ROBERT MURRAY M'CHEYNE was cradled and nurtured in the historic atmosphere of Auld Reekie, where he was born in 21st May 1813. The frail bairn, who then lay in his mother's arms, was destined to light a lamp that would shine with lambent beauty before his brief life of not quite thirty years had ended. His father was a man of means, a Writer to the Signet by profession, one of that inner coterie of Edinburgh solicitors, whose sole right it was to prepare all writs for the Supreme Court of Justice. His mother was of gentle birth, a woman of great sweetness of character, one of that noble company whose choice lot it is to combine the gifts of a true heart and a one mind. There were two sons and two daughters before Robert was born, though he never saw the second daughter who died when nine months old. He was thus the youngest of five children who were born to fill that home with love and laughter, and he grew up in the warmth of a good middle-class family. Both father and mother sought to order the steps of their children in the footprints of the Shepherd of souls, and it would seem that their spiritual life was ripened as time went by. Their first home had been in Dublin Street where Robert was born, but in 1819 they moved to a still more pleasant home in Queen Street; and Queen Street with its then spacious mansions, and its charming vistas of the Firth of Forth, was all that a child could wish. Robert was frail in health and build, but that did not impede the rich development of his mental ability. His life at school began when he was five, and he soon proved himself quick and alert, readily teachable, a lad "to gladden the sight and capture the heart".¹   Canon Bell of Cheltenham could still recall him after more than sixty years, with his tartan dress and winsome face; he was richly dowered with the charm of generous sympathies, "bright yet grave, fond of play and of a blameless life".²

M'Cheyne was enrolled in the University of Edinburgh at the age of fourteen in the winter term of 1827, and took his Arts degree four years later in the spring of 1831. He was a good rather than a brilliant student, and carried off some prize from each class in turn. He loved to search the treasure troves of prose and poetry both new and old, and he liked to bask in the clear sunshine of the classics of Greece and Rome. He was a gay and lighthearted student, and his gifts for singing and recitation made him a general favourite on social occasions. But he was a stranger to the penetrative power of true faith during those years, and the great change did not take place until he had finished his Arts degree. He had always cherished the high virtues of a chivalrous character, and his father could say with the calm and sober judgement of his professional training, "I never found him guilty of a lie or of any mean or unworthy action; and he had a great contempt for such things in others."³   But he was still far from grace and from God, for he lived at heart like a Pharisee. It was only when the cold, bleak wind of sorrow began to blow that he awoke to his need for spiritual reality, and that was the result of the illness and death of his eldest brother.  David M'Cheyne had been like a sunbeam in the life of his home, with the shine and sparkle of a selfless vivacity. He had begun to assist his father as a Writer to the Signet, and he had been Robert's friend and tutor from his schooldays. Then he had caught a chill on a walking tour in the English Lake country, and it slowly turned into a fatal illness. The end came an 8th July 1831, and his death left a gap in that home which no human hand could heal.  But he was a devoted Christian, and no one could doubt that it was the Lord who had come to pilot his soul across the dark waters and into God's haven of rest.

Robert had long looked up to his brother as the ideal of all that a true man should be, and his death touched him more deeply than words could well express. He had become aware of a richer quality in his brother's character as a result of his new faith in Christ, and he was not indifferent to that brother's longing for his own conversion. But he had yet to drink from the waters of life, and he now began to feel how unfit he was to die. He was eight years younger than his brother, and was eighteen years old at the time of his death; and he kept that day in devoted remembrance to the end of his life. As each anniversary came round, he would refer to it as the turning-point in his own experience. Thus on 8^th July 1832, twelve months later, he wrote in his diary, "On this morning last year came the first overwhelming blow to my worldliness; how blessed to me, Thou, O God, only knoweth Who hast made it so."⁴  And on 8^th July 1842, the last return of that day which he lived to see, he wrote to one of his congregation, "This day eleven years ago I lost my loved and loving brother, and began to seek a Brother Who cannot die." ⁵  It was from that very day that he felt the touch of a hand that transforms, and his friends began to observe the change. "His poetry was pervaded with serious thought, and all his pursuits began to be followed out in another spirit; he engaged in the labours of a Sabbath School, and began to seek God in the diligent reading of the Word."⁶  He was himself to say that "he was led to Christ through deep and ever-abiding convictions".⁷  We may glean his feelings from a saying in his subsequent ministry: "There is no rest for the soul like being in the love of God; that is rest."⁸   Perhaps he has nowhere described this great change so fully as in his poem entitled "Jehovah Tsidkenu".⁹   It should be read in full, but the stanza of climax must suffice:

Jehovah Tsidkenu! my treasure and boast.. Jehovah Tsidkenu! I ne'er can be lost; In Thee I shall conquer by flood and by field — My cable, my anchor, my breastplate and shield!

Grace now gave a new bent to the course of his life, and in November 1831 he was enrolled as a candidate for the ministry of the Church of Scotland. He took his place in the divinity class-rooms at a time when Thomas Chalmers was at the height of his wonderful ministry; no one since the days of John Knox had been held in such true veneration. Men would never forget his self-defence in the General Assembly of 1825 when he had been slated with a statement, which he had made twenty years before in favour of pluralities. He rose to his feet and frankly confessed that he was the author of the statement which had just been cited. He said that he now stood as a repentant culprit before the bar of the Assembly, and gave a brief account of the circumstances in which he had made the statement : it had been his object to prove that an exclusive attention to mathematics was not inconsistent with a vocation to the ministry. Then he brought his speech to a close amid breathless silence with the magnificent apology, "Alas, Sir! so I thought in my ignorance and pride. I have now no reserve in saying that the sentiment was wrong, and that in the utterance of it, I penned what was most outrageously wrong. Strangely blinded that I was! What, Sir, is the object of mathematical science ? Magnitude, and the proportions of magnitude. But then, Sir, I had forgotten two magnitudes. I thought not of the littleness of time; I recklessly thought not of the greatness of eternity!"¹⁰ This was the man who had held the Chair of Divinity at Edinburgh since 1828; he was in the very forefront of the new and stirring movement, which had begun to make itself felt in halls of thought and learning.  He wove the spell of his cosmic thought and solar sweep round all his students; they could hardly resist the force of his massive intellect, his rugged character, his dynamic energy, and his inspiring leadership.  Andrew Bonar, M'Cheyne's friend and fellow student, always spoke of him with unbounded enthusiasm, as one to whom they all owed a debt which they could never repay.¹¹

Robert M'Cheyne could lay no claim to the strength and splendour of the mental vision of his master, but time was to prove that he was endowed with a double portion of the grace and ardour of his glowing spirit. His own approach to study was governed by his supreme desire to learn of Christ. This was his one touchstone for the value of the lectures he heard or the books that he read. His well-thumbed Bible was a witness to his constant search for its truth, and his knowledge of its contents grew with singular thoroughness. This was much more than a student's assign for a textbook. "It was," as Alexander Smellie so finely observed, "the child's craving for the bread from the Father's table."¹² He made himself aware of the finer points of translation, and he was as much at home in the Greek text of the New Testament as he would have been in Braid Scots. He knew enough Hebrew to hold intricate discussions with the learned Jews of Europe and Palestine, and he could consult the Hebrew version of the Old Testament with more ease than most men can skim through the Latin Vulgate.  He spared no pains in the effort to master the doctrines of grace and the lessons of the Reformation, but he had little taste for the vagaries of speculative philosophy or the dilemmas of mediaeval controversy. He thought that Church history ought to be a narrative of God's dealings with men, and this made him feel that M'Crie's Life of Andrew Melville failed to reflect the real spiritual glory of the man or his age.¹³   Thus he never climbed the higher rungs of solid learning, and was in a wholly different category from a man like Thomas Chalmers. But he knew that the wisdom of all the ages in the word of God is vastly superior to the most brilliant genius of a passing generation, and his grasp of this fact was so firm that "he did not readily yield his matured thoughts to be moulded even by men of the highest intellect".¹⁴

Thus truth began to shine in the sky of his soul like a star at evening, and its light was to grow more and more as he moved towards the day. The most striking feature of his career as a divinity student was the development of grace in his personal character. We can still look through the open window of an intimate diary and watch the growth of his soul in the things of God. It is true that he used to drop into Latin, when he wished to conceal the more private entries from the chance gaze of other eyes; it is also true that we have but the scattered fragments which were gleaned from its stores by the hand of a friend after his death. But those fragmentary records have a photographic element, or a self-revealing quality, which lets us see into the soul and its secrets. Thus the story of his life drawn up by Andrew Bonar has the honest hallmarks of true spiritual biography. He lives and moves before our eyes in this memoir, just as David Brainerd and Henry Martyn had stood before his eyes in their journals. He was deeply impressed by each in turn, and they left an enduring influence upon his life.  Thus, on 12^th November 1831, he wrote of Henry Martyn, "Would I could imitate him, giving up . . . all for Christ."¹⁵ And on 27^th June 1832 he wrote of David Brainerd, "Most wonderful man. . . . I cannot express what I think when I think of thee."¹⁶ We can see in M'Cheyne the same spirit of unqualified self-surrender as in Brainerd, but without his pensive strain of melancholy introspection with regard to inward thought and motive; and we can find in him the same spirit of other-worldly aspiration as in Martyn, but without his painful sense of agonizing controversy with regard to human love and despair.  M'Cheyne enjoyed certain material blessings to which they were strangers: they were orphans, and he was not; they were missionaries, and he was not.  But the roots of his soul were deep in the soil in which they had been nurtured, and the blossom it bore was in some ways even fairer than theirs.

