Selected From: The Original Secession Magazine.
All over the Highlands the name of Hector M’Phail is mentioned with peculiar veneration. Tradition has handed down many striking illustrations of the zeal for salvation of souls that consumed him. In 1848, the Rev. T. M. Fraser (Yester) published in the Christian Treasury the well-known and since then often reprinted narratives of M’Phail’s converts, ‘The Highland Kitchen Maid’ and ‘Luke Heywood’. Dr. Kennedy (in his Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire) and Rev. Donald Sage (in his Memorabilia) have given interesting notices of his self-sacrificing labours and much-blessed ministry. M’Phail was born in Inverness in 1716. He studied at King’s College, Aberdeen, and was licensed to preach the gospel by the Presbytery of Inverness on the 20th December, 1746. The parish of Resolis in the Black Isle, lying on the Cromarty Firth, became vacant in July 1747 by the death of the devout Mr. Thomas Inglis (father-in-law of Mr. James Calder) and Mr. M’Phail preached repeatedly in the two churches of this parish with such acceptance that he was called by the unanimous voice of the people to be their pastor; and he was ordained over them on 22nd September, 1748.
But for seven long years his ministry proved unedifying. “The hungry sheep looked up and were not fed.” The elders and others soon found out that they had simply an amiable formalist for a minister, and they “spoke often one to another” and to God at prayer-meetings for the conversion of their blind leader.
In 1755 M’Phail married Elizabeth Balfour, a pious daughter of the manse of Nigg. She was not long in Resolis when she perceived to her sorrow that she was unequally yoked with one who had only a name to live. Within a few miles—on the opposite side of the Firth—lived the famous Mr. John Porteous of Kilmuir, the grandson of one of Cromwell’s “Ironsides”1The Ironsides were troopers in the Parliamentarian cavalry formed by English political leader Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century, during the English Civil War. The name came from “Old Ironsides”, one of Cromwell’s nicknames. (Ed.) who had settled in Inverness. His ministry had been greatly blessed to Mrs. M’Phail before her marriage; and one Sabbath morning she told her husband that her soul was famished, and that she must cross over to hear Mr. Porteous. Her intense anxiety overcame all opposition on the part of Mr. M’Phail, and he accompanied her more than a mile to the Ferry.
On his way back he was pricked at the heart with conviction. “My people,” he sobbed out in secret, “have been long sick of the husks I have been offering them from the pulpit, and now my dearly loved wife has to go to another parish for spiritual nourishment.” In his distress he retired to a wood near the church to pray. The hour for public worship was come, but the minister could not be found. One of the elders at length, attracted probably by the groanings of the prisoner, came upon his hiding-place, but he firmly refused to occupy the pulpit. Many days and nights of sore anguish of soul passed over him. Into the same fiery furnace of conviction that Luther passed through in his monastery, and Bunyan wailed in at Elstow, M’Phail was led of the Spirit of God.
At length despairing of relief and refusing to be comforted, he resolved to resign his office. On the opposite side of the Firth lived the devout theologian, Mr. James Fraser of Alness (author of an admirable treatise on sanctification) and him M’Phail asked to preach and intimate his demission from the ministry. Mr. Fraser, who knew so well, the soul-cutting convictions of his neighbour, complied readily with the request to preach on the day assigned. Of the proposed resignation he resolved to make no mention, believing that the dawn of deliverance from distress was nigh. He came as a Barnabas. The large audience was deeply moved, but none half so much affected as the long despairing minister. His bonds were loosed, and at the close of the service he stood up and solemnly declared his determination henceforth to devote himself wholly to the Lord’s service.
