VERY
REV. DONALD MACLEODTHE minister of Park Church is the representative of a house distinguished in Scottish annals in more ways than one. As a race of ministers the Macleods are the most famous in Scotland. Dr. Macleod's grandfather, the minister of Morven, his father the minister of St. Columba, Glasgow, and his brother, the minister of the Barony, were all among the most conspicuous clerical figures of their time. A candid native of Iona once said to the late Dr. Norman Macleod of the Barony, "I have heard you preach, and I have heard your father preach; but I have heard your grandfather, preaching on a rock, shake out more eloquence from his sleeve than you and your father together." The minister of St. Columba, again, was very much the creator of the education scheme of the Church of Scotland in the Highlands, and in recognition of that and other services was elected Moderator of the General Assembly in 1836, and was made Dean of the Chapel Royal. As moderator he replied for the Church at the great Peel Banquet in Glasgow in January, 1837, and his speech made Peel his friend for life. "Old Norman," however, as he was affectionately called by the people of Scotland, was more than a churchman. He was the foremost Gaelic scholar and editor of his time, and remains immortal as the author of one of the finest Gaelic songs, the pathetic "Farewell to Fiunary." His wife, too, had shown that she could touch the pen, for she was author of the stirring Jacobite lyric, "Sound the Pibroch." It can be little marvel that from such parents should come a family of famous sons. Of these sons - there was a family of eleven - one was Dr. Norman Macleod of the Barony, and another, Professor Sir George Macleod, the famous surgeon, while a third is Dr. Donald Macleod, of Park Church, and former editor of Good Words.
As a boy Dr. Macleod suffered in health from the change of residence entailed by his father's transference from Campsie to the Gaelic kirk which once stood at the corner of Queen Street and Ingram Street. He was sent therefore to stay with his brother Norman, who had been made minister of Loudoun. There he attended the parish school, "sitting beside the poorest boys, and getting tawsed along with them," a discipline he has never regretted. He also gathered health on the moors. and impressions from the memories of the region - of Bruce and Burns and the Covenanters. When his brother was translated to Dalkeith in 1844 he went with him, and continued his schooling there till it was time to enter Glasgow University. Here, in the old black College in High Street, he had for fellow-students many men who have since become famous. Lord Kelvin, the elder Ramsay, the learned Lushington and "Logic Bob" were among his professors, and among the students were Professors Flint, Taylor, McGill, and Lewis Campbell, John Nichol, and Edward Caird.
After taking his B.A. degree, he travelled for two years, fostering his love of painting, sculpture, and music in the cities of Europe, and making acquaintance with the scenery and life of the Nile valley, Palestine, Constantinople, and Greece. For another year he was assistant to his brother in the Barony, and then was presented to the Parish of Lauder, at the foot of the Lammermuirs. It was while on a visit to him there that, during a two days' snowstorm his brother Norman wrote the touching story of "Wee Davie." Four years later the minister of Lauder was translated to the venerable church of St. Michael's at Linlithgow - the fane in which James IV., before he set out for Flodden, saw his warning vision of St. John. As he had wrought hard, by homely lectures in the farm towns of the Lammermuirs, to interest the hinds and bondagers there, he set to work to bring something like sweetness and light into the lives of the toiling shoemakers of Linlithgow. With his band music, and boat races on Saturday afternoons, and his school for reading, writing and counting on Sunday mornings, he accomplished his purpose, and it has never been forgotten how he stood by his people in the worst time of the cholera visitation. When at last he removed from the place, the beadle expressed his regret in somewhat peculiar fashion. At an earlier day he had pointed out the graves of his predecessors in the burying ground. "There's where Dr. Bell lies, and there's where Dr. Dobie lies, and there's where you'll lie, if you're spared" - and at his departure he said to him regretfully, "Ye're the first minister that was ever lifted out o' Linlithgow, except to the grave."
In 1869 came his transference to Park Church, Glasgow. There the pulpit had been held in succession by the late Principal Caird and Professor Charteris of Edinburgh, but since their time both the church and the church service have been greatly beautified, and the efficiency of the church organisation has been maintained, so that Park Church has kept its leading position amid the changed requirements of the time.
In addition to the work of his own congregation Dr. Macleod was for twelve years convener of the Home Mission Committee of the General Assembly, a post full of interest, but involving much hard work and the dealing with social and religious problems. His speeches before the General Assembly on these subjects were published at the request of that body, and led to the appointment of Commissions of Assembly to enquire into the religious condition of the people of Scotland and into the state of the people of Glasgow. This post Dr. Macleod was forced to resign in 1901, as his health broke down. In 1895 he was chosen as Moderator of the General Assembly. Among his other honours are the degree of D.D., conferred in 1876 by the University of Glasgow, and the Royal Chaplaincy, to which he was appointed by Queen Victoria, and which he still holds. As an author and editor, however, Dr. Macleod has a wider audience still. In 1872, after the death of Dr. Norman Macleod, he was offered the editorship of Good Words; and though he accepted it with misgiving, the continued success of the magazine and the choice of its contents for thirty-three years, in face of unnumbered rivals, justified the wisdom of the publishers. Among the independent works by which he is best known, his memoir of Dr. Norman Macleod stands in the first rank of our biographical literature. His volume of social sermons, "Christ and Society," has met with much acceptance, his "Sunday Home Service" has proved a useful work, and his three-volume illustrated edition of the Bible, with introductions to the various books by scholar-specialists, has its own place in the religious world. In 1903 he delivered the Baird Lectures, afterwards published by Messrs. Blackwood under the title of "The Doctrine and Validity of the Ministry and Sacrament of the National Church of Scotland."
In summer Dr. Macleod spends many a day at Glenfeulan, his house by the shores of the Gareloch, and it was there that, while he enjoyed the boating which forms his favourite pastime, he used to formulate his arrangements for Good Words and other literary undertakings of the year. Mrs. Macleod is a daughter of the late Mr. James Anderson, of Highholm, Renfrewshire.
It was with the deepest regret that in the spring of 1909 the congregation of Park Church received his intimation that, on account of advancing years, he intended to resign his charge.