Bonar, Horatius

BONAR, HORATIUS: Free Church of Scotland; b. in Edinburgh Dec. 19, 1808; d. there July 31, 1889. He studied at Edinburgh; became minister at Kelso 1837, at the Chalmers Memorial Church, Edinburgh, 1866; with his congregation he joined the Free Church in 1843. He was a premillenarian and expressed his views in books, such as Prophetical Landmarks (London, 1847), and in the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, which he founded in 1849. He is best known for his poems and hymns which include "What a friend we have in Jesus," "I heard the voice of Jesus say," and others equally familiar. The best known collections of his verse are Hymns of Faith and Hope (3 vols., 1857–66); The Song of the New Creation and other pieces (1872); Hymns of the Nativity (1878); Songs of Love and Joy (1888); Until the Daybreak and other hymns left behind (1890). His prose publications, besides sermons, tracts etc., include The Night of Weeping, or words for the suffering family of God (1846); God's Way of Peace (1862); The White Fields of France: or the story of Mr. McAll's mission to the workingmen 221of Paris and Lyons (1879); Life and Work of G. T. Dodds (1884).

Bibliography: Horatius Bonar, a Memorial, London, 1889; S. W. Duffield, English Hymns, pp. 168–169 and passim, New York, 1886; Julian, Hymnology, pp. 161–162; DNB, supplement vol. i, 231–232.