M'Cheyne had a special gift for driving home the kind of truth which people and so hard to receive. "Your tears will not blot out sin," he declared. "They do nothing but weep in hell."¹⁷ But the memoir makes it clear that the man who was to voice those words knew what it was to shed such tears himself. It lays bare the searchings of a broken heart under the burden of sin, as on 2^nd February 1832 when he confessed, "Not a trait worth remembering; and yet these four and twenty hours must be accounted for."¹⁸    It makes plain the longings of an ardent soul after the fulness of God, as on 9^th September that year when he declared, "Oh for true, unfeigned humility! I know I have cause to be humble, and yet I do not know one half of that cause.  I know I am proud, and yet I do not know the half of that pride."¹⁹ He drank from the wells of Scripture, and he knelt in worship as one who could not do without the peace and strength of things unseen.  "A calm hour with God," he would say, "is worth a whole life-time with man."²⁰   He read The Life of Jonathan Edwards, and longed to follow him even as he had followed Christ. "How feeble does my spark of Christianity appear beside such a sun," he wrote. "But even his was a borrowed light, and the same source is still open to enlighten me."²¹   In 1834, with Alexander Somerville, he began to visit the streets and stairs of the Lawnmarket and the Canongate. "God grant a blessing may go with us," he wrote on 24^th March.  "Began in fear and weakness, and in much trembling.  May the power be of God!"²² He was increasingly assiduous in all that could prepare him for his work as a preacher of the gospel, and his developed character was one of rare grace and maturity.  M'Cheyne had all the grace and few of the faults of Samuel Rutherford in the poetical imagery of his dreams and aspirations.  It is like an echo from Christ's Palace in Aberdeen to hear him say, "This world is all winter time so long as the Saviour is away."²³

His work as a divinity student came to an end in the spring of 1835, and he applied for a licence to preach.  At the close of the session he passed his trials, in part before the Presbytery of Edinburgh and in part before the Presbytery of Annan. It is through his mother that one pleasant comment has been preserved.  "We have heard," she wrote, "that Dr. Chalmers was highly pleased."²⁴  Thus on 1^st July 1835 he was licensed by the Presbytery of Annan as a preacher of the gospel, and this was an office for which he could name no equal.  The brief evening entry in his diary sums up his thoughts at the close of that day with a touching simplicity: he felt all the solemnity that was involved, but grieved that he could not adequately feel his own great unworthiness.²⁵   His first sermons were preached on the Sunday that followed in the church at Ruthwell near Dumfries, and he remarked, "Found it a more awfully solemn thing than I had imagined to announce Christ authoritatively; yet a glorious privilege!"²⁶ He preached in various churches until November, when he became assistant minister to John Bonar in the parish of Larbert and Dunipace near Stirling.  M'Cheyne liked to remind himself that the famous Robert Bruce had once found in it a scene for his prayers and labours; it stirred his soul to cry that God would pour out His Spirit again as in those days of old. There was now a population of six thousand souls in some seven hundred families, and the field of labour was as varied as one could wish.  Larbert was a noisy, grimy town of miners and iron-moulders, while Dunipace was a peaceful and pleasant hamlet of farmers:  and both parts of the field were tilled with the same care by the minister and his assistant.  M'Cheyne's duties were to preach in the two centres on alternate Sundays, and to visit in both districts throughout the week. Here the ground work was laid for his future greatness in the pastoral ministry, for his was the shepherd heart that cannot but yearn over all who are now out of the way.

He soon began to make use of notebooks, in which he could record the name and case of each man or woman with whom he dealt. His brief comments are a moving witness to his diligence as a visitor: he was tireless, patient, shrewd and systematic. There is nothing dull or cold in the clear, methodical entries; they are full of graphic detail, and they reveal his knowledge and insight. As Alexander Smellie suggests, we may follow him from door to door as he worked his way house by house through Red Row. "John Hunter, No. 22. He, not at home. She, stout woman with sensible face. Spoke of her four bairns dead; three beside her. Visit, 14 July 1836. 'I stand at door and knock.' Altogether a decent woman. Husband to be at meeting."  A week later: "Widow Hunter, No. 40. Wicked face, but old body has had much trouble. Daughter lame.  Visit 14 July. Lost sheep. Spoke plain. She spoke grateful things, but felt them not. Invited me not to pass the door."²⁷ He went to each home in turn, as one who knew that there is a tide in the affairs of grace which is fraught with eternal destiny: those who take that tide at the flood will be borne to safety, while those who miss it then will be washed up in the shallows of a final despair.²⁸  There were but few who sought to breast that tide, but there were some; and it was his greatest joy to help and guide those who dared to take it at its flood. The chief value of that year for his own spirit was in the way of self-discipline and preparation for the future; the King's arrow still had need to receive point and polish.  But he never forgot his great eager desires for that parish where the gospel was preached, "free as the air we breathe, fresh as the stream from the everlasting hills".²⁹ He came to look upon Larbert and Dunipace as though they were the heath of his childhood, and in 1837 he poured out his longing for the parish in a letter to John Bonar. "It is like the land of my birth," he wrote. "Will the Sun of Righteousness ever rise upon it, making its hills and valleys bright with the light of the knowledge of Jesus ?"³⁰

In August 1836 Robert M'Cheyne and his "two greatest intimates,"³¹ Alexander Somerville and Andrew Bonar, were asked to preach in St Peter's Church in Dundee.  This church was built to serve a new parish which had just been carved out of the crowded city, and the congregation was most anxious to call a man who would respond in "the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ" (Romans 15:29).  All three friends were men who would have graced the church with more than usual distinction, and they had been recommended by Chalmers, Welsh, and Candlish. Each was more than willing to yield to the other, but the choice was to fall upon M'Cheyne. On 24^th November 1836 he was ordained in the midst of his new congregation, and he preached on the next Sunday from the great text: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings . . ." (Isaiah 61 :1-3).  It was the text to which the Lord had turned in the synagogue of Nazareth, and the spirit of that text was prophetic of the spirit which was to guide all his ministry.  That first sermon was the means of spiritual awakening for some of his hearers, and he tried to commemorate the day of his ordination as each new year came round with a sermon from the same text.  His prayer at the close of that first Sabbath in St Peter's was weighted with longing and with renewed consecration. "Put Thy blessing upon this day," he wrote. "Felt given over to God, as one bought with a price."³²  Thus he embarked on that brief, but famous life of service which has ever since been acclaimed as a model and an inspiration, even in a land so rich in noble ministries as the land of ancient Covenants.  His entire ministry in Larbert and Dundee was to divide into two three-year terms, with his journey to the Holy Land in between. The first three years were the seedtime; the last three years saw the harvest. The Church indeed was soon to feel the strong impact of one who bore on his heart the hidden seal of the Holy Ghost, and the golden glow which those years were to cast over Dundee still seems to brood above the grey city by the waters of the Tay.

M'Cheyne soon found that he was in the midst of an impoverished population in the poorest quarter of the city.  There were three and a half thousand people in his parish, dwellers in what he called a "wilderness of chimney-tops", but which might yet become green and pleasant as a garden of God.³³   He was convinced that a diligent minister ought to expect success in God's service, but he saw that he could not hope for such success unless he were willing to preach Christ for Christ's sake alone.  Thus it was his earnest prayer that he might never seek to attract men to himself, but that he might truly draw them direct to the Saviour.  Such was his cry, "Lord, give me this!"³⁴ There were signs from the first that his preaching would yield a rich reward; on this man and on that, there broke the light of that morning which will never end in sunset.³⁵ He built up a congregation of twelve hundred people, who came from all parts of town and country and who crowded the aisles of the church and the steps of the pulpit. His thirst for the welfare of souls was interlocked with zeal for the glory of God, and a letter in June 1840 serves to express this fact with a pellucid certainty. "I feel there are two things it is impossible to desire with sufficient ardour," he wrote; "personal holiness, and the honour of Christ in the salvation of sou1s."³⁶ He felt that his conscience had to be as clear as crystal, if he were to speak in the name of Christ.³⁷   "One word spoken from a heart full of God's Spirit would be worth ten thousand spoken in unbelief and sin"³⁸  Personal holiness was thus the great prerequisite for a soul-winning ministry, and this fact must be kept in mind when we read his simple unassuming declaration: "I think I can say I have never risen a morning without thinking how I could bring more souls to Christ."³⁹ His own eye was in fact so single and his aim so sincere that men could not mistake his motive, nor yet resist his message; the most hardened learned to tremble, and the weary found the secret of rest.

