The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne

Andrew A. Bonar's biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, the young yet pioneering Scottish minister who revolutionized Bible readings at home and abroad, offers a meticulously detailed yet lively telling of his life story. 


Born to a middle-class family in Edinburgh in 1813, the young Robert demonstrated intellectual ability at an early age. Upon attending the city's university, he quickly became regarded as a remarkably gifted religious scholar. His intuitive skills and theological knowledge exceeded all expectations, and he became an assistant to John Bonar of the famous Bonar family. 


Robert Murray M'Cheyne was appointed a delegate of the Church of Scotland when it organized a visit to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. By all accounts this journey was spiritually fulfilling for the young minister, with the major findings and progress of the voyage recorded in his work entitled Narrative of a Visit to the Holy Land and Mission of Inquiry to the Jews. 


Tragically, M'Cheyne died during the typhoid epidemic of the 1840s at the age of only twenty-nine. His innovative system for reading the Bible endured, and was adapted by various Christian denominations, sealing the legacy of a man whose piety and closeness with God was definitive. Decades following his death, the descendant of John Bonar - Andrew A. Bonar - wrote this authoritative biography, which chronicles M'Cheyne's short but eventful life and tributes his abilities.