FASTI ECCLESIANĈ SCOTICANĈ
The entry for St Peter's (Dundee) in volume 5 - Synods
of Fife, and of Angus, and Mearns (p340-341)
(back to M'Cheyne main page) | (M'Cheyne books)
Page created and maintained by David Haslam. Last updated 2001-11-11
ST. PETER'S.
[Detached from St. John's parish and opened as a chapel-of-ease in 1836. Retained by the Free Church in 1843.]
1836
ROBERT MURRAY M'CHEYNE, born at Edinburgh 21st May 1813, youngest son of Adam M., W.S., and Lockhart Murray, daugh. Of David Dickson of Locherwoods, Dumfriesshire ; educated at High School and Univ. of Edinburgh ; licen. By Presb. Of Annand 1st July 1835 ; assistant at Larbert and Dunipace ; elected in Aug., and ord. 24th Nov. 1836. Never robust, he suffered a serious breakdown in health in 1838 and was obliged to give up his pastoral duties. He went to Edinburgh to rest and recuperate. During his absence his pulpit was supplied by William Chalmers Burns, afterwards the celebrated missionary to China. In 1839 he was one of a deputation appointed by the Committee of the General Assembly on the Conversion of the Jews, to visit Palestine to consider the expediency of beginning a Jewish mission there. M. was away from 12th April to 6th Nov. 1839. On his return he resumed his work at Dundee with renewed energy, and devoted himself to evangelistic missions in England and Scotland. He preached to his own people on 12th March, and two days afterwards was seized with typhus fever, which he had contracted in the course of visitation, and died 25th March 1843. He was buried beside his own church, where an imposing monument marks his grave. He was unmarr. Perhaps no min. in the Church of Scotland is better remembered for the saintliness of his character, the anxious devotion which influenced the whole of his short ministry, and the success which everywhere accompanied his efforts as a preacher of the Gospel. He was a diligent Bible student and a good classical scholar. He learned to read Greek when he was but a boy, and he could carry on a conversation in Hebrew. He had fine poetical, artistic, and musical gifts. He trained his congregation in psalmody, and his hymns are the property of all the Churches. Publications - Why is God a Stranger in the Land ? (Edinburgh, 1838) ; Reasons why Children should fly to Christ without Delay (Edinburgh, 1839) ; To the Lambs of the Flock (Edinburgh, 1840) ; Testimony against the running of Railway Trains on Sabbath (Dundee, 1841) ; I love the Lord's Day (Dundee, 1841) ; Daily Bread (Edinburgh 1842) ; Another Lily Gathered (Edinburgh 1842) ; Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839 [jointly with Andrew A. Bonar] (Edinburgh, 1842) ; The Eternal Inheritance, the Believer's Portion, and the Vessels of Wrath fitted to Destruction, two discourses (Dundee, 1843) ; Expositions of the Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia (Dundee, 1843) ; Songs of Zion to cheer and guide Pilgrims on their way to the New Jerusalem (Dundee, 1843) ; Memoir and Remains (portrait) by Andrew A. Bonar (Edinburgh, 1844 ; numerous editions, and Gaelic translation by Allen Sinclair, 1895) ; Additional Remains consisting of various Sermons and Lectures (Edinburgh, 1846) ; Basket of Fragments, the Substance of Sermons (Aberdeen, 1848) ; Revival Truth, being Sermons hitherto unpublished (London, 1860). He wrote the hymns - "When this Passing World is done," "I once was a Stranger to Grace and to God," "Beneath Moriah's Rocky Side" [written at the foot of Carmel, June 1839], "Like Mist on the Mountains," and "Ten Virgins clothed in White." -- [Memoir and Remains ; Jean Logan Watson's Life ; Autobiography of Thomas Guthrie, D.D. [in which is described the accident said to have been the beginning of M'Cheyne's illness], 174; (London, 1874) ; Norrie's Dundee Celebrities, 81-5 ; Julian's Dict. Of Hymnology, 707 ; Dict. Nat. Biog.]