To man’s undiscerning eye, the generations come and go, fading one into the other, ultimately passing from the face of the earth. As the march of history progresses, only the land remains, while men, women, and children grow, live, and die and then return to the earth from which they came, seemingly swallowed into nothingness by a vast uncaring universe.
In reality, however, the land is the stage upon which a drama of unparalleled eternal significance is played within the hearts of every man and woman who sets foot upon it. Unseen by those around us, often uncomprehended by ourselves, the choices and values of our earthly lives mold and determine the character we take with us into the next life.
From the time the Picts settled in northern Scotland in the seventh century, until the region was overrun by the Vikings in the ninth, and then settled throughout the following centuries by the Scots, the estate known as Stonewycke became a symbol of the enduring quality of the land. When the castle of that same name was built by Andrew Ramsay in the 1540’s, his prayer was that the estate would stand as a sentinel in the north to God’s goodness. His prayers for the generations who would follow him in the Ramsay line resulted in blessings and prosperity to the family throughout the next two and a half centuries, finding special fulfillment in the righteousness of his descendant Anson Ramsey in the early nineteenth century. (The spelling of the family name was changed in 1745 to Ramsey.)
But as the blessings of God follow generational lines, so also do the consequences of wrongdoing and ungodly choices. The self-will and personal greed of Ross Ramsay, brother of Adam de Ramsay, baron of Banff, also became an intrinsic factor in the family bloodline—a black stain which, unknown to Andrew, his descendant, was too strong to be rooted out entirely by the prayers that followed the stigma.
Hence, though Andrew’s blood was strong in Anson, Ross’s found fertile soil in Anson’s sons, whose father suffered the tormenting fate of watching his own offspring turn away from the God of their fathers. The family continued to be infused by new blood; while the choices and prayers of each succeeding generation breathed new life into the heritage of godliness, at the same time self-interest strengthened the forces which opposed those prayers. The grafting into the family of James Duncan in 1845 threatened to eradicate altogether by greed and ambition what Andrew and Anson had prayed so diligently for.
Yet in the mystery of God’s purpose, in James’s own daughter rose the strong desire to give her life to the Almighty plan. Such yielding, however, never comes easily. Battle raged within the soul of young Maggie Duncan—the conflict found in her Ramsey bloodline was illustrative of the essential human condition. Indeed, the future of the family’s heritage was at stake. Her laying down of self, and her prayers for the future of the Ramsey/Duncan lineage, rekindled for a new era the prayers begun through her ancestors, enabling the blessings of God to pass to new generations through her granddaughter Joanna.
Thus the legacy continued into the second millennium of settlement on the northern Scottish coast. And with the passage of time the tempo of life accelerated. The twentieth century brought many changes to the inheritors of the once-magnificent estate known as Stonewycke. In Great Britain the twentieth century brought the end of the Victorian Era with the Queen’s death in 1901. Monarchies had come and gone countless times before, but this transfer of power was more far-reaching in its impact on the world than a mere changing of the guard from mother to son in London. A thorough-going transfiguration, the roots of which had sprouted during Victoria’s lifetime, was in the process of turning society inside out.
Not only was the entire political framework of the world being revamped; cataclysmic social change, affecting every level of society, was sweeping through the once-proud center of the mighty British Empire. The growth of the Labor Party overhauled Parliament’s decision-making process. Morals and literature changed dramatically. The spiritual foundation-stones of Victoria’s administration eroded. Socially, economically, politically, and spiritually old norms were being thrown out. Technological breakthroughs, given momentum by the Great War against Germany, found their way into the daily lives of countless millions on both sides of the Atlantic—automobiles, electricity, airplanes, radios, urban growth, new factories, and the wild music and fashions of the 1920s.
These were profound changes. The world in the first two decades of the twentieth century was a world rushing to modernize itself. The world of Maggie’s childhood was a world as distinct from that in which Joanna would raise her daughter, as the horse was distinct from the automobile. Between 1900 and 1930 stretched a gulf, not of decades but of centuries.
Perhaps most significant for the northern shires of Scotland during this time was the final demise of the old feudal and manorial systems of land management, which had been dying a slow death for centuries. Once-proud estates gradually were sold off in parcels, were apportioned and split between heirs, or went bankrupt as their owners desperately tried to keep vast holdings together with insufficient capital. Not only economics, but social outlook had changed. While titles and nobility still mattered a great deal in Britain, they were coming to matter less. The working classes could now vote and buy land and improve their lot. The separation between the workers and the aristocracy was much narrower. No longer were the fortunes of the workers solely bound up in their dependence on the landowners and lairds who owned their houses, their lands—sometimes, it seemed, their very souls.
