I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"Come unto Me and rest;
Lay down, thou weary one, lay down
Thy head upon My breast."
Had Dr. Bonar written no other hymn than "I heard the voice of Jesus say," the great
hymnist, by this one composition, would have bestowed on posterity a gem of sacred song, willed
of God to be used in bringing peace and consolation to countless thousands the world over.
The most eminent of all Scottish hymn writers, and well to the forefront of the world's hymnists of last century, the name of Dr. Horatius Bonar may well rank with Watts, Doddridge and Wesley. His hymns, simple enough that a child can understand, yet profoundly spiritual withal, are loved and sung, not only in the land that gave him birth, but in countries beyond the seas, wherever these heavenly songs have been carried. Horatius Bonar was the son of a lawyer, and was born in Edinburgh on December 19th, 1808. He was one of several brothers who all became eminent ministers in the Church of Scotland. Educated at the famous High School and University of his native city, in his student days he came under the influence of such men as Dr. Chalmers, Edward Irving and Robert Murray McCheyne. He early decided to devote his life to the Lord's service in the ministry of the Gospel, and on completing his theological course he undertook mission work at St John's Church, Leith. It was here that he began to write hymns. Keenly interested in young folks, the Sunday School, under his care very quickly grew and prospered. When he first began mission work, he found the boys and girls listless and indifferent in the matter of public worship. Accustomed to the use of psalms, not exactly suited, either in word or tune, to meet the needs of the young folks, Mr. Bonar realised that what ought to have been the brightest part of the services, was to them the dullest. And yet the children loved music, and were ready enough to sing songs on week days. So he tried an experiment. Choosing a few familiar tunes such as "The Flowers of the Forest," he set to work writing words to them. These he had printed in leaflet form and distributed amongst the young folks in the Sunday School. To Mr. Bonar's delight the experiment succeeded, and the children immediately took to singing the new hymns which had been specially written for them. In this way were written Horatius Bonar's first two hymns—"I lay my sins on Jesus," and "The morning, the bright and the beautiful morning."
After four-and-a-half years' work at Leith he became minister of the North Parish Church, Kelso, in November, 1837, where he laboured with a devotion and enthusiasm that never waned during his long and faithful ministry. His first sermon was long remembered by those who heard it delivered from the pulpit. It was a clarion call to prayer. "Pray brethren!" was his cry, "so shall the showers of heaven descend upon our church, our parish, our schools, our families. It is to prayer I urge you, to prayer for yourselves, to prayer for me!" But Horatius Bonar was preeminently a man of prayer, and in after years, the voice of earnest pleading from behind the fast-closed door of his study, pleading that continued often for hours at a time, formed one of the most sacred memories in his own home circle.
Strong physically, Dr. Bonar was never idle. At Kelso, it is said, that, in one day, he frequently preached three times in the pulpit and once in the open-air. He was a valiant for the Truth, and even as an old man, when at Edinburgh, his stentorian voice could be heard heralding forth the Gospel in the open-air, sometimes in the Meadows and sometimes in Parliament Square. One friend said of him that he was always preaching, another that he was always visiting, another that he was always writing, and yet another that he was always praying.
At the Disruption of 1843, Dr. Bonar remained at Kelso as minister of the Free Church of Scotland, and it was here that most of his best known hymns were written, including "I heard the voice of Jesus say," which is perhaps the most loved of all his compositions.
In 1866, Dr. Bonar removed to Edinburgh, the place of his birth, where he undertook the charge of a new church. Here he laboured till he was past eighty, and though the press of city work somewhat retarded the outpouring of hymns, yet his pen was never still. For a time he edited two magazines and was, in addition, continually publishing prose works. He was also the author of hundreds of tracts, one of which, "Believe and Live," published in 1839, reached a circulation of a million copies.
The visit to Scotland of Moody and Sankey in 1873-74, seemed to revive the flow of hymns, and about this time fresh compositions began to appear in his notebooks, many of these specially written for Mr. Sankey. Regarding one hymn written about this time, there is an interesting story. Mr. Sankey had been singing Tennyson's sad and beautiful poem, "Late, late, so late, and dark the night and chill," for which he had composed a tune. On asking permission of the owner of the copyright to use it in his collection of hymns, he was refused. So, being left with a tune without the words, Sankey requested Dr. Bonar to write a hymn which would convey the same scriptural theme. This was done, and the now well-known hymn, "Yet there is room," was the result.
An outstanding feature of the hymns of this notable Scottish Presbyterian is that they belong to no particular denomination, but are in use in almost every form of Christian worship, wherever the songs of Zion are sung. Dr. Bonar wrote about 600 hymns—not including sixty translations of different Psalms—and these are to be found in hymnals the world over. Possibly the best known are:—"I heard the voice of Jesus say," "I lay my sins on Jesus," "Thy way not mine, O Lord," "I was a wandering sheep," "A few more years shall roll," "Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face." His own favourite was—
When the weary, seeking rest,
To Thy goodness flee.
Besides those already mentioned, such hymns as the following have gained much favour:— "Blessed be God our God," "Done is the work that saves," "For the bread and for the wine," and that inspiring song of worship and thanksgiving:—
No blood, no altar now,
The sacrifice is o'er!
No flame, no smoke ascends on high,
The lamb is slain no more.
But richer blood has flow'd from nobler veins,
To purge the soul from guilt, and cleanse the reddest stains.
Appropriate in closing are the words taken from his Pilgrim Song:
A few more suns shall set
O'er time's dark hills of time.
And we shall be where suns are not,
A far serener clime.
From Stories and Sketches of Our Hymns and Their Writers by David J. Beattie. Kilmarnock, Scotland: John Ritchie, [1934].
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