M'Cheyne was blessed with a natural endowment of great gifts and rare charm; the whole man was like a rich and polished gem with many gleaming facets. Country landscape was always a delight to him, though he was drawn to the soft and gentle rather than to what was wild and splendid.  He loved to watch the hues of gold in an autumn sunset, while he spoke of those whose sun will never go down; his face would shine with a glow of gladness, when such a scene before his eyes called up the still fairer vision of faith within his soul.  He had the mind and hand of an artist, and he could use brush or pencil to sketch or paint any scene or object which he thought uncommon or impressive.  He had the gifts of a poet in his nature, and could always clothe his ideals in the forms of verse and rhythm.  Some of his lines were light and gay, but his deepest feelings also found a voice in words which can be set to music.  He had taken more than one prize for an original poem while he was a student, and one or two of his Songs of Zion have found a place in most well-known hymnals.  He was at home in the world of music, with a wide range of knowledge and a true sense of values, and with some skill in the use of several instruments. His voice had been trained from early childhood, and was very light and pleasant in its tone and timbre. He had won praise at school for his powers of recitation, and he learnt to sing with pure and beautiful expression. He was at times a guest in the home of Mary Crawford Brown, who as an Edinburgh girl of nineteen was won for a missionary life in India. Her grandnephew was to recall M'Cheyne's presence in that home in words of singular interest. "I have often heard one of my aunts say that more than once she was awakened in the morning by hearing M'Cheyne's sweet tenor voice singing the Psalm with which he always began his private devotions. It was no more disturbing than the song of a thrush or a blackbird in the summer morning."⁴⁰

M'Cheyne had the love of a child for all that was true and manly, and the soul of a saint for all that was good and holy. He was tall and lithe and slender in form; he was fair and bright and pleasant in face. He was full of life and vigour in spite of various handicaps, and was always fond of gymnastic exercise. He was equipped with a clear and discerning intellect, and he had a strong and accurate memory. His mind had been furnished from the honest stores of arts and letters, and he had in fact been favoured with a remarkable combination of the best gifts for his work in Dundee. Such a man could never be dry or commonplace in the pulpit, and his congregation soon knew that his preaching was out of the ordinary. "There was pathos in it; there was willingness; there was fire."⁴¹   But there was more than this; there was another quality, more luminous, more compelling.  It was not the attractive dignity of a finely chiselled face, nor yet the persuasive utterance of a nobly modelled mind that gave him such power; it was just the shining beauty of his personal character. He was, in the purest sense of the word, a saint; one whose face was alight with the vision of things unseen, and whose life was fragrant with the presence of God. Andrew Bonar relates how a man from his own parish was so impressed by the very look of M'Cheyne that it spoke to his heart before a word was said.⁴² There were others like that man who were so conscious of his nearness to God that they could not resist the grace with which he sake. That was why his church was haled with what James Hamilton called a "Bethel-like sacredness" as each Sabbath came rounding that was why men felt the spell of an unearthly reverence as each sermon was preached. All the attractive qualities of a sweet and noble nature were merged in his absolute devotion as "a verray parfit, gentil knyght" who had sworn homage to Christ alone,⁴⁴ and thus his name has been woven into the most cherished legends of the North as the Sir Galahad of the Church of Scotland.

M'Cheyne had felt the call of the heathen world from the first days of his own new life in Christ, and the dream that he might become one of the King's envoys to the mission held was to haunt him to the end. As early as 12^th November 1831 he read Henry Martyn's Memoirs and was moved to the depths of his being. "Would I could imitate him, giving up father, mother, country, house, health, life, all — for Christ. And yet, what hinders ? Lord, purify me, and give me strength to dedicate myself, my all, to Thee."⁴⁵ On 27^th June 1834, when he read the Life of David Brained, he found his heart "more set upon missionary enterprise than ever".⁴⁶ And on 13^th April 1836 he went into Stirling to hear Alexander Duff speak once more on his missionary system, and his thoughts were registered in his diary. "I am now made willing, if God shall open the way, to go to India. Here am I; send me."⁴⁷   This deep missionary spirit never left him; he was more than willing to go.   But the climate of the tropics would have been too severe for his slender powers of physical endurance.  He had always had to protect his health, and more than once he was compelled to rest in his labours.  He had succumbed to a warning illness while at Larbert, and was away from the parish for some weeks in 1836 until he was sure of recovery. "I hope and pray," he had written to John Bonar, "that it may be His will to restore me again to you and your parish, with a heart tutored by sickness, to speak more and more as dying to dying."⁴⁸ He was very fond of Richard Baxter's writings,⁴⁹ and the last phrase in this letter was an echo of a famous couplet in his Poetical Fragments.⁵⁰   Two years later while he was in the midst of his work in Dundee, he was disturbed by the sudden return of grave symptoms. He was attacked by such constant palpitation of heart that he could not even study, much less preach and visit, and as 1838 came to an end he was once more forced to withdraw from his held of labour while he sought to regain his health.

He grieved deeply at the silent Sabbaths which now ensued for so many long weeks, but God had much for him to learn which trial alone could teach. The first lesson was that there is nothing like a calm look into the world that lies beyond the veils of sense and time, to make us feel both the emptiness of human praise and the selfishness of secret pride.⁵¹   Then he was taught to spread the sails of his spirit while the breeze of adversity blew, so that it would drive him on towards the haven of glory.⁵² But this illness was timed in the goodness of God to it in with other factors; it was to bring him some months of travel, which would go far to meet all his missionary longings.   Alexander Keith and Alexander Black had just been chosen by the General Assembly to go out and explore the way for a Mission to the Jews in Central Europe or in Asia Minor; and it was now agreed as the result of a hint from Dr Candlish that Robert M'Cheyne and Andrew Bonar should be added to the deputation. It was a cause very dear to M'Cheyne, and he wrote to Bonar on 12^th March 1839 to share his thoughts. "I do hope we shall go forth in the Spirit," he said, "and though straitened in language, may we not be blessed as Brainerd was through an interpreter?"⁵³ The full story of their visit to "those holy fields"⁵⁴ was told in a joint volume drawn up on their return by Bonar and M'Cheyne,⁵⁵ and competent authorities long regarded this book as one of the best then available on its subject.  Thomas Chalmers had the greatest value for it,⁵⁶ and there are still many who share his view.  It is rich in graphic pictures of the country where the Son of Man dwelt, and in vivid sidelights on the scriptures which the Son of Man loved. It is saturated with the spirit of those sublime events, which still lend a special lustre to the landscape, and it is steeped in the passion of men who yearned for the return and recovery of Israel.

They all sailed from Dover on 12^th April 1839, and M'Cheyne and Bonar returned via the Thames on 6^th November.  The whole journey was in those days quite an uncommon enterprise. "We are not aware," they wrote, "that any clergyman of the Church of Scotland was ever privileged to visit the Holy City before."⁵⁷  A sea voyage from the south of France to Alexandria, and a camel journey through the desert, brought them at length to that land where the Son of God once dwelt with men.  Their First Sabbath in the land of Israel was 2^nd June, and they met for worship with a sense of awe and solemnity. On 7^th June it was M'Cheyne who chose to dismount and hurry forward on foot, that he might be the first to catch a glimpse of the Holy City.⁵⁸   When their camels at last approached the wails of the city, they found themselves inwardly murmuring the words of the Psalmist, "Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem" (Psalm 122:2).  On 20^th June it was Bonar who went off by himself in search of the Well of Sychar, and whose Bible dropped out of his pocket into its waters far below.⁵⁹ But no scene was more like holy ground in their eyes than the garden which still lies at the foot of the Mount of Olives.  It was early morning when few were yet astir, and while the sun was still rising, that the two friends made their way down to the bed of the brook Kedron and crossed over to the plot of ground which bears the name of Gethsemane.  It was enclosed by a low wall, and they sat down beneath the eight gnarled and ancient olives. They read again each passage of Scripture which describes the anguish in that garden, and found their hearts more than ever taken up with Jesus and the love that never faileth.  It was for them that He had filled that vale with strong crying and tears, and had bowed His head in bloody sweat and passion. They gave themselves to prayer, at first alone, then together, putting their sins in that cup which He drank for them.⁶⁰ And when they came to look back on that scene, each thought of the other and gave a new turn to the old question, "Did not I see thee in the garden with him ?" (John 18:26) .

