A Remarkable Circle of Friends

A Remarkable Circle of Friends

DAVID CAMPBELL

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THE BANNER OF TRUTH TRUST Head Office 3 Murrayfield Road Edinburgh, EH12 6EL UK North America Office 610 Alexander Spring Road Carlisle, PA 17015 USA banneroftruth.org

© David Campbell 2026 First Banner of Truth edition 2026

* ISBN

Print: 978 1 80040 595 0 Epub: 978 1 80040 596 7 * Typeset in 12/14 pt Adobe Garamond Pro at The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh Printed in the USA by Versa Press, Inc., East Peoria, IL

To my seven grandchildren, Emmaline, Ernest, Cathryn,

Freddie, Grace, Rosemary and Felicity, with the prayer that God will bless them with friendships like those described in this book.

Contents

ix

Introduction

PART I

1. Thomas Chalmers 2. Robert Murray M‘Cheyne 3. William Chalmers Burns 4. Andrew A. Bonar 5. Alexander Moody Stuart

3

27 39 45 57 67 81 93

6. Horatius Bonar 7. Robert Macdonald 8. James Hamilton

9. John Milne

105 117

10. Alexander N. Somerville

PART II

1. William Hamilton Burns 2. John James Bonar

131 137 149 161 171

3. James Grierson 4. David Sandeman

5. Margaret Stewart Sandeman

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Introduction I am writing this introduction in 2025. Think back with me two hundred years. God was visibly at work in Scotland’s national church. Widespread spiritual darkness was giving way before the light of the gospel. Two Church of Scotland ministers were particularly prominent in the new movement. One was Andrew Thomson of St George’s Church in Edin burgh, the other Thomas Chalmers who in 1825 was teaching Moral Philosophy in St Andrews University. Andrew Thomson’s Edinburgh ministry began in 1810 in the New Greyfriars’ Church. In 1814 he accepted the offer to be the first minister of St George’s. David MacLagan, in his history of the congregation, St George’s, Edinburgh, tells us that ‘Religion was not in disrepute at the time of Dr Thomson’s appointment. … Some earnestness there was in connection with one or two congregations which had recently obtained ministers of evangelical belief, faithful gospel preaching, and consistent Christian walk and conversation. But the general atmosphere was extremely worldly, cold and indifferent; and church-going, as a rule, was attended to very much because it was generally considered a proper thing to be done. … But the preaching of Dr Thomson was like a bombshell falling among the people. Not only did he give constant prominence to the distinctive gospel doctrines of grace and redemption by an atonement, but in terms of great directness and plainness of speech he denounced the customs of a society calling itself Christian; and in a marvellously short time, by his zeal and faithfulness under God, a remarkable change was effected in the habits and pursuits of many of his people.’ In the same

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year as his appointment to New Greyfriars’ Thomson also founded The Edinburgh Christian Instructor, a journal which under his editorship became so outspoken in its promotion of evangelical doctrine and practice as to provoke a vote of censure in the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly. The year 1810 was significant for a third reason. It was on 24 December of that year that Thomas Chalmers, minis ter of Kilmany in Fife, began to read William Wilberforce’s Practical View of Christianity . Long afterwards, in a letter to his brother Alexander, he writes of its profound impact on him: ‘…as I got on in reading it, [I] felt myself on the eve of a great revolution in all my opinions about Christianity. I am now most thoroughly of opinion, and it is an opinion founded on experience, that on the system of — Do this and live, no peace, and even no true and worthy obedience, can ever be attained. It is, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. When this belief enters the heart, joy and confidence enter along with it. The righteousness which we try to work out for ourselves eludes our impotent grasp, and never can a soul arrive at true or permanent rest in the pursuit of this object. The righteousness which, by faith, we put on, secures our acceptance with God, and secures our interest in his promises, and gives us a part in those sanc tifying influences by which we are enabled to do with aid from on high what we can never do without it.’ The effect of Chalmers’ conversion is traced out in the first chapter of this book. Through his preaching, and then later through his training of a host of young men who would afterwards serve as gospel ministers, a vibrant evangelicalism spread far and wide. Norman L. Walker in his Scottish Church History sums up the influence of these two men in this way: ‘God can bestow no greater gift on a cause than that of a man of genius and eloquence to advocate it. The success of the Reformation was