One of M’Phail’s best and most loved friends was James Calder of Croy, whose church was sixteen miles south of Resolis. Visiting there one day, M’Phail found Calder greatly distressed. The wife of a respected farmer in the neighbourhood had become violently insane, and her husband determined to consult the Roman priest in Strathglass in the foolish expectation of obtaining relief. Both ministers waited on the deluded farmer, but they could not dissuade him from his purpose. M’Phail was asked to offer up prayer in behalf of the afflicted woman. This he did with even more than his usual fervour and earnestness, making use of the following words: “O Thou who art thrice holy, I implore Thee not to allow me to rise from my knees, should they rot to the earth, until Thou makest it visibly known here that there is a God in Israel.” The prayer was speedily answered. Before the wrestler rose from his prostration, the patient was loosened from her bonds, and so calmed and restored that she sat up and conversed with him and others in a sound mind, giving glory to God.
The accounts handed down of M’Phail’s deathbed sayings and experiences are what might have been expected of so devout and self-denying a Christian. His profound humility shone out in his life, and like the setting sun gilded with surpassing lustre his closing hours. One night he was very restless, and kind friends asked the cause of his uneasiness, when he replied: “I feel as sure of being forever with my Saviour as I am of lying on this bed, but I know not how I can look Him in the face, when I think of how little I have done for Him.” As he lay in weakness he dreamed that he stood lonely and miserable outside the New Jerusalem, and gazing wistfully at the closed gateway. He sees company after company—patriarchs, prophets, apostles, reformers—finding an abundant entrance into the joy of their Lord, while he, forlorn and wretched, seems excluded. At length a solitary pilgrim comes up. It is Manasseh, behind whom he creeps. Amid rapturous melody he moves on through the opening gateway. The glory of heaven flashes in his face, and with the sound in his ears of the gate closing behind him, he awakes to find it a dream. It is the lifelong sense of his utter unworthiness asserting itself strongly in this vision of the night.
The hour of his departure is at hand. On the 7th January, 1774, Calder notes in his Diary: “Heard today with sorrow that my very dear and worthy brother, Mr. Hector M’Phail, was extremely low and weak in body, and not likely to live any time. Happy, unconceivably happy, will that change be to him, whatever time it comes. But oh, what a loss to his flock, his family, the Church, and to me!” On Sabbath, the 23rd of January he entered into the rest eternal. Amid great lamentation his remains were carried to the churchyard of Cullicudden, in the upper end of Resolis. On the freestone flag that covers his grave is still legible the inscription: “Here lies the body of the holy man of God, and faithful servant of Jesus Christ, Mr. Hector M’Phail, minister of the Gospel in this parish, who died 23rd January, 1774, aged 58 years.”
There is ample testimony extant as to the distinguished place occupied by M’Phail in the golden age of the religion of the Highlands. Calder’s Diary, already referred to, gives us interesting glimpses of the rare ability with which he preached the gospel at communion seasons. After M’Phail’s death he writes: “Received the mournful news of the much-to-be-lamented death of the most eminently pious, zealous, active, laborious minister of Christ I ever saw, and the most lovely image of his adorable Lord and Master that ever I was acquainted with. Alas, a brave standard-bearer, a great prince in Israel is fallen in Israel…. He was exceeding high in the sphere of grace below, and now he is exceeding high in the regions of glory. He will have many a jewel to adorn his pastoral crown, and to rejoice his honest heart.”
An eminent teacher of high mental endowments and great Christian experience, who knew M’Phail well, poured out the grief of his bereaved heart in a Gaelic elegy of 228 lines. It gives expression to the deep and widespread sorrow that pervaded the Church in the North. It tells of the fiery furnace of soul-anguish in which the deceased evangelist was prepared to be the means of dealing with distressed consciences, and comforting the broken-hearted. “Of unsurpassed pulpit power, he was unceasingly anxious to benefit every soul that came within his reach. Distinguished by uncommon faithfulness in every department of his office, he was valiant for truth in Presbytery, Synod and General Assembly. How bright his crown!”
Two of M’Phail’s sons entered the ministry. James died, minister of Daviot, near Inverness, in 1839. William was for many years the eminent and widely-respected minister of the Scotch Church in Amsterdam.
Footnotes
- 1The Ironsides were troopers in the Parliamentarian cavalry formed by English political leader Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century, during the English Civil War. The name came from “Old Ironsides”, one of Cromwell’s nicknames. (Ed.) ↩︎
