Old Photograph Reverend Norman Macleod Scotland

Old photograph of Reverend Norman Macleod from Campbeltown, Argyll, Scotland. This Scottish clergyman and author was born on 3 June 1812, and died on 16 June 1872. He was born in Kirk Street, Campbeltown, to the Rev. Dr. Norman Macleod and Agnes Maxwell; his paternal grandfather, a minister of the parish of Morvern in Argyllshire, bore the same name. His father, at that time minister of Campbeltown, was himself an exceptional man. His entire life was closely bound to the Highlanders of Scotland, catering to their spiritual and intellectual needs. In 1827, young Macleod became a student at the University of Glasgow; in 1831, he went to Edinburgh to study divinity under Dr Thomas Chalmers. On 18 March 1838, he became parish minister at Loudoun, Ayrshire. In August 1851, he married, Catherine Ann, daughter of William Mackintosh of Geddes, and sister of John Mackintosh. In 1860 Macleod was appointed editor of the new monthly magazine Good Words, illustrated by Arthur Hughes, Francis Arthur Fraser, born 1846, died 1924, John Leighton, James Mahoney, born 1810, died 1879, Francis S. Walker, Townley Green and others. In 1865, Macleod risked an encounter with Scottish Sabbatarian ideas. The presbytery of Glasgow issued a pastoral letter on the subject of Sunday trains and other infringements of the Christian Sabbath. Macleod protested against the grounds on which its strictures were based. For a time, owing partly to a misleading report of his statement, he became the man in all Scotland most profoundly distrusted. But four years later the Church accorded him the highest honor in her power by choosing him as moderator of her general assembly. In 1867, along with Dr Archibald Watson, Macleod was sent to India, to inquire into the state of the missions. He undertook the journey in spite of failing health, and seems never to have recovered from its effects. He returned resolved to devote the rest of his days to rousing the Church to her duty in the sphere of foreign missions, but his health was now broken, and his old energy flagged. On 16 June 1872, he died in Glasgow. He was buried at Campsie. His grandson, George MacLeod was to also become Moderator of the Church of Scotland, having founded the Iona Community.



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