M'Cheyne, ROBERT MURRAY

M'Cheyne, ROBERT MURRAY, who has been called 'the George Whitefield of Scotland,' was born at Edinburgh on 21st May 1813, educated at the High School and university of his native town, and licensed as assistant preacher in Larbert and Dunipace in 1835. The scene of his life-work was, however, Dundee; he was elected minister of the new church of St Peter's there in 1836, and laboured in the same parish until his death, on 25th March 1843. In 1839 he visited Palestine as one of a mission of four ministers sent out by the Church of Scotland to inquire into the condition of the Jews, and on his return published, in conjunction with A. A. Bonar, Narrative of a Mission of Enquiry to the Jews (1839). He died on the very eve of the Disruption; had he lived he would certainly have thrown in his lot with the party of his former tutors, Dr Chalmers and Dr Welsh. Besides being an eloquent preacher, a man of saintly piety, and a most exemplary parish minister, M'Cheyne wrote hymns and published sermons, both of considerable merit. See his Remains (Letters, Sermons, &c.), with a Memoir by A. A. Bonar (1848; 129th thousand, 1881). His Complete Works appeared at New York in 2 vols. in 1847.