31
July 1839 A.D. Death
of Mr. (Rev.) Horatius Bonar
Graves,
Dan. “Horatius Bonar Pointed People to Christ.”
Christianity.com. June 2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/horatius-bonar-pointed-people-to-christ-11630625.html. Accessed 14 May 2014.
"Please don't write a biography of me."
Racked with pain in the Summer of 1889, Horatius Bonar knew he was dying. He
also knew that people would be interested in his life. But during his ministry,
his one interest had been the glory of Christ, and he wanted to keep it that
way. "Point men to Christ, not to Bonar," he might have said. That is
what his sermons had always done:
"If Christ is not the substitute, he is
nothing to the sinner. If he did not die as the sin-bearer, he has died in
vain. Let us not be deceived on this point nor misled by those who, when they
announce Christ as the deliverer, think they have preached the gospel. If I
throw a rope to a drowning man, I am a deliverer. But is Christ no more than
that? If I cast myself into the sea and risk myself to save another, I am a
deliverer. But is Christ no more? Did He risk His life? The very essence of
Christ's deliverance is the substitution of himself for us--his life for ours!
He did not come to risk his life; he came to die! He did not redeem us by a
little loss, a little sacrifice, a little labor, a little suffering: 'He
redeemed us to God by His blood' (I Peter 1:18,19). He gave all he had, even
his life, for us. This is the kind of deliverance that awakens the happy song,
'To Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood'
(Revelation 1:5)."
Christ's deliverance wakened happy songs in Bonar.
Although many of his hymns were originally written for children, they were so
brim full of sound teaching that adults loved to sing them, too.
I heard
the voice of Jesus say, "Come unto me and rest;
Lay down, thou weary one, lay down, Thy head upon my breast."
I came to Jesus as I was, weary and worn and sad;
I found in him a resting place, And he has made me glad.
Lay down, thou weary one, lay down, Thy head upon my breast."
I came to Jesus as I was, weary and worn and sad;
I found in him a resting place, And he has made me glad.
When Horatius Bonar died on this day, July 31, 1889, his wish was
respected; no biography was written of him. Just a few memories and a short
sketch of his life have come down to us.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, he studied at
Edinburgh University. Early on, he allied himself with three of the most
spiritual men of his day: Thomas Chalmers, William C. Burns and Robert Murray
McCheyne. As a young pastor, he earnestly preached in villages and farmhouses
throughout his district. He saw evangelization in a different light from his
contemporaries. "We think if we can but get men converted, it does not
much matter how. Our whole anxiety is, not 'How shall we secure the glory of
Jehovah?' but 'How shall we multiply conversions?'" To Bonar, Christ had
to come first.
When the evangelical party formed the Free Church,
Bonar was with them heart and soul. In his eyes, the old church with its civil
service pastors, had failed in its responsibility to arouse the faith of the
nation.
A man of prayer and song, Bonar was also a man of
sorrow. Five of his children died young. But later, his widowed daughter and
her five children had to move in with him. Many grandparents would groan at the
added burden, but Bonar rejoiced. To him it was as if God had given him five children
to replace those he had lost.
Bibliography:
1. Brown, Theron and Hezekiah
Butterworth. Story of the Hymns and Tunes. New YorK: George H. Doran, 1906.
2. Haeussler, Armin. The Story of
Our Hymns : the handbook to the Hymnal of the Evangelical and Reformed Church.
Saint Louis: Published by the authority of the General Synod of the Evangelical
and Reformed Church by Eden Pub. House, 1954, c1952.
3. Handbook to the Hymnal. William
Chalmers Covert, editor; Calvin Weiss Laufer, associate editor. Philadelphia:
Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1935.
4. "Horatius Bonar."
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/b/o/n/bonar_h.htm
5. "Horatius Bonar
1808-1880." http://www.christian-bookshop.co.uk/free/biogs/bonar.htm
6. Roxburgh, K. B. E. "Bonar,
Horatius." Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals. Downers Grove,
Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 2003.
7. Wells, Amos R. A Treasure of
Hymns; Brief biographies of 120 leading hymn- writers and Their best hymns.
Boston: W. A. Wilde company, 1945.
8. Various internet articles with
Bonar's poems and writings.
Last updated June, 2007.
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