Inverness minister during difficult days for evangelicals in the Highlands during the second half of the seventeenth century. The preacher concerned, Murdo Mackenzie, was willing to side with the government’s interference in the Presbyterian church and so became a bishop during the Covenanting period. The extract points to a possible origin of the Question Meeting (once common at communions) and also contains a rather strange response to one of Mackenzie’s sermons.

The Rev. Murdo Mackenzie. The above clergyman was a member of the family of Gairloch, and his first outset as a preacher was on being appointed chaplain to a regiment in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden; after which he was settled minister of the parish of Contin, Ross-shire; and from thence translated to Inverness in 1640, where his ministrations were highly appreciated.

The ‘speaking on the question’, or the meeting of the ‘Men’, on Fridays before the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, originated with Mr Mackenzie – not in the church, however, but in his own house at Kingsmills, in which place, during his incumbency in Inverness, pious laymen were wont to assemble, edifying and instructing each other by stating their own Christian experience, as also their opinions of select passages of the Scriptures. Subsequently the meeting of the ‘Men’ became general throughout the Church in the North.

Although Mr Mackenzie had thus begun and established soul-edifying exercises in Inverness, yet he was so disgusted with the impiety of some of his parishioners that he determined on the first opportunity that presented itself to leave the parish. The following ludicrous affair heightened his resolution: Whilst addressing the Gaelic congregation from the important words, ‘Take up thy cross and follow me,’ a drouthy knight of the awl sat in the gallery in a state of inebriety, listening as attentively as he could to the impressive discourse of the preacher; and the words of the text attracting his attention, it occurred to him to turn them to a subject quite foreign to the purpose.

Accordingly, as Mr Mackenzie was returning home in the afternoon, and when ascending the Flesh Market Brae, he was suddenly alarmed by hearing moans and groans immediately behind him. Turning quickly round to his dismay he saw a man carrying a stout woman on his back. The bearer of the unwilling burden was the shoemaker, who, on Mr Mackenzie’s demanding to know why he behaved in such a manner to a female, was answered that he was hearing him that day in the Hielan’ Kirk, and that he (Mr Mackenzie) desired him to take up his cross and follow him, which he was just doing. The shoemaker had thus persisted in following the worthy minister, and it was only when the latter gave him a sixpence that he could get rid of him, desiring him at the same time to get out of his sight with his abominable cross.

Soon after this unhallowed affair, Mr Mackenzie, in 1645, was translated to Elgin, and on the restoration of Charles II., was consecrated Bishop of the diocese of Moray, on the 1st of May 1662; and in the end of the year 1676 was translated to the see of Orkney, where he died in February 1688.

Robert M'Watt

Another Disruption worthy, ‘a good minister of Jesus Christ,’ has gone to his rest.

Mr M’Watt was born at Inverness, of religious and reputable parents, in the year 1801. He received the rudiments of his education in his native town, where he was known as an apt and lively scholar. At a very young age he entered King’s College, Aberdeen, where he not only took a full curriculum, but a good place in his classes. He afterwards studied theology at the same university, and was duly licensed to preach the gospel. But though his vivacious youth, his glowing fervour, and his evangelical preaching made a deep impression wherever he preached, he had to wait a long time for a charge.

He acted as tutor for fifteen years in the family of Altyre, where he was held in high esteem, until he was presented by the Earl of Seafield to the church in Rothes in 1839. But he had scarcely set his manse in order when he felt bound in conscience towards Christ to leave it. Conservative in politics but thoroughly evangelical in religion, and true to the ancient polity and historical tradition of the Church of Scotland, he joined in 1843 the noble Disruption host, with whose contendings he was in fullest sympathy.

For several years both before and after this event he was so instant in season and out of season, preaching generally thrice on Sabbath, and frequently in the neighbourhood all round the week, that he sowed in his elastic and vigorous frame the seeds of the debility and pain of his later years.

He was not only the assiduous pastor, and even the medical adviser of the parish of Rothes, but, as the only Disruption minister in the parish of Aberlour, he either planted or watered all the Free Church congregations of the bounds. He also acted as Clerk of the Presbytery for twenty-seven years with singular courtesy, close attention to the business of the court, and much knowledge of Church law.

Towards the close of his long and laborious life he suffered from paralysis, and had the help first of a probationer, and latterly of an assistant and successor, for some time before his death, which took place at the manse on the 27th November, 1880.

As a minister of Christ, Mr M’Watt preached not only the old Puritan theology, but the gospel of God with great fervour, faithfulness and love. And we know that he was wise in winning souls to Christ, some of whom wept over his bier and bless his memory. He was beloved not only by his own people and co-presbyters, but by the congregations of the Presbytery and the whole community, who laid him in his new tomb with reverence and regret, feeling that they had lost a father in Israel. He was not only a man of culture, of polished manners and genial gentleness, but full of faith and of the fire of devotion, a good example of the Christian gentleman. Mr M’Watt, who was unmarried, was a brother indeed to the two sisters in whose society he lived, one of whom survives him.

(Dr Scott, Aberlour, Free Church of Scotland Monthly Record, June, 1881).