The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is — not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself.

MacDonald grew up in the Congregational Church with an atmosphere of Calvinism. He took his degree at the University of Aberdeen and then went to London studying at Highbury College for the Congregational ministry. His father a farmer was one of the MacDonalds of Glen Coe and a direct descendant of one of the families that suffered in the massacre of 1692.

He is now known particularly for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy works and their influence on later authors such as W. K. S.