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Introduction

secured when Knox arose. And in like manner the triumphant issue of the evangelical revival might have been foretold, when first Andrew Thomson and then Thomas Chalmers appeared as its champions.’ By 1825, then, God was visibly at work in the Church of Scotland. The number of evangelical ministries was growing, a new day had dawned for many of the Church’s congrega tions, whilst the church as a whole was beginning to look beyond its borders to the foreign mission field. But there was also something God was doing that was as yet invisible. Growing up in Scottish homes were boys whom, from the mid-to-late 1830s onwards, God would use in remarkable ways. They would be converted, train for gospel ministry, serve in Church of Scotland parishes, and be the instruments in God’s hands of a spiritual awakening more powerful than had as yet been felt. A number of them are introduced to us in the following pages: Robert Murray M‘Cheyne, William Chalmers Burns, Andrew Bonar, Alexander Moody Stuart, Horatius Bonar, Robert Macdonald, James Hamilton, John Milne, and Alexander Somerville. These young men, along with others, were friends as well as fellow ministers. Many of them were students together. When they were settled in congregations they wrote to one another, prayed for one another, and preached for one another. Their lives and ministries significantly intertwined. Extensive scholarship, prayerfulness, holiness of life, strong faith, and an intense passion for the gospel marked each of them. The first chapter is devoted to their great mentor, Thomas Chalmers. The friends were united in their admiration and love for Chalmers and in their indebtedness to his teaching and example. In the chapters that follow something of the life and ministry of each of the friends is sketched. So, too, of their friendship with each other. A few other sketches have

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been added: of William Hamilton Burns, John James Bonar, James Grierson of Errol, David Sandeman, and Margaret Stewart Sandeman — each of them belonging to what we might call an outer circle of friends. These brief sketches first appeared as articles in the Banner of Truth magazine. Though most of them have been enlarged, they are still no more than an introduction to the individuals concerned. They have been collected and published in the hope that the reading of them will awaken a desire to know more. Major biographies exist of most of the friends, some of them published by the Banner of Truth Trust, 1 and they will richly reward those who will take the time to read them.

1 Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M‘Cheyne, Diary and Life of Andrew Bonar, The Pastor of Kilsyth (William Hamilton Burns), The Life of John Milne, Memoir of Alexander Moody Stuart.

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PART I

1 Thomas Chalmers

On Fire for the Gospel

When Thomas Chalmers gave his inaugural lecture as Profes sor of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh in November 1828, people came in such numbers that a strong police presence was required to keep things in order. Imagine! Nor did the interest diminish. ‘His class-room continued to be crowded all through the session,’ writes one of his biographers, Norman L. Walker. It was all so very different from how things had been. Theology lectures in the past, says Walker, had been ‘often clear, sometimes learned, and students had come forth from the Hall with a more or less competent knowledge of theological systems. But,’ he says, ‘there had never been any approach to “an explosion,” and youthful enthusiasms had been rather dulled than fanned into a flame. Now there was a professor in possession to whom Christianity was not a mere framework of dry bones, but a living force. His own soul was on fire; and whatever he felt himself he made his audience feel. And as a consequence, there immediately began a process which in time told visibly upon the face of Scotland — the inspiring of a race of men who carried the life with them into the pulpits which they filled, and became the means of bringing about a great revival of religion.’

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So who was Thomas Chalmers? The aim of this first chap ter is to introduce you to the man, to his work, and to his remarkable and widespread influence. Beginnings Thomas Chalmers was born on 17 March 1780 in Anstruther, a fishing village on the Fifeshire coast of Scotland. He was part of a large family of eight brothers and five sisters, with parents who were fine Christians. His father is described as ‘a man of fervent but unostentatious piety,’ whilst of his mother, after her death, Chalmers could write of ‘the deep and immovable trust of her spirit upon her Saviour’ which ‘shed a singular and beautiful light on the evening of her days.’ To enter a university at the age of eleven, as Chalmers did, seems an extraordinary thing to us. But the University of St Andrews in those days was, as one writer puts it, ‘little more … than a school for big boys from the neighbourhood.’ During the first two sessions Chalmers showed far more interest in golf, football, and handball than in academic stud ies. But a change came when he began to study mathematics at the age of fourteen. His intellect awoke and mathematics became the absorbing interest of his mind. He now applied himself more diligently to his other studies and became an outstanding student. At the age of fifteen, and again it seems an extraordinary thing to us, Chalmers was enrolled as a divinity student and began to prepare for gospel ministry. The key event of this period was the reading of Jonathan Edwards’ The Freedom of the Will . It made a profound impression. ‘I remember,’ he says, ‘when a student of divinity, and long ere I could relish evangelical sentiment, I spent nearly a twelve-month in a sort of mental elysium, and the one idea which ministered to my soul all its rapture was the magnificence of the Godhead,

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Thomas Chalmers

and the universal subordination of all things to the one great purpose for which he evolved and was supporting creation.’ Chalmers’ admission that he had no relish in those days for what he calls ‘evangelical sentiment’ is a sobering one. But neither among students for the Church of Scotland ministry, as he was, nor among Church of Scotland ministers, was it at all uncommon. The closing years of the eighteenth century were dark years for Scotland’s national church. The warmth and light of evangelical life and ministry were largely to be found outside her communion among the various branches of the Secession Church. In God’s grace, however, a remark able change for the better was soon to begin — a change in which Chalmers himself would both participate and play a major role. Chalmers was licensed to preach on 31 July 1799, at the age of eighteen. It was not generally the case that a divin ity student would be licensed by a presbytery until he was twenty-one, but in the case of Chalmers the rule was waived. An old statute of the church was invoked which allowed exceptions to what was then the minimum age of twenty-five if the candidate in question showed ‘rare and singular qualities.’ In the judgment of the men who pleaded his case, Chalmers did. ‘A lad o’ pregnant pairts,’ they said. He preached his first sermon on 25 August 1799 in the Lancashire town of Wigan. According to one of his brothers, who was present on the occasion, ‘it is the opinion of those who pretend to be judges that he will shine in the pulpit.’ Chalmers himself, however, had little interest in preaching. ‘His mathematical studies,’ comments his brother, ‘appear to occupy more of his time than his religious.’ From 1799 till his ordination in May 1803 Chalmers did a variety of things. During the academic year 1799–1800, for example, he studied mathematics and natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. The following year was taken up

