THE LATE CANON M1CCOLL. [To THE EDITOR OP THE 5PECTATOR:]
Sra,—I feel sure that your readers will like to see put on record, in a paper to whose columns Canon MacColl so often contributed, some of the chief facts of his life. Malcolm MacColl was born in the year 1834 at Glenfinnau. in Inverness-shine, the third son of Mr. John MacColl, a sheep farmer in that parish and a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church. In 1840 the tenancy of the farm was given up in consequence of his father's death from an accident, and the widow and her young family removed to Ross-shire. At the age of twelve be had the good fortune to attract the attention of Mr. Stuart of Ballachulish, in Argyll- shire, who assisted him to obtain a classical education, and provided him with the necessary means for matriculation at Trinity College, Glenahnond. He was admitted to Holy Orders in 1859 by Bishop Trowel-, of Glasgow, and served for a short time at Castle Douglas. It was, however, in 1862 that his attention was first attracted to the claims of the suffering populations under the Ottoman yoke, when he was serving as Chaplain to the British Ambassador at St. Peters- burg, and from that year may be dated the commencement of his friendship with Mr. Gladstone, whom he regarded with a sincere and intense devotion, and served, amid cloud and sun- shine, with a degree of conspicuous loyalty which compelled the admiration of many who did not share his views, and has been compared, not inaptly, to the Si-0 and zeal which characterised the attachment of a Scottish Highlander to the Chief of his clan.
Canon MacColrs activities were by no means restricted within narrow limits. He possessed in a marked degree the gift for controversial writing, coupled with considerable intellectual attainments and real powers of sustained work and concentration. And yet he was much more than an interesting personality with a fascinating manner, and an expert pamphleteer. He was a man of high character and saintly life, conscious of his own shortcomings, whose love of service was fitly expressed by the inscription on a wreath laid on his tomb "He visited the fatherless and the widow in their affliction."
That his pen dealt with a wide range of subjects is explained by the fact that be always took a deep interest in the topics of the day—whether theological, political, or scientific—and was able to express himself in terse and vigorous language. The very ardour of his temperament made it impossible for him to keep silent at times when a more cautious and calculating man would have curbed his tongue and checked his pen. But MacColl cared nothing for personal advancement, and it was with some difficulty that Mr. Gladstone, having offered him in vain a valuable Crown living, pressed upon him in 1884 the less lucrative preferment of a Residential Stall at Ripon, which he occupied until his death.
Had the chances of life made him a French Abb6 instead of an English Canon, he would, without doubt, have become an active, and certainly influential, Member of the French Chamber of Deputies, for he was, above all things, fond of debate, and possessed a rare combination of qualities which would have found full play in French Parliamentary life ; whereas, owing to the statutory disabilities which in this country exclude clergy of the Established Church from sitting in the House of Commons, Canon MaeColl's debating skill was confined within the walls of the Northern House of Convocation, where his consistent championship of orthodox theology gave him deserved prestige.
But Canon MacColl's fame will, in the main, rest upon his chivalrous devotion to the cause of the oppressed. One of the last letters he wrote was on behalf of the natives of the Congo. For the Bulgarians, Armenians, and Cretans he worked with splendid and untiring energy, and will always be remembered with affectionate regard by the Christian subjects of the Porte—it mattered not to him whether they were Slav or non- Slav—whose- sufferings appealed to him with great reality, and whose cause he made the chief work of the last thirty years of his life, labouring with Mr. Gladstone, the late Dukes of Argyll and Westminster, Lord Wantage, and others in striving to stir up the European Powers to a sense of their responsibility under Articles 23 and 61 of the Berlin Treaty, and to devise and inaugurate, under international control, some form of decent and tolerable government for the European and Asiatic vilayets of Turkey.
It may be added that in 1899, on the recommendation of the late Duke of Argyll, the University of Edinburgh conferred upon Canon MacColl the degree of Doctor in Divinity ; and, later, the King of the Hellenes decorated him with the insignia of a Knight Commander of the Order of the
Redeemer in recognition of his services to Greece and Crete. He married in 1904 Consuelo Albinia, third daughter of the late Major-General Crompton-Stansfield, of Esholt Hall,
Yorkshire, who survives him.—I am, Sir, &c., a [We cannot publish this interesting record of Canon MacColl's life and work without adding a personal expression of deep regret at his loss.—En. Spectator.]
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