M'Cheyne found endless delight in his sojourn among the cities of Judah and his rambles upon the mountains of Ephraim. We watch him as he watched the great golden sun as it sank westward to the sea, while its rays shone full on the heights of Gibeon; we see him as he saw the round silver moon as it climbed upward in the sky, while its beams played down on the vale of Aijalon.⁶¹ He took time to sit with pencil in hand, while he sketched the tents of Kedar or the writer's inkhorn. He often had music running through his mind while he penned poems for friends at home. Thus he wrote a delightful poem on the Sea of Galilee, whose first and last stanzas reveal its tone :

How elegant to me thy deep blue wave,    O Sea of Galilee! For the glorious One Who came to save    Hath often stood by thee.

Oh! give me Lord by this sacred wave,    Threefold Thy love divine, That I may feed till I find my grave    Thy flock — both Thine and Mine.62

It was at length agreed that the party should divide : the two older men would set out for home without delay by the Danube, while the younger men would revisit Galilee and then travel back through Central Europe. On 7^th July Keith and Black left Beirut for Constantinople, while Bonar and M'Cheyne went south again. They were back in Beirut on 20^th July, and they hoped to sail for Smyrna a week later.  It was during this last week that M'Cheyne was laid prostrate with a sudden attack of high fever. They were advised to sail as planned in the belief that the cool sea air would prove more favourable to him than the sultry heat of Beirut. On 28^th July they went aboard, and he was put to bed on deck. It was a sad farewell to Palestine and Syria, and they felt it keenly. "We kept our eye upon the majestic brow of Lebanon," they wrote, till it faded from our view in the dim and brief twilight of evening."⁶³

M'Cheyne was cheered and braced at first by a cool breeze, but a sleepless night soon ensued.  When they anchored off the coast of Cyprus in the morning, he was in an advanced state of fever.  His voice and mind began to fail, and no skilled aid could be obtained until the ship berthed at Smyrna at sunset on 1^st August.  He was carried ashore, but was compelled to ride by mule to the village of Bouja three miles away for the sake of proper treatment.  It was only the love and care of an English home that allowed him to regain his strength, but the flowering jessamine and green cypress shades in his host's garden gave him as it were a second birthplace.  He had sunk to the edge of the grave, but rose up once more like one from the dead. On 17^th August they were able to board a small vessel in the port at Smyrna, and resume their journey. They travelled in stages through the Turkish and Balkan States into Austria, and then through the Polish and Prussian realms into Germany. Two and a half months were taken up with visits to the major seats of Hebrew life and culture, and it was not until mid-November that they arrived home in Scotland.

Their most cherished hope was that this mission would soon bring in a new day of generous exertion on behalf of Israel; and they were not disappointed. It had ever been their aim to learn all that the Rabbis could teach, as well as to impart all that they could persuade them to receive, and in this way they had amassed a vast store of detailed information about the state of the Jews in Central Europe.  A report was prepared for the General Assembly of 1840, and the result was a unanimous resolution "that the cause of Israel should from that time form one of the great missionary schemes of our Church."⁶⁴ Thus, in 1841, Daniel Edward began his work among the Jews of Poland and Prussia, while John Duncan opened up his mission at Budapest.  More than forty years were still to elapse before a Scottish mission was established in Palestine; stations were then opened in Safed and Tiberias, as M'Cheyne and Bonar had prayed and planned.⁶⁵ Thus James Stalker rightly declared that the result of their travels was to fasten on the Scottish Church an altogether new sense of their obligation to the Sons of Israel; and among the first fruits of the work in Central Europe were Adolph Saphir and Alfred Edersheim.

Andrew Bonar was far more to M'Cheyne than a travelling companion; he had long been his most intimate friend.  He was born just three years before M'Cheyne on 29^th May 1810, and he came from a long line of godly forebears; he was the seventh son of a seventh son, and his grandfather's grandfather had been one of the twelve Marrow Men in 1721.  He became a student at Edinburgh University in 1831, and took his place in the divinity classrooms at the same time as M'Cheyne in 1831.  He was ordained to the cure of souls at Collace in 1838, and he was to join in the great march to Tanfield Hall in 1843. He was in full middle life, tall and straight and spare, his head just tinged with grey, when he was called to leave Collace for a church in Glasgow and for thirty-six years, from 1856 until his death in 1892, this great city was his field of labour.  Thus he was a fellow student of M'Cheyne in Edinburgh and his neighbour north of the Tay, and their early friendship was to ripen with rare unselfishness.  M'Cheyne wrote of Andrew Bonar in June 1836 with a radiant affection, "For learning, experimental knowledge, and all the valuable qualities of a minister, he outstrips all the students I ever knew."⁶⁶ It was Andrew Bonar who made D. L. Moody so welcome to Glasgow on his Scottish tour in 1873; it was Andrew Bonar of whom Moody said that no one in Great Britain had helped him more.⁶⁷ Bonar's insight may be observed in his remark, "God does not say, Pay what you can, but Pay what you owe."⁶⁸ It is equally evident in his saying, "God's part is to put forth His power; our part is to put forth faith." ⁶⁹   Alexander Smellie said that he was as human as he was godly; he was genial, he was brotherly, with a refreshing sense of humour and a loveable charm in manner.⁷⁰ When he speaks for himself in his personal diary, we are aware that it is the voice of authentic saintliness. "May 29^th, 1890, The Lord has enabled me to lean upon Christ day by day for sixty years."⁷¹ "September 25^th, 1891, Never was Christ to me more precious than He is now."⁷² Thus the early friend of M'Cheyne lived to a good old age, and died at length in his eighty-third year, full of grace and ripe for glory.

Meanwhile William Burns had been left in charge of the church and parish of St Peter's, Dundee, and the links of a new friendship were forged between men who were to love each other as each loved his own soul. Burns was born on 1^st April 1815, the third son in the manse of Kilsyth, and was dedicated from the cradle to the Lord and His service.  He graduated in Arts at Aberdeen in 1834 and in Divinity at Glasgow in 1839.  He was licensed as a preacher of the gospel on 27^th March 1839, and took up his duties at once as a locum tenens at St Peter's, Dundee.  It soon became clear that he was a born evangelist, and he sent the next eight years in ceaseless activity in the hills and Highlands of his native country. "I found myself in an agony," so he once wrote, "to compel sinners to come to Jesus now, and not even the next hour which l felt was not man's but God's."⁷³ A ferry once carried no less than eight hundred people from twenty mites around to hear him preach before breakfast.⁷⁴ His hearers at Bonskeid hung on his words until the sun went down and the full moon arose.⁷⁵ He was ordained on 21^st April 1847 as a missionary to China, and he left home on his way to London and the East the very next day at five o'clock in the morning.   He lived with the Chinese as a Chinese, wearing their dress, eating their food, and speaking their language; he worked both in and out of the Treaty Ports for twenty-one years, without ever turning his face home on furlough, until he died in that far-off land on 4^th April 1868.  He had found his destiny as a pioneer both in Scotland and in China, always athirst for souls, as much at home in the revival at Pechuia as he had been in the awakening at Kilsyth.  It was Burns who fired the soul of Robert M'Cheyne in Dundee and Kilsyth with a passion for souls beyond all he had known before.  It was Burns who warmed the heart of Hudson Taylor in Shanghai and Swatow with a sense of missionary purpose beyond all he had felt before.⁷⁶ Thus he lived for the good of souls and died in his fifty-fourth year, consumed with a passion for the Kingdom which has neither frontiers nor favourites and which can never be moved.

