Horatius Bonar (1808-1889) and his writings A month or two ago we had the pleasure of reading a short sketch of 'The Life of Horatius Bonar' by Arthur W. Medley in the Spring number of the Evangelical Library Bulletin . It is characteristic of the good work done by the Evangelical Library that they should not fail to remember the centenary of the death of this eminent Christian. We thought little more of the subject until a letter from South Australia a few days ago sought more information on Horatius Bonar. This reminded us afresh of just how little material exists today for those who want to turn to his writings. There is no biography and apart from his two small works, God's Way of Holiness and When God's Children Suffer (original title, The Night of Weeping , or Words For the Suffering Family of God ), both published by the Evangelical Press, nothing else is currently available. This is a strange fact when one notes that our current Banner of Truth Trust catalogue contains information on no less than five books now in print by his brother, Andrew. The choice of publishers must never be taken as a sure guide to the relative worth of the Christian authors of former centuries! With such promptings as these in mind we determined not to let this present day — July 31, 1989 — pass without putting something together to support what the Evangelical Library has already done. For today is exactly the centenary of the day when Horatius Bonar 'fell asleep' in his home at Grange, Edinburgh. Horatius Bonar was a prominent member of a brotherhood in two senses of that word. Of his own four brothers two were to be colleagues in the work of the gospel as Scottish Presbyterian ministers, John James Bonar, born in 1803, and Andrew A. Bonar, born in 1810. For over forty years these three men were to work together and not a year would pass without their supporting one another by preaching in each other's pulpits during communion seasons. Many references to Horace, as the family called him, will be found in The Diary and Life of Andrew Bonar ,1 but in a spiritual sense the brotherhood was a great deal wider for Bonar belonged to a school of preachers who, as Alexander Whyte once said, 'had an immense influence on the religious life of Scotland' . On the Sunday after Horatius Bonar's funeral in Edinburgh, his aged brother Andrew, two years his junior, sat in the vestry of Horace's former church during the morning service 'listening to the prayers and singing of the congregation assembled for devotion'. He says in his Diary: 'Once or twice I almost realised what it may be to hear the great congregation singing together as they welcome a brother arrived in glory!' , and then his memory went back to the 'beloved companions' who had gone before — 'M'Cheyne, John Milne, William Burns, Dr Chalmers, James Hamilton and hundreds of such'. The main facts of Bonar's life can soon be told. Born in a godly Edinburgh home, where his much loved father died when he was 13, he was educated at the High School where his brilliance as a classical scholar was evident even by his early teenage years. He entered the University of Edinburgh and then its Divinity School, where his principal instructor was Thomas Chalmers, the greatest Christian, in his opinion, that he ever knew. His first work was as an assistant in the parish of St John's, Leith (the port of Edinburgh) from whence he was settled at Kelso in 1837. Bonar's first sermon in the North Parish Church at Kelso was from Mark 9:29, 'And he said unto them, this kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting' . For the next 30 years Bonar's ministry in Kelso was lived out in the spirit of that text. It was his happiness to have been called into the service of the gospel at a time when, in many parts of Scotland, there was a new thirst for the Word of God. The year 1837, in fact, may be taken as the year when in various places there was the beginning of a true reviving amongst the churches. Such is certainly Bonar's own opinion, for, speaking of the year 1843, he writes: The tide of blessing which, from 1837, had been flowing without intermission, had not yet begun to ebb. Many were daily added to our living membership. The Church's true work 1 went on happily in parts where it had already commenced; and it began in many places to which it had not yet reached. We look back on these months with thankful joy. Gladly should we live them over again, with all their tear and wear of body and mind, had we but our former strength, and the hope of like success. No one who passed through them would wish either to forget or underestimate the privilege of having been one of the 'labourers' in the reaping of that blessed harvest. Elsewhere he gives the following description of this momentous period in Scottish church history: During this season there were all the marks of a work of God which we see in the account given of the preaching of the gospel by the apostles. The multitude was divided, families were divided; the people of God were knit together, they were filled with zeal and joy and heavenly-mindedness; they continued steadfast, and increased in doctrine and fellowship, being daily in church and in prayer-meetings; and numbers were constantly turning to the Lord. It would be misleading to suppose that Kelso in any sense lay at the centre of this period of awakening, yet Horatius Bonar's ministry in the Scottish Borders was long to be remembered for its fruitfulness. Robertson Nicholl, one of his successors at Kelso, was to say of Bonar's ministry in the year 1909: He set himself to evangelise the Borderland. His name was fragrant in every little village, and at most of the farms. He conducted many meetings in farm kitchens and village schoolrooms, and often preached in the open air. The memory of some sermons lingered, one in particular on the Plant of Renown. The chief characteristic of his preaching was its strange solemnity. It was full of entreaty and of warning. In 1866 Bonar became the minister of a new charge, the Chalmers Memorial Church, at Grange, Edinburgh, 2 in which office he remained until his death, being dependent upon a colleague in the few final years. For a meeting to celebrate his Jubilee as a minister on April 5, 1888 he started to prepare an address of an autobiographical nature but his preparation was never concluded. He laid down his pen for the last time in the middle of a sentence and could not be present at the celebration. His last sermon to his people had been preached on September 11, 1887 and its concluding words, characteristically, were 'In such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh.' Had a biography of Bonar ever been written it is apparent that his love of children and young people would have been a prominent feature. His first work at Leith was mainly among that age group and when he left there for Kelso in 1837, 283 girls and boys — all carefully named in one of his notebooks — were present at a meeting to bid him farewell. At Kelso it is said that 'his sermons to the young were peculiarly attractive'. On Wednesday afternoons it was his custom at Kelso to hold a Bible class and many years later one of the young people who attended recalled the 'bright, happy band of schoolgirls, sitting around listening to his earnest, loving, faithful teaching'. She went on: 'I see Dr Bonar seated at the end of a long table with the large Bible spread out before him, the Bible-hymnbook in his hand, his dear handsome face beaming, and the pleasant smile which lighted it up, as some of us gave a fuller, clearer answer than he expected to the question asked.' His son, H. N. Bonar, gives us some insight into his father's appeal to young people. He speaks of the happiness of his disposition and of the skill with which he guided his children: He very rarely said 'don't' to me — not that he did not indicate very strongly what he would like me to do ... All my holidays were passed with him. We boated together, we walked together, we swam together, we climbed hills together. Stern! No, he was never stern in my boyish eyes. I can remember another little personal incident — you will pardon me for mentioning it in this connection. Once an officious neighbour came to him to complain of one of my misdeeds. I fancy I had been climbing to the rooks' nests in Warrender Park, then unbuilt on. He reported this to my father, and wound up by saying, 'I hope you will give the boy a good thrashing.' My father replied, 'If I thrashed the boy for that, what would I do if he told me a lie?' It is interesting to note that Bonar's best remembered work, namely his Hymns , seems to have arisen out of his concern to help young people. His first hymns were written for the young people's class at Leith, one of these being: I was a wandering sheep. 2 In 1845 he published a little collection of 300 hymns, The Bible Hymn Book , 'designed both for general use and for Sabbath schools'.