Robert Murray Mccheyne

CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHIES

LECTURE 13

ROBERT McCHEYNE

A career of surpassing loveliness, cut short by disease and death, is presented in the Memoir of Robert Murray McCheyne, by his devoted friend and admirer, the Rev. Andrew A. Bonar. McCheyne was a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, and was the youngest child of Adam McCheyne. He was born, May 21, 1813. The decease of his elder brother, David, in July, 1831, led him "to seek a Brother who can not die," and determined him to study for the ministry. He not only applied himself most diligently to his studies, but sought, in all possible ways, to cultivate his own piety, and to do good to the souls of the perishing. Music and poetry were his recreation and delight.
He was licensed to preach, July 1, 1835, by the Presbytery of Annan, and in November became the Assistant of the Rev. John Bonar, pastor of Larbert and Dunipace, near Stirling. In August, 1836, he was called to the pastorate of the new Presbyterian Church, St. Peter's, Dundee, and was ordained, November 24, 1836. His preaching immediately arrested attention, and soon drew crowds to hear him. He became exceedingly popular, and calls from other churches were multiplied. But he declined them all, and continued steadfast in his work and abundant in labors, until he was compelled, by symptoms of alarming disease at the close of 1838, to desist for a season, spending the ensuing winter at Edinburgh.
He was, at the urging of Andrew Bonar, introduced to the work of visiting the sunless rookeries that contained the poor wretched citizens of Edinburgh. What he saw and heard grieved his very sensitive soul. He never dreamed that humans could possibly live in such miserable surroundings marred by sin and superstition. ‘Am I,’ he records, ‘such a stranger to the poor of my native town? I have passed their door thousands of times; I have admired the huge black piles of buildings, with their lofty chimneys breaking the suns rays….why have I never ventured in?’
{This experience gave him an insight into the sinners depravity in all its forms. It is recorded that he was prepared for the work of the ministry by much study of the Word, afflictions in his own person, inward trials and sore temptations. He was learning the depth of corruption in his own heart, and by the discovery of the free grace of God in the Savior.
On one occasion when he met Andrew Bonar he asked what had been the subject of Bonar’s preaching the previous Sunday. He was informed that it has been the verse, ‘The wicked shall be turned into hell.’ McCheyne, on hearing the awful text asked ‘Were you able to do it with tenderness?’ Bonar learned from McCheyne that it is not the hard sayings of the Word that pierces the conscience but it is the voice of divine love heard among the thunder. In his own writings he says, “Oh, when shall I plead with tears and inward yearnings, over sinners. Oh, compassionate Lord, give me to know what manner of spirit I am of! Give me Thy gentle Spirit, that neither strives nor cries.”
The morning hours belonged to God. He is reputed to have said, ‘I will not see the face of man till I have seen the face of God.’ It was prayer and praise that held his life and ministry together.}
[George McGuinness]
At the suggestion of the Rev. Dr. Candlish, the General Assembly's Committee for the Conversion of the Jews determined to send a Deputation, on a Mission of Inquiry, to Palestine and other eastern countries. McCheyne and his friend, Rev. Andrew A. Bonar, were associated with the Rev. Drs. Black and Keith. They left their native land early in April, 1839, and returned home in the following November. McCheyne immediately resumed his parochial work, with health improved, but not fully restored. Conjointly with Bonar, he published (May, 1842) the "Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews," a third edition of which was issued in 1843. His health again began to fail in the summer of 1842, and continued feeble through the following winter; and in March, 1843, he was seized with typhus fever, that resulted in his death, March 25, 1843. He had not completed his thirtieth year.
Short as had been his life, the fruits of his ministry were abundant. A large number of souls had been gathered into the communion of his own church; and numbers elsewhere, in Scotland and England, whither he had gone preaching the Word, acknowledged him as their spiritual father.
McCheyne was accustomed to pour forth his emotions in verse, and has left a considerable number of these pious effusions behind him. Fourteen of them are published in his "Remains," as "Songs of Zion." The following was written, at the "Foot of Carmel, June, 1839":
"Beneath Moriah's rocky side,
A gentle fountain springs,
Silent and soft its waters glide,
Like the peace the Spirit brings.
"The thirsty Arab stoops to drink
Of the cool and quiet wave,
And the thirsty spirit stops to think
Of Him who came to save.
Siloam is the fountain's name,
It means one sent from God';—
And thus the holy Saviour's fame
It gently spreads abroad.
"Oh! grant that I, like this sweet well,
May Jesus' image bear,
And spend my life, my all, to tell
How full his mercies are."
Copied by Stephen Ross for WholesomeWords.org from The Poets of the Church: A Series of Biographical Sketches of Hymn-Writers... New York: Anson D.F. Randolph & Company, ©1884.