With such total dependency gone, the economic benefits to local lairds of the surrounding crofters and poor tenant farmers was also gone. Only the landowners who were able to cope with the changes time had brought survived in their positions of stature. They forged new, more equitable relationships with their subjects, and found other means to support their estates rather than by the blood and toil of the peasantry.
Many estates were not able to survive intact. Others, like Stonewycke, faced the new times by adapting to them rather than trying to stem the tides of change. With a wisdom supernaturally inspired, Anson Ramsey drew up a transfer document for a time which would come years after him, transferring a large portion of the Stonewycke estate to the people who lived on the land. Anson’s transfer turned out to be the salvation of the proud Ramsey heritage. For in that magnanimous act was solidified a bond between the people of Stonewycke and its nobility, unique among such estates—a bond of mutual love that would see mighty Stonewycke, and all those bound to it, through years of change and regeneration.
Quietly, invisibly, the hand of God is always at work. Although we may see only a narrow individual perspective of His actions, the purpose of God goes on far beyond our limited understanding. In the Old and New Testament, God works through the generational flow of family and nation; both sin and righteousness sow seeds and harvest fruit into succeeding generations. Jesus himself came, not as a mere individual, but as a man born into the uninterrupted flow of the history of God’s people. Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David, He brought God’s salvation to the world through the heritage of family, through the legacy of man’s ancestry and ancient birthright as the creation of our Father in heaven.
Twentieth-century mentality is often based on the present; we live in a vacuum of now. Yet every life is the result of a series of choices and crossroads—not only ours, but those of our ancestors for generations behind us. In the present, as in the past, each individual holds a key to the future. We stand at the crossroads of our personal histories, and the decisions we make set into motion values and attitudes that affect not only our own development as men and women made in the image of God, but the choices and decisions that will face our descendants for generations to come.
The Stonewycke saga, then, as it passes into the middle of the twentieth century, is a saga of those human choices, of the struggles of men and women to yield to the godliness to which all are called, while resisting the stain of evil that is passed down through the blood of our ancestors. It is a saga of the land, of a family, of righteousness and blessing passed down through the years as, in certain generations, the forces of good or the forces of evil gain the upper hand. And always the prayers of righteous men and women who have come before stand in the balance.
The Stonewycke saga is the story of God’s work through the generations of one particular family. As the prayers of godly men and women from early in that family’s history weave their way silently into the lives of future descendants, new strains of life (through such men as Ian and Alec) are grafted into the family tree just as the Gentiles were grafted into the family of God, further strengthening and solidifying God’s purpose.
Stonewycke—as a home, as an estate, as a family seat—symbolizes that eternal quality of continuing life through the generations of the Ramsey and Duncan clan. Through the righteous prayers of Andrew and Anson Ramsey, and then Maggie Duncan, followed by Joanna MacNeil, the life of God moves through the generations like seeds which fall to the ground and are covered up and lie dormant—perhaps for many years—yet retain their power of growth and inherent life, waiting for the moment when the proper combination of sun, rain, and warmth sprouts them to life once more.
Though that essential life all but disappeared from the Ramsey clan during some of its darker years, the life hidden below the surface was waiting to sprout. That seed of righteousness, Anson Ramsey’s transfer document, was unearthed by Anson’s great-granddaughter Maggie, whose spiritual eyes were opened largely through the influence of a humble groom named Digory MacNab. Even then, the transfer document, and the very inheritance of Stonewycke itself, disappeared during the years of Maggie’s lonely sojourn in America. However, the purposes of God are never lost, and through Maggie’s own granddaughter Joanna, the life of Stonewycke blossomed and came to fruition once more.
The heritage continues, passing gradually from one generation to the next, with the hand of God infusing life through the answered prayers of the righteous. Man can never tell what methods God will use, nor when the fulfillment of prayers long silent will come. But God’s purposes are always accomplished. The prayers of the righteous resound through the heavens, awaiting the moment when their fulfillment is at hand.
Thus, the Stonewycke legacy lives on, and moves into the future. And as it does, those of a new generation in the Ramsey/Duncan clan, and those who will be grafted into it, are imbued with a life which is given strength through the prayers and obedience of those who have come before. The only question remains: to which of the strains of their heritage will they yield their allegiance?
As the decisions surrounding that question are daily made, the future of the Stonewycke legacy is determined.