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2 Robert Murray M‘Cheyne

The Beauty of Holiness

When Robert Murray M‘Cheyne died on 25 March 1843 at the early age of twenty-nine, the grief was deep and wide spread. ‘Perhaps never,’ writes his friend and biographer, Andrew Bonar, ‘was the death of one, whose whole occupa tion had been preaching the everlasting gospel, more felt by all the saints of God in Scotland.’ Bonar himself, in a diary entry for that day, says, ‘My heart is sore. … Life has lost half its joys, were it not for the hope of saving souls. There was no friend whom I loved like him.’ And he was dearly loved by his congregation too. When they gathered in the church that evening, ‘none among them seemed able to contain their sorrow. Every heart seemed bursting with grief, so that the weeping and the cries could be heard afar off.’ The primary source for this chapter is Bonar’s memoir of M‘Cheyne which was published the year after M‘Cheyne’s death. It has become a spiritual classic. Read it and you discover why in his own day M‘Cheyne had such a place in people’s hearts. So too why in our day still his life and minis try are bearing fruit around the world. It is rooted in what he was as a Christian; in his passion for holiness; in the depth of his devotion to Christ; and in how profoundly that devotion shaped his preaching.

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Early days Robert Murray M‘Cheyne was born in Edinburgh on 21 May 1813. Writing many years later to a boy for whose salvation he was anxious, he looks back to his own boyhood. ‘Perhaps you will tell me that you are very happy as you are. I quite believe you. I know that I was very happy when I was unforgiven. I know that I had great pleasure in many sins. … I fancy few boys were ever happier in an unconverted state than I was. No sorrow clouded my brow.’ He makes a similar point in his hymn Jehovah Tsidkenu: Everything changed, however, with the death of his eldest brother David, a godly young man, in July 1831. David died in joy and in peace after a long illness and it made a deep impression on Robert. The two had been very close and David had prayed earnestly for him. ‘This day eleven years ago,’ M‘Cheyne would later write, ‘I lost my loved and loving brother, and began to seek a Brother who cannot die.’ Another major factor in his conversion was a short work entitled The Sum of Saving Knowledge . He calls it ‘the work which I think first of all wrought a saving change in me.’ The next four years were spent in preparation for gospel ministry, Dr Thomas Chalmers and Dr David Welsh being his principal teachers. He was licensed to preach by the Pres bytery of Annan in July 1835 and in November of the same year he became an assistant to the Rev. John Bonar, minister of Larbert and Dunipace in Stirlingshire. It was a demanding sphere of labour, too great even for the two men together, and it was not long before M‘Cheyne’s health began to give way. Several weeks of rest were needed before he was sufficiently recovered to resume. There would be further bouts of serious illness in the years to follow. I once was a stranger to grace and to God; I knew not my danger, I felt not my load .

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Robert Murray M‘Cheyne

His time in Larbert and Dunipace was short, a mere ten months. Excerpts from his diary in Bonar’s memoir give us glimpses both of the inward and the outward history of those months. We find him preaching to small audiences and large, spending whole days in visiting with evening meetings to follow, teaching the young, mentioning particular indi viduals on whom he has called, and recording visits to other places. It is the inward history, however, in which the chief value of these excerpts lies. We get to listen in as he engages in self-examination, confesses sin, prays for help, gives thanks for the Lord’s great mercies, testifies to his delight in preach ing the gospel, and sorrows over his shortcomings in doing so. A few examples by way of illustration: 21 May 1836 — My birthday. I have lived twenty-three years. Blessed be my Rock. Though I am a child in knowledge of my Bible and of thee, yet use me for what a child can do, or a child can suffer. 11 June 1836 — Is the desire of my heart to be made altogether holy? Is there any sin I wish to retain? Is sin a grief to me, the sudden risings and overcomings thereof especially? Lord, thou knowest all things — thou know est that I hate all sin and desire to be made altogether like thee . 15 June 1836 — Day of visiting (rather a happy one) in Carronshore. Large meeting in the evening. Felt very happy after it, though mourning for bitter speaking of the gospel . Surely it is a gentle message, and should be spoken with angelic tenderness, especially by such a needy sinner. 19 June 1836, Sabbath — Preached at Dunipace to a small audience, on Parable of the Tares. … In both discourses I can look back on many hateful thoughts of

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