Looking Back: Induction at Colonsay

From June 1935

INDUCTION AT COLONSAY

BY THE REV DAVID M^CQUEEN, M.A.

Marooning was only one of the risks run by the Presbytery of Islay when they met on Colonsay to induct the Rev. Ian B. MacCalman to the church and parish of the island. The others incidental to a two and a half hours‘ sea trip each way in an open boat need not be mentioned. A recent visitor, however, who made the trip on government service, intended to stay one hour, but had to stay three weeks. The wind suddenly changed, and he became the prisoner of the waves. 

Colonsay is a small island In the Inner Hebrides, well endowed by nature, and enjoying the benefits of a remarkable climate and a laird qhose hobby is the welfare of his people and their island home. The people are not numerous. When 106 names were signed to Mr. MacCalman's call, practically every adult person on the island had adhibited his name. 

For those who grumble at having to go half a mile by tram to Presbytery, a record of our assembling for the induction will be instructive. The Rev. James Macdonald and I started from Port Ellen, and at due intervals picked up the Revs. Neil Ross, Hector Macdonald, and Angus Duncan, at Bowmore, Bridge-end, and Ballygrant. From Port Askaig, on the Sound of Islay, we set out in a small open boat in which the Rev. D. J. Robertson and his Session-clerk had already taken their places after motoring from Craighouse to the ferry stage at Jura. The trip could be a great adventure, or an ocean joy-ride, or many things between the two. In the morning sun it proved a joy-ride, even though most of the two and a half hours’ journey was made in the open Atlantic. The Presbytery did not need Mr. Macphee, the boatman, to tell them that they were in luck’s way.

Lord Strathcona, however, made the record journey for that meeting. He had travelled from the War Office in Whitehall to be present with his fellow-members of Colonsay Kirk-Session at the induction of their new minister. The Rev. Mr. MacCalman’s indirect distance-achievement also deserves mention. His last charge was in Unst, the most northerly parish in the Church. He, with Lord Strathcona and the Session-Clerk, welcomed the Presbytery on the pier.

The islanders made a general holiday to celebrate the end of a four years’ “vacancy.” Inside the little square church a representative congregation gathered in the pews. “Old Hundredth,” “The Lord’s my Shepherd,” “The Church’s One Foundation,” and “O God of Bethel” were sung, with Miss Mackinnon at the organ. The people sang with that lingering on the note reminiscent of other days. Through the windows could be seen the sparkle and the restless waves of the Atlantic, and on the farther shores of the Sound the everlasting hills. Reverence swept the soul while we worshipped in such a setting.

The Rev. Hector Macdonald, of Kilchoman, Islay, conducted the service and preached the sermon with a soft Gaelic lilt in his voice. “They shall repair the waste places of former desolations,” he read, from Isaiah. His sermon went ‘gey deep’, as they still say in Dumfriesshire. I heard the trill of a lark overhead, such was the hush when Mr. MacCalman answered the questions. He seemed very much alone, as he stood before the Presbytery. Ministers, indeed, always do on such occasions.

The Rev. James A. Macdonald, Port Ellen, gave the charges with admirable point and brevity. Slackness, he boldly declared, was the besetting sin of the Islands and Highlands.

Lord Strathcona was the ideal host. We lunched in the hotel as his guests, with the laird at the head of the table and his fellow-elders amongst us to bid us not to stay our hands. Mrs Clark, Scalasaig Hotel, presented Mr. MacCalman with an envelope which did not conceal the  congregations generous secret.

When, the same evening, still in the daylight, I remarked in Port Ellen to a friend, “I’ve been to Colonsay and back, to-day,” he replied, “And do you tell me?” And a look of slow wonder crept into his eyes. There are days when it can be done.

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