McCheyne, Robert Murray

(1813-1843)

   Scottish clergyman "the saintly McCheyne" was born in Edinburgh, the son of a lawyer, studied at Edinburgh University and was licensed to preach in 1835. He had two appointments: Annan and Larbert, Stirlingshire, before his health broke down. He was appointed to St. Peter's Church, Dundee, in 1836, but two years later his health again gave way. In 1839 the general assembly of the Church of Scotland invited McCheyne to be a three-member deputation to Israel to investigate the condition of the Jews there and throughout Europe. In 1842 he helped set up the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews. While visiting sick people in the parish he was stricken with typhus fever and died after two weeks. He was buried at St. Peter's and over six thousand people attended the funeral. Some of hymn/poems: "Beneath Moriah's Rocky Side," "Fountain of Siloam," "I am a debtor..." "I Once Was a Stranger," "Oil in the Lamp," "The Barren Fig Tree," "The Covenanters," "The Sea of Galilee," "Thy Word is a Lamp Unto My Feet," "When This Passing World is Done."

   Sources: Biography of Robert Murray McCheyne (http://web.ukonline.co.uk/d.haslam/m-cheyne.htm). Biography of Robert Murray McCheyne. St. Peter's Free Church, Dundee (http://www.stpeters-dundee.org.uk/history.htm). Bonar, A. and McCheyne, Mission of Discovery: The Beginnings of Modern Jewish Evangelism. Alan Harman, ed. Fearn, 1996. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. The Cyber Hymnal (http://www.cyberhymnal.org/index.htm). The Impact of Robert Murray McCheyne, by J. Harrison Hudson (http://web.ukonline.co.uk/d.haslam/mccheyne/hudson/Impact_of_McCheyne.htm).