Horatius Bonar

Horatius Bonar was born on December 19, 1808, in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the son of a lawyer, and he was brought up in a devout Presbyterian family. His elder brother John and his younger brother Andrew also became ministers. Horatius studied at the University of Edinburgh and trained for the ministry under Thomas Chalmers. He was a leading student, and he was drawn to the vital piety of the evangelical wing of the church. In 1837, he was ordained and became minister of the parish of Kelso, in the Scottish Borders.

In his early years at Kelso, he began to write hymns for the children in his Sunday school. He felt that the church was singing too few hymns and that the metrical psalms alone did not meet the needs of the worshippers. He wrote hymns that were simple, singable and filled with the gospel. His first collection, Songs for the Wilderness, appeared in 1843. In 1856 he published Hymns of Faith and Hope, and in later years two more collections followed. Among his best-known hymns are I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say, Here O My Lord I See Thee Face to Face, Fill Thou My Life and Thy Way Not Mine. He wrote more than six hundred hymns in all.

In 1843, he took part in the Disruption of the Church of Scotland, when more than four hundred ministers left the established church to form the Free Church of Scotland. He gave up his manse and his stipend and joined the new body. For some years he continued in his parish at Kelso, and in 1866 he was called to Chalmers Memorial Church in Edinburgh, which was later renamed Grange Free Church. He served there for the rest of his life. He was moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church in 1883.

He was a prolific writer of prose as well. His book God's Way of Peace, published in 1862, was a clear and affecting statement of the gospel and was read widely. It was translated into many languages and has been used to bring many to Christ. Other works include The Night of Weeping, The Everlasting Righteousness and Words to Winners of Souls. He edited a magazine on the prophecy of the second coming of Christ and held to a premillennial view of the end of the age. He was a friend of Robert Murray M'Cheyne and wrote of him with affection.

His life carried sorrow. He lost five of his children, who died young. He wrote some of his hymns out of that grief, and the pain gave a tender tone to his writings. His wife, Jane Lundie, a daughter of a minister, died in 1876. He carried these losses with faith. He was also a man of strong views, and he was involved in some of the debates of the day. He opposed the use of organs and hymns in the Free Church for a time, though he was himself a hymn writer, which led to some tension. He was in the end persuaded of the value of hymns.

He was known for his gentle spirit and for his deep love for the Scriptures. He was a man of prayer who lived with a sense of the nearness of the Lord. In his last years, he suffered from ill health and died on July 31, 1889, in Edinburgh, at the age of eighty. His life shows how a man who has suffered can write words that give comfort to others. His hymns continue to be sung across the world.