Among them were the Cistercian houses of Melrose, Kinloss, Newbattle and
Dundrennan, and Holyrood itself for Augustinian canons.
St Ælred gives a circumstantial account of David’s death at Carlisle on May
24, 1153. On the Friday he was anointed and given viaticum, and then spent
much time in praying psalms with his attendants. On Saturday they urged
him to rest, but he replied, “Let me rather think about the things of God, so
that my spirit may set out strengthened on its journey from exile to home.
When I stand before God’s tremendous judgement-seat you will not be able
to answer for me or defend me; no one will be able to deliver me from His
hand”. And so, he continued to pray; and at dawn of Sunday he passed
away peacefully as if he slept.
St David had helped to endow Dunfermline Abbey, founded by his father and
mother, and he had peopled it with Benedictine monks from Canterbury.
There he was buried, and at his shrine his memory was venerated until the
Reformation.
Charles Frederick Frazier Mackenzie, born in Peeblesshire was the ninth
son of Colin Mackenzie and Elizabeth Forbes. He was educated at Bishop
Wearmouth school and Edinburgh Academy, and entered St John's College,
Cambridge in 1844. He migrated to Caius College, where he graduated B.
A. as Second Wrangler in 1848, and became a Fellow of Caius. [2]
He was ordained as a priest in 1852 and served as curate
of Haslingfield near Cambridge, 1851-4. In 1855, he went
to Natal with Bishop Colenso and served as Archdeacon of Natal. They
worked among the English settlers till 1859 when he returned to England
briefly to raise support for more direct missionary work. [3] In 1860, Mackenzie
became head of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa and he was
consecrated bishop in St George's Cathedral, Cape Town, on 1 January
1861. Following Dr David Livingstone's request to Cambridge, Bishop
Mackenzie took on the position of being the first missionary bishop
in Nyasaland (now Malawi).
Moving from Cape Town, Bishop Mackenzie sailed up
the Zambezi and Shire rivers with a small group to start work. He arrived at
Chibisa’s village in June 1861 with the goal to establish a mission station
at Magomero, near Zomba. He directly opposed the slave trade causing the
enmity of the Yao. Bishop Mackenzie worked among the people of
the Manganja country until January 1862 when he went on a supplies trip
together with a few members of his party. The boat they were travelling on
sank and as their medical supplies were lost, Bishop Mackenzie’s malaria
could not be treated. He died of Blackwater fever on 31 January 1862 on an
island in the Shire River. Dr Livingstone erected a cross over his grave a
year later.
An International school in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital, is named after him.
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