The literature of the Highlanders : $b a history of Gaelic literature from the earliest times to the present dayMacNeill, Nigel
History
The literature of the Highlanders : $b a history of Gaelic literature from the earliest times to the present day
MacNeill, Nigel
Scottish Gaelic literature -- History and criticism
Macgregor (1759-1830), sent by the General Associate Synod to Nova
Scotia in 1786, has written hymns (1819) which have been highly
valued by sections of Highlanders at home and abroad. He was a native
of St. Fillans, in Perthshire, and wrote and spoke Gaelic with
greater purity and elegance than the natives of that county in the
present day are able to do. The University of Glasgow conferred on
him the degree of D.D. in recognition of his arduous and successful
labours in the Colonies among his countrymen. His poetry, although
not of the first order, is yet sweet and natural—metrical effusions
in which the simple truths of the Gospel are rehearsed with
earnestness and freshness. The following verses are translated from
his poem on _The Resurrection_:—
Great must be that might,
Keen must be that sight,
That so wisely all parts exhume;
All the craven and brave,
The master and slave,
He shall call from the dust of the tomb.
Widely scattered though be
Heads and bodies, yet He
Reunites them in one again;
Then forth shall be hurled
From the graves of the world
All the ashes of slaughtered men.
The bones that are placed
On the hill or wild waste,
In the desert, or pit, or shore;
In the ocean deep,
’Neath the river’s sweep—
To life he shall then restore.
When the earth shall be shaken
All classes shall waken—
The poor, and the king, and the brave;
Then forth shall be rolled
The young and the old,
The maiden, and lover, and slave.
Some will rise in great fear
When the Lamb shall appear,
The just from the evil to sever;
Some will wake with delight
In garments all bright,
As the heirs of the kingdom for ever.
Macgregor’s grandson, the Rev. George Patterson, D.D., has written
his life, much of which is founded on an autobiographical sketch.
REV. JOHN MACDONALD, D.D.
Dr Macdonald, of Ferintosh, as “The Apostle of the North,” is
a household word in the Highlands. As an orator, preacher, and
evangelist, no man of his day was the instrument of greater good
to his countrymen, by whom his memory will be warmly cherished for
generations. In _The Gaelic Messenger_ (1829-30) appeared the first
and the best of his poems, which have been the delight of more than
one generation of Highlanders. This was a poem of three parts—_The
Christian on his Journey to, at, and beyond Jordan_. Some of his
other poems are biographical. His poetical works were published in
a neat volume in 1846. Here are a few verses translated from the
“Christian’s Journey:”—
ON THE WAY TO JORDAN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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