March 1929
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A Great Scotch Preacher B y P rof . J ohn B issell T rowbridge
ORATIUS BONAR was contemporary with that group of brilliant English Churchmen and hymn writers of the nineteenth century that in cludes John Henry Newman, John Keble, Frederick William Faber, and John Mason Neale. Bonar, together with such hymn-writing preachers as Robert Murray McCheyne, James Montgom ery, Thomas Kelly and George Matheson, represents the staunch evangelical type of Gospel preachers that spanned the century between Wesley and Moody. The Churchmen professed equal devotion and loyalty to Bible truth, but were inclined toward formalism. Bonar and those men tioned as of his school of thought were leaders in active, direct, spiritual, evangelistic effort; Keble and his asso ciates sought a spiritual revival in the English church through liturgical channels, and came to disaster in the Oxford movement. Both of these groups contributed largely to the stream of English hymnody, and a very casual analysis of the hymns of each will show that the style and subject mat ter of their hymns reflect the basic difference not only of their cast of thought but also of their type of piety. New man’s “Lead, Kindly Light,” Keble’s “Sun of My Soul," and Faber’s “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy,” are polished and figurative, with a touch of the objective, though not without devotional value; while the other type, represented by Bonar’s “I Lay My Sins on Jesus,” Montgomery’s “Forever with the Lord” and Matheson’s “O Love that Wilt Not Let Me Go,” are simple, devo tional and evangelistic together with an intimate subjec tiveness that gives them a warm heart throb. Bonar was born in Edinburgh in 1808 of sturdy Scotch stock that had given several clergymen to the Presbyterian ministry. It was thus that his physical, mental and spir itual inheritance gave him a splendid start in life. He was justifiably proud of his family and wrote in one of his poems: “I thank Thee for a holy ancestry, I bless Thee for a godly parentage; For seeds of truth and light and purity Sown in this heart from childhood’s earliest age.” He was educated in the famous High School and Uni versity of Edinburgh and, in addition to his unusual fam ily background, his early life was greatly influenced and enriched by his teacher, Dr. Chalmers, and his fellow stu dent and intimate, the saintly Robert Murray McCheyne. Bonar began his ministry as assistant in the Church at South Leith, a suburb of Edinburgh. It was here also that he began his hymn writing, using the new hymns for his Sunday school. In 1837 he was ordained as minister of the Church of Scotland at Kelso, and here also he con tinued his hymn writing. It is a strange thing that for years Bonar was not at liberty to use his own hymns in his own church services—confining hymn singing to the Sunday school. Many denominations were using his hymns in their official publications, but not so the Scotch Presbyterians. They were Psalm singers, and when, later on in his ministry, Bonar tried the experiment of using
one of his hymns in a regular morning service, the result was that two of his elders expressed their indignation by walking out. When the “disruption” occurred in the Scotch Pres byterian Church in 1843, Bonar went out with the “Free Church.” But as the church at Kelso was retained by the dissenters, he continued to preach in his old pulpit, and his church became a stronghold of “Free Church” activities. In 1866 he was called to Chalmers’ Memorial Church in Edinburgh, where he remained until his death. In 1883 he was moderator of the General Assembly of the “Free Church” of Scotland. He was also active in all evangelistic movements within his reach—with McCheyne at Dundee, in the McAll Mission of France, in the great campaign of Moody and Sankey in the British Isles in the seventies. In all these activities he gave unstintedly of his best powers. “He spoke as a dying man to dying men.” “One said of him he was ‘always visiting,’ another that he was ‘always preaching,’ another that he was ‘always writing,’ and still another that he was ‘always praying.’ ” A ser vant in his home said, “If he needs to pray so much, what will become of me if I do not pray ?” Bonar was a prolific writer. He was constantly at it, and his poems were produced under a great variety of cir cumstances. Expressing himself in verse was the habit and natural impulse of his life from day to day. But, being so actively engaged in evangelistic and pastoral work, he was slow as well as modest in publishing his writings,. Aside from occasional appearances in period icals, or local use in Sunday-school services, his poems did hot appear in print until 1843, when he put out a pamphlet of thirteen hymns under the title, “Songs for the Wilder ness,” followed by a second series in 1844. In 1845 he published “The Bible Hymn Book” and in 1846 “Hymns Original and Selected.” In 1857 his first volume of “Hymns of Faith and Hope” appeared, followed in 1861 and 1866 by the second and third series under the same title, and including many of his best hymns. The very name of these volumes gives an earnest of their contents and suggests the two great passions of Bonar’s deep religious life, expressed in “a tone of pensive reflection.” In “I Lay My Sins on Jesus,” “When the Weary Seeking Rest,” and “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say,” he is emphasizing the “Faith” in a strong and beautiful way, with an evangelistic appeal. In “Come, Lord, and Tarry not,” “The Church has Waited Long,” “Beyond the Smiling and the Weeping” and “Till the Day Dawn,” he has expressed his “Hope” in our Lord’s return. His deep love for, and constant meditation upon, the “Blessed Hope” colored his entire life and amounted to a passion. It was everywhere manifest in his home life, his pastoral ministry, his evangelistic labors, and especially in his hymns. Bonar’s hymns give us a fine illustration, also, of the fact that may be observed in the writings of many hymn- ists, namely, that “the heart is wiser than the head—the poet than the theologian.” Wesley and Toplady took rad ically different viewpoints of doctrinal tenets, but their
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