The Rev. John Macdonald, D.D., one of the most popular of Gaelic
preachers, was born in 1778. He was ordained minister of the Gaelic
Church, Edinburgh, in 1806, and was afterwards translated to the parish
of Urquhart, in Ross-shire. While at Urquhart, he began a career of
remarkable ministerial success; though it was as a missionary, or
visitor of other Highland districts, that he established his
professional fame. His powerful voice is said to have reached and moved
thousands of auditors assembled in the open air. A long-expected volume
of Gaelic poetry, consisting chiefly of elegies, hymns, and sacred
lyrics, appeared from his pen in 1848. Dr Macdonald died in 1849. At the
Disruption in 1843, he had joined the Free Church.