M'Cheyne arrived back in Dundee to and that his church had become the scene of a remarkable awakening; it was indeed the seal of God upon his work and prayers during his illness and absence from home.  It had been his heartfelt prayer when he left Dundee, that the labours of William Burns might be a thousand-fold more blessed than his own ministry had ever been. "How it will gladden my heart," he wrote on his way home, "if you can really tell me that it has been so!"⁷⁷ And his heart was gladdened beyond his dreams when he returned, for he found that God had opened the flood-gate of blessing in a remarkable degree.  This great movement had first begun on a visit to Kilsyth in August; it was carried on with ever growing strength in Dundee as the year wore away.  Burns spoke with "a voice of splendid compass",⁷⁸ and he had the accent of a man who had come direct from the presence of God. At the Thursday-night prayer meeting two days after his return from Kilsyth he spoke of what the Lord had wrought, and asked those who felt a need for God's work in their lives to remain behind.   There were about a hundred who remained, and at the close of his address to them the power of God came down.  There were many in tears: there were others who felt desperately anxious to and their way to God.  Meetings were held every day for many weeks after that evening, and the whole of Dundee was stirred.  It was as though Burns had grasped the rod of power to strike the seam of unbelief, and then stood back to watch the stream of life which burst from hearts like stone.  There were times when he could not bear to let men go until they had felt the awe of standing in the presence of God, and those who came to help in that day of His power could not escape from the manifest realities of conviction and conversion.   Many came to Christ while that flood was at its height, and months were to pass by before its waters began to recede.⁷⁹

On the very evening of his return in November 1839, M'Cheyne met his people at the Thursday-night prayer meeting.  He gave out Psalm LXVI, and was at once conscious of a new note in the singing; then he went on to speak in the crowded church for above an hour to a congregation the like of which he had not seen before. "I never preached to such an audience," so he told his parents in a letter written on 26^th November; "so many weeping, so many waiting for the words of eternal life. I never heard such sweet singing anywhere, so tender and affecting, as if the people felt that they were praising a present God."⁸⁰ Perhaps there were some who would feel the pull of that spirit which had split the Church at Corinth between those who were of Paul and those who were of Cephas.  But no breath of rival feeling ever arose between Burns and M'Cheyne: they were drawn each to the other with bands of a gold and hoops of steel.  M'Cheyne made Burns preach twice the next Sunday, and wrote of him to his parents in words aglow with praise; and we cannot read the letters, which passed between them both in the days that followed, without seeing how they rejoiced in each other's triumphs.  M'Cheyne knew that as the morning star goes out when the sun appears, so must every preacher fade from view once souls have come to the Lord Jesus. "Let Christ increase, let man decrease," he wrote to Burns on the last day of that year; "this is my constant prayer for myself and you."⁸¹   Burns left Dundee to spread the light of that fire up and down Scotland during the next three years, and he never ceased to covet M'Cheyne as a fellow worker.  The last letter that he wrote to M'Cheyne reached him within a few days of his death, and it was in the form of an earnest appeal.⁸²  Would he not leave Dundee to come and stand at his side?   Would he not choose freely to come, and do it at once?  It is clear that M'Cheyne felt the power of that call; he was rapidly moving to a decision to leave all, and to go forth with unfettered hands in the cause of the evangel.  He did not live to take the step, but his heart had gone out to Burns.

M'Cheyne had now seen how God could use a human sickle to reap the fields with their golden harvest, and he never lost the spirit of that revival in his ministry.  He felt like one who had been taught to look long and calmly into the world to come, and had then been sent a second time to preach the way of life with a more feeling heart and a more faithful spirit.⁸³ The awakening was sustained for so long that it left its own permanent impression on the life of Dundee.  The deep silence of men who hung on the smallest word of comfort was an experience which the city in that generation never forgot. The manse was thronged with scores who came day by day in search of salvation; the church was packed with crowds who came night by night in need of conversion.  He had announced on his return to St Peter's that he would not relax while there was one unreached man or woman in his congregation. "I am resolved," he said, "if God give me health and strength, that I will not let a man, woman or child among you alone until you have at least heard the testimony of God concerning His Son."⁸⁴ There were altogether some eight hundred men and women who sought counsel in those days of the Son of Man,⁸⁵ but he remained very conservative in his estimate of true conversions.  He had thought that he could safely reckon on some sixty souls, who had passed from death to life at the time when he left Dundee; but eighteen months later he could affirm that there were then more than twice that number who had truly chosen Israel's God for their God.  He thought indeed that there was then not one family in his congregation, which could not point to a friend or relative who had been born again.⁸⁶ It was true that in time the heavy rains and summer tides began to pass; but the gentle showers of grace did not cease, and the stream of blessing continued to bow.  Thus, in December 1841, he refused a call to Kettle in Fifeshire for at least one simple reason. "I do not think," he said, "I can speak a month in this parish without winning some souls."⁸⁷

His last three years were used to consolidate the work in St Peter's, while at the same time a wider held of service opened out and often summoned him far beyond Dundee.  They were years that witnessed movements in Perth and Ancrum and Strathbogie and Aberdeen and the Highlands, such as those at Kilsyth and in Dundee, for the preaching of Burns left a trail which all could follow who had spiritual interests at heart.⁸⁸ Burns would labour in some dark field until dawn and daylight appeared; then he buried himself in a new sphere and left others to reap in the splendour of the sunrise.  There were many calls on M'Cheyne for help in these centres of new life such as Perth, and he never grudged time or strength when such calls came.  His own spirit grew more refined during those years, and his preaching was marked by an ever more real desire for the winning of souls. "O the hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in time of trouble," so he would plead in the words of Jeremiah (14:8), "why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the land?"  He had wept for Dundee as his Master had once wept for Jerusalem, and his heart had bled in secret for those who had withstood the grace of God.⁸⁹   He knew that in his own strength he could not convert a soul any more than he could create a star; but he also knew that the God who is almighty can do the one as well as the other, and he would not despair for the conversion of any man.⁹⁰ On 25^th July 1840 he described a service in St Peter's, when the presence and power of God broke through normal restraints.  The tears and cries of those who were under concern offended several of the congregation.  "But," he said, "I felt no hesitation as to our duty to declare the simple truth impressively, and leave God to work in their hearts in His own way.  If He saves souls in a quiet way, I shall be happy; if in the midst of cries and tears, still I will bless His Name."⁹¹ He was indeed a prince with God who knew how to wrestle, and knew also how to prevail.

Robert M'Cheyne was a man who owed much to his friends, but who gave far more than he received. The charm of a winsome nature served as a foil to the white heat of his ardent spirit, and he was the central figure in a circle of friends who were all men of real ability.  They were all to outlive M'Cheyne, but they never lost the sense of singular attraction which his life had always inspired.  His first intimate companion was Alexander Somerville, whose face was said to shine with a light never seen on land or sea.⁹²    They spent their schooldays together; they took their degrees together.  They passed from death to life in the same year;  they took their place under Chalmers and Welsh at the same time.  "Perhaps we may get a lodging near each other?"  Somerville once wrote to M'Cheyne, "in the golden streets of the new Jerusalem."⁹³ They were joined by the two Bonars in the divinity classrooms, and the bond between two became a bond between four.  Horatius Bonar was the elder brother, and one for whom M'Cheyne ever felt the deepest admiration.  Poet, preacher, and saint, he looked for the coming of Christ as the supreme event upon which all history must converge.   His dreams for the future were all expressed in the words of the text, which hung at the foot of his bed: "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away" (Song of Solomon 2:17, 4:6).⁹⁴  It was Andrew Bonar with whom his soul was knit in the bonds of covenant fellowship.  Scholar, pastor, and friend, years of experience made Christ ever more precious to him. His whole life was summed up in his saying, "I only yearn to know Him better, and to preach Him more fully."⁹⁵ The four friends found their way in due course to the church where, in 1835, Alexander Moody Stuart began to preach.⁹⁶ We can surmise what that preaching was like from one luminous quotation. "In the Law of Moses," he said, "the sheep died for the shepherd; in the Law of Jesus, the Shepherd died for the sheep."⁹⁷ He gave the four students a warm welcome to the treasures of his home and his heart, and they arranged to spend an hour with him each week in prayer.

Robert M'Cheyne in Dundee was neighbour to Andrew Bonar at Collace, and they were soon to and other kindred spirits. It was Andrew Bonar who found John Milne of Perth; it was Robert M'Cheyne who found William Burns of Kilsyth. Milne had the faith of a child, and the prayer of his heart shines through his words : "I long for the purged conscience, the kept heart, the humble mind, the girded loins, the crucified flesh, and the lip and life of truth!"⁹⁸   Burns had the strength of a lion, and the fire in his soul flames up in his cry: "O that I had a martyr's heart, if not a martyr's death and a martyr's crown!"⁹⁹  Milne and Burns were two of the choicest souls in the Church of Scotland, men who loved Christ beyond all else and who were yet to spend their strength for Him in Bengal and China. Then there was James Grierson of Errol, in whose manse he stayed on the night before his ordination in Dundee.¹⁰⁰   Also there was Robert Macdonald of Blairgowrie, with whom he sometimes stayed and to whom he often wrote. ¹⁰¹  There was James Hamilton of Abernyte who was called to Regent's Square in London and who said of M'Cheyne, "When I compare myself with him, I see what sinful trifling much of my ministry has been."¹⁰²   There were others as well, less intimate, but like-minded, such as Patrick Miller of Wallacetown, and Cumming of Dumbarney, and Cormick of Kirriemuir.   These were the men in that choice band of friends, for whom M'Cheyne was both first and equal; he loved them as they loved him, for they all shared in the same spirit.  They were ever welcome in each other's manse and pulpit; they were always eager for each other's help and counsel.  They browsed in the same pastures of truth, and drank from the same waters of life; and they all looked for the same fold on the hills of immortality.  Bishop Ryle used to say that M'Cheyne's ministry would have been an ornament to any church.¹⁰³ We may well add that his friendship would have been a benediction for any soul.

