Angus of the Hills (Angus Macleod)

 Taken from The Men of Skye

 ‘God’s law is perfect, and converts

the soul in sin that lies:

God’s testimony is most sure,

and makes the simple wise’ (Ps. 19:7).

‘Angus of the Hills,’ or, in Gaelic, ‘Aonghas nam Beann,’ was born in the parish of Uig, Lewis, early in the nineteenth century. From his childhood he was of weak intellect, and it is said he had two sisters who were also mentally weak. He was led to the knowledge of Christ as his Saviour at the time of the awakening in his native place under the ministry of the Rev. Alexander MacLeod, who went there in 1824. The inhabitants of that place, like many other parts, had been spiritually asleep during the long night of Moderatism. Angus was fond of roaming here and there, especially after his conversion, to hear different evangelical ministers, and no doubt his intercourse with various classes of people improved and sharpened his mind:

‘How much the dunce that has been sent to roam,

Excels the dunce that has been kept at home.’

The Rev. John MacRae was parish minister at Uig. Angus made his acquaintance, and this acquaintance grew into attachment. When Mr. MacRae became minister of Cross, Angus paid him a visit and passed some time with him. He was one day entrusted with the herding of the minister’s cattle, but while he prayed, the cattle made their way into the corn. The minister came out and began to advise and rebuke him, but Angus said: ‘Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head’ (Ps. 141:5). It was while here it was thought advisable to teach him, but he failed to acquire the alphabet. ‘A, B,’ ‘Ab,’ he would say. ‘Ah! this is but dry. There is no food here for my soul. There is no word about Christ or God here; no word about forgiveness of sin. I would rather be at the back of a dyke where I would get a moment of the presence of the Lord.’

Once Angus left Lewis, it is said he never returned there. The occasion of his departure from his native place and his kindred is related as follows: His father was one day repairing a dyke; Angus tried to assist him, and broke the spade. His father’s temper was roused, and he ran after his son to punish him. Angus ran away calling out, ‘Oh, Lord, avenge me of mine adversary.’

I consider Angus is entitled to be mentioned among the Skye ‘fathers’, for he loved to be among them himself. He was a wonderful man, and was much loved in Skye. Above all places, he had a special liking for Snizort, which he called ‘Jerusalem’. Above all men, he loved the godly men in Skye. Once he came to Skye he seldom left it, and only on communion occasions went elsewhere. There is a large number of his sayings and interesting anecdotes about him related in Skye, a few of which I record.

At a prayer meeting he was called upon to pray, but he refused to engage. After dismissing, someone asked him the reason of his refusal. ‘I could not,’ he said. ‘But,’ said the other, ‘Jonah prayed in the whale’s belly.’ ‘Yes,’ replied Angus, ‘but I was worse than Jonah, for the whale was in my belly.’

He was at a communion, and he happened to lose the token which was given him to produce on admission to the Lord’s Table. The elder who was serving said: ‘Oh, Angus, I see you have lost the token.’ ‘No,’ was the reply; ‘I only lost the bit of iron.’

After the minister would finish the service of the day, Angus would rise and say a few words to the people in parting especially if he had been hearing an evangelical preacher, and his cup was overflowing. To an audience in Lewis, he said: ‘Poor Angus will be a witness against you if you reject the Word of God. You know him and his weaknesses. You have your natural faculties, and he has not, so this will be your increased guilt, if you do not make use of faculties which were never given to him.’

On another occasion in Skye, Angus rose, and Mr. Roderick [Macleod] asked a minister who was assisting at the communion to ask him to sit down. The stranger asked Angus who gave him authority to preach. ‘The minister of the holy place and of the true tabernacle that the Lord pitched, and not man, and neither you nor any other person will silence me.’

On a similar occasion someone said, to test him, ‘You spoke some errors just now.’ ‘And are you not astonished,’ said Angus, ‘that it was not errors altogether? You should wonder if I spoke truth.’

It was customary with him to rise early, especially on the Sabbath morning of a communion, and resort to a quiet place to pray. The communion was at Snizort, and he was staying in Bernisdale. He rose early, and went down to the shore. One of the godly men was up early, and went in the same direction. He met Angus returning, and said, ‘You rose early today.’ ‘No,’ said Angus, ‘the women were up before me,’ meaning those who went to ‘the grave’ before dawn. Angus, if we may so say, lived with the people of the Bible, such a place had the Word of God in him.

Someone asked him, ‘What do you compare man in a state of nature to?’ ‘He is like the sow,’ he replied, ‘that is never pleased but when in the dung; and though you brought the sow to the castle he would seek back to the dunghill, or make it such.’