This circle of friendship proves that he was graced with generous sympathy and sensitive election; but the record would not be quite complete if it were to break off without certain other details.  The finger of romance touched his heart more than once, and stirred him in another direction. Alexander Smellie tells us that, for some months at the age of eighteen, he lived as lads may live in a palace of dreams in which Mary MacGregor was queen. ¹⁰⁴ She was some years older than he, but she and her brother lived close to the M'Cheynes. T hen his brother died, and she left Edinburgh during that year; his heart was changed while hers was not, and he knew that she was not meant for him.  He penned an ode for her birthday in 1832 in imitation of Cowper's address to Mary Unwin.¹⁰⁵   The lines mark their separation, but there is a soft and pensive note in the words at the end of each stanza: "My Mary!"  Seven years passed away; then in 1839 he called on her, met her husband, and spent an evening with them in London. "Mary very little changed," he observed; "not seemingly quite happy." ¹⁰⁶  We h ear no more of her; but the first place next to his own kinsfolk in the list of those for whom he prayed was ever assigned to the MacGregors.¹⁰⁷

But this boyish fancy was not to stand alone, for he was twice engaged to be married during his last eve or six years.  We will never know the story in full, for the details were not preserved by those who could have told us all. Andrew Bonar drew a veil of silence over this side of his friend's life, no doubt because he would not hurt those who were most nearly concerned : and yet, this is for us the one defect in a superb memoir, for it tends to make us think that M'Cheyne was so other-worldly that he never felt the warmth of a true romance.  Alexander Smellie was able to harness a few of the details, enough to show that he did love as men do love when God permits.  He did not live to taste the joy of an earthly union, but his heart was open to all the tender grace of human love, no less than that of love divine.  It is at least pleasant to know that his heart was kindled with the love that makes all men kin.

It was during 1837 that he became engaged to the daughter of a Dundee doctor, a Miss Maxwell whom "none named but to praise". ¹⁰⁸ But her relatives intervened, and a delightful engagement was broken. They fear ed for that frail body of his, and judged it wiser that there should not be any wedding bond."¹⁰⁹    A year or two passed by; then a playful comment in a letter from Alexander Somerville in 1839 forms the first hint of a new match.  He wrote of "a friend of yours", and the word "friend" was doubly underlined.¹¹⁰  This was Jessie Thain of Heath Park near Blairgowrie, where her father was an elder in Robert Macdonald's congregation.  But the Thains had spent some months in Dundee, and had become deeply attached to St Peter's and its pastor.   Mrs Thain wrote to him before he left for the East, and sent him a small pocket Bible for his journeys. "When far away in a land of strangers, will you remember my dear children ?" she wrote. "poor Jessie has felt your absence all along very much; and now that it has come to this crisis, she is cast down.  May she find that Jesus is ever near, though her Pastor is far away."¹¹¹   And he wrote in reply on 15th March 1839, "Tell Jessie to stay herself upon God : Jesus continueth ever."¹¹² Bonar preserved two more letters to Mrs Thain , one in February 1839 and the other in June 1840 and one to each of her two sons in January and March 1842. ¹¹³ There was a grave and rather wistful tone in all this correspondence; "they were a delicate family, these Thains, walking much in the shadows of the other wor1d". ¹¹⁴   One son died in childhood; the other in early manhood, and it sounds as though their sister, like them, was by no means robust.  It is not clear just when Jessie Thain and M'Cheyne became engaged, but it seems to have been later than that letter of June 1840.  There is nothing to tell why it was so prolonged, and was at last deprived of its crown in marriage.  Was it that her health, frail as his, would not permit the union ?   Were they on the eve of their wedding, when the end came?  There are sanctities in this affection which no other eye may explore; we can only tell that the ties which bound him to her and her home were never broken in life or death. There is still a letter from Mrs Thain to M'Cheyne's mother as well as one from Jessie herself to M'Cheyne's sister which overdoes with tenderness.¹¹⁵  God did not give these twain to drink their fill at the springs of love in this world, but it is clear that they were for ever one in spirit.

Andrew Bonar and Moody Stuart both remark on the fact that the clan of friends in the M'Cheyne circle were held to have brought in a new school of preaching in the Church of Scotland.¹¹⁶  M'Cheyne himself was a preacher with far greater gifts than his years would lead us to expect, and the secret was unsparing diligence in his preparation and singular emphasis on the gospel appeal.  He was convinced that a preacher can shine only while he is held as a star in the right hand of the Son of God,¹¹⁷ and that faithless preachers will be cast out of that right hand into the long night of total darkness.¹¹⁸ This taught him to prepare for the pulpit with an eye to eternity; he would say that nothing else would serve but "beaten oil for the lamps of the sanctuary".¹¹⁹ At first he wrote out each sermon in full, but he learnt by degrees to preach from notes; he would meditate with earnest prayer in his study, and then improvise with searching power in the pulpit. "One thing always calls the cup of my consolation," he wrote, "that God may work by the meanest and poorest words as well as by the most polished and ornate."¹²⁰ There was doctrine in his preaching, but the great issue in all his sermons was to press the invitation of the gospel on his hearers.  Andrew Bonar sums it up in one clear picture: "Is not the true idea of preaching that of one like Ahimaaz, coming with all-important tidings and intent on making these tidings known?"¹²¹   Thus his preaching and its preparation would always reflect the experience of his own soul; he could only give out of the fulness of what he had himself received. It was never enough for him to have bread from heaven for the hungry, or the waters of life for the thirsty; it had to be water which he had drawn from the palace wells, and bread which he had taken from the King's table for his own soul.  He led his flock in the green fields and by the still waters where he himself had gone to meet the Shepherd of Israel.

Burns and M'Cheyne might have vied for first place in that group of young men: they were gifted preachers, with a power and success far in advance of their age or experience.  They were alike in the knowledge and culture of the ancient classics; they were alike in the unction and passion of the Holy Spirit. But there were great contrasts as well, and the contrasts throw a beam of light on both men. Burns would study his subject in advance rather than compose a sermon, and his preaching cannot be judged by the rough notes which were taken down without his knowledge. ¹²² His voice could travel the round of any audience; his points would sparkle as clear as any diamond.  He was always direct, and sometimes dramatic; he was always urgent, and sometimes vehement.  Sometimes he would close the Bible with a look of sadness, as though he feared lest it had been in vain; sometimes he would press the message with a note of patience, as though he could not let men go.¹²³ "He is a very remarkable preacher," M'Cheyne told his parents. "The plainness and force of his statements, I never saw equalled."¹²⁴  "There is a great deal of substance in what he reaches," so he told Bonar, "and his manner is very powerful—so much so that he sometimes made me tremble."¹²⁵   But while grandeur was the hallmark of Burns, the secret of M'Cheyne was his charm.  All his talents were called into action by the art of preaching, and the gifts of nature were enhanced and reinforced by the rich grace of the Holy Spirit.  There were beauty and fancy in each bight of thought, passion and pathos in each mood of soul; there were grace and music in his voice and accent, light and colour in his style and diction.  There was all the fire of poetry in his language; there was all the force of genius in his insight. M'Cheyne's preaching had a persuasive quality that drew the heart to God with a sureness that was not of this world.  But, in the last analysis, it was the man rather than the preacher who made up the secret of that soul-winning ministry.  He lived like a man who had a view of things eternal, and spoke like a man who had the care of souls immortal.

The true secret of his success in the pulpit was his combination of faithfulness to the word of God with tenderness for the souls of men.   He went about his work with an air of reverence, which made men feel that the majesty of God was in his heart.  No man could exhort the guilty in more searching or tremendous terms; no man could address the troubled in more gentle or persuasive tones.   Andrew Bonar once told him how he had chosen for a text the words with regard to the doom of those who forget God and are turned into hell.  M'Cheyne at once asked him, "Were you able to preach it with tenderness?" ¹²⁶ He knew that there is an enormous difference between a voice that scolds and a heart that yearns : the one is mere reproach, while the other may be full of warning.  It is not by threats and thunder, but by love and pathos that hearts are made to melt; it is not by words that scorch and condemn, but by a heart that bleeds to bless that men are won. M'Cheyne himself preached on eternal destiny as one whose heart was wrung with a sense of anguish.  He did not spare his hearers a word of truth; still less did he spare his own feelings a stab of pain.  There was nothing reckless in such preaching, and his words could discriminate with the surest insight.  "Remember," he would say, "a moral sinner will lie down in the same hell with the vilest."¹²⁷   J. H. Jowett once said that his severities were terrific, because they were so tender.¹²⁸ He was indeed willing to share in that divine travail, by means of which men are born from above in the Kingdom of God.  We can perhaps trace the motive power in all such preaching in his sermon on a broken and a contrite heart.  "It is not," he said, "a look into your own heart, or the heart of hell, but into the heart of Christ, that breaks the heart. Oh, pray for this broken heart!"¹²⁹

"It behoves ministers to unite the cherub and the seraph in their ministry," so M'Cheyne once declared, "the angel of knowledge and the angel of burning zea1."¹³⁰  These two qualities were both present in his ministry, but the two most prominent elements were his tremendous urgency and his exceeding tenderness. "Oh, get ripening views of Christ," he would say. "The corn in harvest sometimes ripens more in one day than in weeks before.  So some Christians gain more grace in one day than for months before.  Pray that this may be a ripening harvest day in your souls."¹³¹ His word pictures and the music in his voice would both help to make the truth linger long in the heart.  "There are some among you," he would cry, "that remind me of an aged tree that has been struck with lightning and now stands stripped of its leaves. . . . I tell you, brethren, if mercies and if judgements do not convert you, God has no other arrows in His quiver."¹³²   Preachers who would learn the art of pathos could hardly do better than take him as their guide : his heart was so wistful; his words were so searching.  A few words could sketch a picture, and the inner throb of yearning could not be hid.  "If God spared not His own Son under the sin of another, how shall He spare thee under the weight and burden of thine own sin?   If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"¹³³   He had the most telling power of rebuke, but he had an even greater power of appeal.  His hearers in Dundee would often recall a saying of his, full of urgent demand. "When the boat has put off from the shore," he would say, then you need not run. When should you run? When the bell is ringing."¹³⁴ All his gifts for persuasion went hand in hand with a call for decision, which men found so hard to resist. "Brethren!" he would declare, "if I could promise you that the door will stand open for a hundred years, yet it would still be your wisdom to enter in now.  But I cannot answer for a year; I cannot answer for a month; I cannot answer for a day; I cannot answer for an hour. All that I can answer for is, it is open now."¹³⁵

But the final remark must be that not seldom it was his own personal holiness rather than his most persuasive arguments which made the decisive impression. The Reverend William Milne of Montreux once heard him give an address at a baptismal service.  He could recall nothing of what he said, except that he spoke about the necessity of the new birth.  But there was one detail which he could not forget, and that was the light in his eyes, "they seemed to glow with a fire that was not of this world, a fire that told how God dwelt in his soul if He ever dwelt in any at all."¹³⁶   Many of his converts held that it was not so much what he said, as the way in which he said it, that won their hearts and drew them to put all their trust in the Lord Christ alone.  Burns and M'Cheyne had this power in common; they could not speak even of ordinary things without making men hear the voice of God in the silent depths of their soul. Burns once paused in the midst of a sermon to point out the fruit-trees which were clothed with blossom; then he asked his hearers if they were to come back in the autumn and count the ripe apples, how few they would be in comparison with the blossom which chill winds would nip and blow down.¹³⁷ An old Highland woman at Blair Atholl came day after day to sit on the stairs of the pulpit, and to drink in every word that fell from his lips; she did not know a word of English, but she understood "the Holy Ghost's English!"¹³⁸   So it was with M'Cheyne; he stopped one day to take shelter from a sudden downpour in a roadside quarry. There was a fire in a furnace of the engine shed where he was standing with a group of workmen, and he asked them what that fire was meant to remind them of. That was all; but the way in which he spoke made his words burn in the hearts of those who heard him, and one of them at least was brought to kneel in the presence of God with true faith and obedience.¹³⁹

Few who heard him engage in prayer ever forgot the air of grave solemnity that clothed the two words with which he always began, "Holy Father!" His whole face shone with the unreserved assurance of childlike trust, and he spoke as though he were then looking into the eyes of the Most High.¹⁴⁰   Eternity alone, he once declared, will be able to teach us all that it means to have a son's interest in God.¹⁴¹ Perhaps the most moving illustration of this kind lies in a beautiful incident which took place in the last month of his life.  On 12^th March 1843 he preached his last sermon; it was away from St Peter's in the little church at Broughty Ferry.  "Arise, shine," was his last text, "for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee" (Isaiah 60:1).  He spoke with great sweetness, and a stranger went home to write to him.  "I heard you preach last Sabbath evening, and it pleased God to bless that sermon to my soul.   It was not so much what you said as your manner of speaking that struck me.  I saw in you a beauty in holiness that I never saw before."¹⁴² M'Cheyne was in the last stage of fever when this letter arrived and it was not opened until after his death.   Forty-five years passed by; then, on 6th November 1878, the Reverend Hussey Burgh Macartney of Melbourne spent an evening at Broughty Ferry with Alexander Somerville.   They sat up at the manse until midnight, and their conversation took in the whole circle of friends in whose company Somerville had grown up.  At last Macartney went to his room,  "Still thinking of M'Cheyne".  His heart was full as he recalled M'Cheyne's last visit to Broughty Ferry, and the letter from that stranger with its spontaneous testimony to the blessing received and its personal reference to the preacher himself.  He mused on the facts with exceeding tenderness, and then observed with a dash of insight, "M'Cheyne was in a fever when this note reached his house.  He was spared the pain of the last clause; the pleasure of the first clause he will taste above."¹⁴³

There are books now and then which gleam with the beauty of the Rose of Sharon; the Memoir of M'Cheyne breathes its fragrance as well.  It is the great merit of this memoir that it caught the very image of its subject, and it allows us to look with clear eyes into the heart of one who was in Christ.  Andrew Bonar makes us feel what he felt, so that we share his own wistful sense of wonder.  On 8^th November 1838 he wrote of it in his personal diary, "O, what I wonder at in Robert M'Cheyne more than all else is his simple feeling of desire to show God's grace, and to feed upon it himself."¹⁴⁴    M'Cheyne's career was bright with the glory of personal holiness, blithe with the beauty of sanctified character.  He came before God as a child, and both his hands were held out as he came.  The left hand was full; it held all that he had and all that he was : this he had brought that he might yield it to Him in full and glad surrender.  But the right hand was empty; it held nothing that he could claim as his own : this he held out that it might be filled with all the fulness of God.¹⁴⁵ Thus the consecration of the Lord God was on M'Cheyne, as it was once on the sons of Aaron.  He was himself to say that the peace of God makes for growth in grace, and a holy life will ever flow from a heart at rest.¹⁴⁶ Thus we are not far from the real secret of his inner strength, when we find that he could write in terms like these, "April 1^st 1838. Much peace in communion; happy to be one with Christ. I, a vile worm; He, the Lord my righteousness!"¹⁴⁷   This thought, with its tone of self-abasement in the glory of God's presence, never seemed to leave him, and in January 1842 he wrote to John Milne in the same spirit. "This I have learned more than ever, that I am a worm."¹⁴⁸   It was from this lowly ground that he would lift up his eyes, and wait for God; he knew that his part was to look to God in faith, and that it was God's part to meet his need in grace.