He once happened to be entertained to food in the house of an ungodly man in Skye. When the food was laid on the table, Angus was called upon to ask a blessing. He began: ‘Lord, have pity on this wicked family.’

He was one day standing near the church at Snizort,. and one person remarked to another, pointing to him, ‘There’s one that wants something.’ ‘Yes,’ said Angus, ‘I want something. I want Jesus Christ, the true bread that came down from heaven.’

He was on one occasion in the house of Mr. Lillingstone, the humble, pious, and hospitable proprietor of Lochalsh, and it was said to him at the table, ‘You have reason to be proud when the lady would ask you to her table.’ ‘She has reason to be proud herself,’ said Angus, ‘when the Lord would humble her so much that she would take me to her table.’

Angus often engaged in prayer in the church, and on few prayers would there be more unction and dew from heaven; yet such was his simplicity that when he came out of church he was sometimes seen to go aside with children to play at pebbles. He was a walking commentary on the passage, ‘The law of God makes wise the simple.’

He was so intellectually weak that he could not count his fingers, and never understood the use of money. Someone gave him five shillings, and he said himself that Satan began to tempt him, saying that he loved the five shillings more than his Saviour, so he went and placed the money in a hole in a dyke. Afterwards he was telling this to one of his friends how Satan tried to tempt him, but that he laid the money in a hole. This man, knowing Angus’s weakness, tried to recover the money, but Angus could not find the place where he hid it.

There was another man, Ebenezer Rose, who had been a Gaelic schoolmaster, but had become mentally weak. Angus was much attached to him, and they were often together. Ebenezer was a heavenly-minded man. He would continue long in prayer, and Angus would give him a push and tell him to stop, ‘as the people would have to attend to other’ things. In his manner of living among the people, he was not so easily satisfied or put up with as Angus. When he came to a house, and food was prepared for him, if it was not to his taste he would say, ‘Have you no better food than this?’ ‘No’ would be the reply; ‘we did not expect you.’ ‘But,’ he would say, ‘why did you not go and borrow it from your neighbour when a stranger came to see you?’ There was an allowance made for his intellectual weakness, but the people were generally very kind and hospitable to them both, and there was a striving as to who would have them in their houses. They were once together, walking to a communion, and the day was warm. They saw a carriage coming behind them. ‘It would be a good thing if we got into this carriage,’ said Ebenezer. ‘You foolish man,’ said Angus, ‘it were far better if we got into the chariots of Amminadab.’

 It is related that there was another man at Ardnamurchan, Ewen Cameron, distinguished for his godliness and artlessness of mind. Angus and he met for the first time at Tobermory, when the Rev. Peter MacLean, a native of Uig, Lewis, was minister there. They heard of each other before, and when these simple, innocent men met the one said to the other, ‘Come,’ and they went to the back of a hill, and the one began to preach to the other. One of the ministers, passing by, observed them, and fearing that boys would come after them, said, ‘What are you doing there?’ ‘Never mind him,’ said the one to the other, ‘that is always the work of the devil to take men away from the means of grace.’

There is evidence that the Word of God, through Angus, was blessed to the conversion of souls. ‘Unto babes,’ the Lord in His sovereignty, ‘reveals the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,’ while they are hidden from ‘the wise and prudent’. It is related that a woman was awakened to a real concern for her soul through a passage of Scripture Angus quoted in prayer. She lived an answerable life after. When she came before the kirk-session with a view to communicate, they asked her her reason for coming forward, to which she answered, ‘I am afraid I have no ground at all, as the truth which came to me came through an idiot.’ The kirk-session had enough discernment to see that Satan was trying to make a handle of the weakness of Angus to tempt one who was, to all appearance, one of the Lord’s people Though Angus was simple, and his intellectual faculties lacking strength for the things of this world, yet he could find an answer to gainsayers in God’s Word. A woman whom he rebuked spoke abruptly to him for venturing to speak to her. He was silent for a little, then finding his reply, he stood up and said: ‘I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed.’

 Angus did no ordinary work, but went from house to house, and, as a rule, stayed with the Lord’s people. They were not tired of him, but highly valued his company. Some one quoted to him the Scripture, ‘If any man would not work, neither should he eat.’ ‘Well,’ said Angus, ‘that speaks to you. You are able to work, and the Lord gave you strength of mind and body for it, but He has not given that to me.’

I think it was either at Kilmuir or Uig, Skye, that this holy and wonderful man ended his days. On his deathbed he gave instructions to those around him to bury his body in a certain place of the graveyard at Uig. They did as he wished, and it was remarkable that when the flood came which took away a large part of this burying-place, it did not interfere with the dust of this saintly man. His body sleeps there till it awake on the morning of the resurrection. ‘The memory of the just is blessed.’