Thus there was a moral fragrance in Robert M'Cheyne which may remind others of the saintly splendour in Henry Martyn; they were kindred spirits in their absolute singleness of eye for the glory of God.  It is seldom that the whole heart of man is so drawn to God as was the case with these twin spirits from England and Scotland.  M'Cheyne may have been more buoyant by nature than Henry Martyn; he could not have been more absorbed in his vision of things unseen.  Bonar says that he had been taught by the spirit that it is more humbling to take what grace offers than to lament our own wants and unworthiness.¹⁴⁹ Thus he could write on 11^th June 1836, "It is the sweetest word in the Bible, Sin shall not have dominion over you. Oh, then, that I might lie low in the dust, the lower the better, that Jesus' righteousness and Jesus' strength alone be admired."¹⁵⁰  It was in this spirit that he wrote to John Milne five years later.  "I long for love without any coldness, light without dimness, and purity without spot or wrinkle; I long to lie at Jesus' feet and tell Him I am all His, and ever will be."¹⁵¹ Every fibre of his soul wound itself round the feet of Christ with love and longing; he would belong to Him, and Him alone.  So it was to the end.  Andrew Bonar says that, in his letters during the last weeks of his life, there were repeated expressions of this supreme desire. "I often pray," he wrote, "Lord, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be made."¹⁵² He had long been content to lay hold on the word "never" in that gracious promise, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5).  He saw that it would reach through the darkest hours of temptation and the deepest waves of affliction, through death, beyond the grave, into eternity. ¹⁵³ Andrew Bonar  never ceased to feel the reality of this heavenly-mindedness; it is registered in his diary with the words that he wrote fourteen years after M'Cheyne's death. "March 27^th 1857. O my Lord, give me a double portion of the Spirit that Thou gayest him."¹⁵⁴

"His simple feeling of desire to show God's grace" taught him to tread closely in the footprints of Christ, and to keep up the edge on his spirit right to the end.  His crest or seal was a sunset behind the peak of a mountain, and the motto beneath was the divine watchword: "The night cometh" (John 9:4).¹⁵⁵  His own sun was to set amid skies so dark that they would not clear until the storm of the Disruption had burst upon Scotland.  M'Cheyne had no taste for controversy, and no one could have been less disposed to meddle with the domestic policies of Church and State.  But he had sat under Thomas Chalmers, and he could not ignore great Church issues.  In October 1837 he had been at a house party in the home of Mr J. C. Colquhoun at Killermont. "There was something holy," he wrote, "about the very atmosphere. Chalmers was sitting opposite to me at this table, writing, his venerable countenance expressing peace and goodwill to men."¹⁵⁶   This led to his active share in the cause of Church extension, and he even gave his pony this name as it trotted to and fro in this cause. But this meant that he could not stand aside from the Ten Years' Conflict with its challenge to the public conscience, and he was found ready to speak his mind on all the great issues that hung in the balance. A lay patron was as foreign to the Church of Christ as a lord prelate in his judgement, and he was a decided advocate of the principle of Non-intrusion.  The fact was that recent years had produced a number of cases, where lay patrons had forced unwanted ministers on churches and congregations.  Appeal to the Civil Courts had upheld the lay patrons at the expense of the presbyteries.  M'Cheyne never had a doubt as to where right lay in this conflict, and he rejoiced to stand behind men like Chalmers in their fight for freedom.  He knew that the crown rights of the Sovereign Redeemer in His Church were at stake; he felt that the whole cause of the Covenant heritage in the Kirk was on trial.

Thus he followed the long struggle through its weary windings with an unworried interest, and ranged himself without reserve behind the great captains who had taken the high places on the held of conflict.  William Milne of Montreux heard him speak at a church meeting on this crisis in 1842, and he summed up the whole dispute in one brief sentence, which made a tremendous impression. "They want us to take Christ's crown from His royal brow and place it upon Caesar," he said; "but that is what we will not do."¹⁵⁷ This was the language of the great Covenanters, and the basic struggle was still in fact the same.  He took part in preaching tours in country districts, where the landlords were trying to destroy the historic ordinance which required a call for the settlement of new ministers, and those who were present never forgot his prayers in the famous meetings when the law courts tried to force their verdict upon the Church.  It was clear that he spoke in the very spirit of the words of Samuel Rutherford : "There is no sweeter fellowship with Christ than to bring our wounds and our sores to Him."¹⁵⁸ He took part in the great Convocation which was convened at Roxburgh Chapel in Edinburgh on 17^th November 1842; it was to last eight days in all, and four hundred and sixty-five ministers from all parts of Scotland were there.   He had drawn up the plan for prayer which was employed from Caithness to Dumfries, and he kept a record of the speakers and the speeches throughout that week.  So, on Saturday, 26^th November, he had this to record: "After an amazing speech from Dr Chalmers which brought tears into many eyes, 427 agreed to the resolutions."¹⁵⁹ They were resolutions which pledged those who signed them to leave the Church rather than accept State control.  M'Cheyne subscribed all the resolutions, and his feelings are as clear as daylight in the comment which he made on the night of the crucial debate in the House of Commons. "March 7^th 1843. Eventful night this in the British Parliament! Once more King Jesus stands at an earthly tribunal, and they know Him not."¹⁶⁰

Gladly would he have cast in his lot with the men of the Free Church had he lived to see the Disruption, but that comment on 7^th March was one of the last his hand was ever to pen.  He was the saint of the Disruption, though he did not live to see it.  He was one in spirit with that noble band of men who left St Andrew's Church with Thomas Chalmers, and marched through the crowded streets to Tanfield Hall to found the Free Church on 18^th May 1843, but the trumpets had been blown to summon his soul across the dark waters less than two months before that day arrived. It was with him, as with Samuel Rutherford, who was ordered to proceed to Edinburgh and to stand his trial on a charge of high treason: he would have gone gladly, but he could not, for it behoved him to answer a yet higher summons and to appear before the throne of God.

He was often away from his home and parish after his mission to Israel, and his congregation was not without concern. He travelled to Belfast both in July 1840 and in July 1841,¹⁶¹   he joined Somerville of Anderston and Bonar of Kelso and Purves of Jedburgh and Cumming of Dumbarney to follow a visit by Burns to the north of England in August 1842, and he was in London to help Alexander Hamilton at Regent Square in November 1842.¹⁶²  He travelled widely in Scotland itself, preaching at places like Kelso and Ancrum, Huntly and Collace, for friends or by social direction.¹⁶³ He had never spared his slender strength in the cause of Christ, but had always tried to live so as to make the most of his span of time. He was in such demand that he could not canine himself to his church in Dundee, for all men knew that the secret of the Lord was with him. Robert Candlish said that he had more of the mind of Christ and more likeness to the beloved disciple than any man he ever knew.¹⁶⁴ And James Hamilton wrote to M'Cheyne's father after his death, and said, "since the days of Samuel Rutherford, I question if the Church of Scotland has contained a more seraphic mind, one that was in such a constant flame of love and adoration towards Him that liveth and was dead."¹⁶⁵

M'Cheyne had once remarked that those who stand on the seashore may see how a very large wave sometimes follows quite a small one; even so may God send a small trial first, and thus prepare us for a larger that will soon follow.¹⁶⁶   He had himself survived more than one dark wave of trouble, and a darker was now at hand; but it held no terror for him, for his ear had caught the footfall of One who came across the deep waters to take him by the hand.  In February 1843 he left Dundee at the direction of the Committee of the Convocation to preach throughout Deer and Ellon, and in three weeks he was to speak in twenty-four centres.   "The oil of the lamp in the temple burnt away in giving light," he declared, "so should we."¹⁶⁷  He preached three times at St Peter's on 5th March and twice the next Sunday.  His last sermon was that evening in the church at Broughty Ferry; the next evening he pledged himself and his congregation to stand with the Free Church when the moment arrived.  On the Tuesday evening he was stricken with a fatal illness, and he knew that the end was near.  Typhus was rife in the parish, and his state of health was no match for such a plague.  He had taken no steps to shield himself as he went to and fro among the sick, and he quickly succumbed to the disease. Tired and worn as he was, it soon took a turn for the worse. It was as though God had come to pluck the bower from its stem, while each leaf was rich in fragrance and each petal bright with colour.  First his father, then his mother, came north to watch by his bed as he sank into delirium. His heart still went out in prayer for Dundee, though it was with delirious voice that he cried, "This parish, Lord! This people! This whole place!"¹⁶⁸   He was not quite thirty years old, the age when a priest in Israel would begin his service; but he had long since learnt to dwell at the mercy seat as freely as if it were his home.¹⁶⁹   The end came with tranquil beauty on the morning of 25^th March 1843.  He raised his hands as if to bless, just as the hands of the risen Saviour were raised on the Mount of Olives.  Then he sank down without a sound or sigh, with only a fleeting quiver of the lip, to let the watchers know that trailing clouds of glory had received his spirit beyond their sight.

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BONAR, A. A., and M'CHEYNE, R. M., Narrative of a Visit to the Holy Land and Mission of Inquiry to the Jews, 1878.

BONAR, ANDREW A., Diary and Letters (edited by Marjory Bonar), 1893.

BONAR, ANDREW A., The Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M'Cheyne (New Edition), 1913.

BONAR, HORATIUS, Life of the Reverend John Milne of Perth (Fourth Edition), 1868.

BONAR, MARJORY, Reminiscences of Andrew A. Bonar, 1895.

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LAMB, WILLIAM, M'Cheyne from the Pew (Second Edition), 1913.

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