Henry Drummond Books: A Guide to All 9 and Where to Start
Henry Drummond (1851–1897) was a Scottish evangelist and science teacher who spent much of his life speaking to students. Nearly all his books began as talks, so they're short and easy to read. TheWay Library has nine of them, all free: his famous address on love, his little book on rest, five collections of addresses, an essay on eternal life and a year of daily readings. For his life story, see who was Henry Drummond.
His best-known scientific books, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and The Ascent of Man, aren't in the library yet. You can still get a taste of the first in Eternal Life and Beautiful Thoughts, below.
Where to start
Start with The Greatest Thing in the World and Other Addresses. The title address on 1 Corinthians 13 takes under an hour to read, and the same book holds five more of his best talks.
After that, choose by what you need:
- If you're weary or anxious: Pax Vobiscum.
- If you're young, or work with young people: Stones Rolled Away or A Life for a Life.
- If you're asking what God wants you to do: The Ideal Life.
- For a few lines a day: Beautiful Thoughts.
Every quotation below is checked against the book it comes from. For many more, see our collection of Henry Drummond quotes.
His most famous addresses
The Greatest Thing in the World and Other Addresses
The address that made Drummond famous. He asks what the supreme good is and answers with Paul: love. He compares love with eloquence, prophecy, faith and sacrifice, then breaks it into nine parts, from patience and kindness to humility and sincerity, and closes on why love never fails. D. L. Moody's introduction tells how he first heard it. The book adds Lessons from the Angelus, Pax Vobiscum, "First!" An Address to Boys, The Changed Life and Dealing with Doubt.
To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever.
The Greatest Thing in the World, The Greatest Thing in the World
Read The Greatest Thing in the World.
Addresses by Henry Drummond
Another edition of most of the same talks, also with Moody's introduction: the address on love, Lessons from the Angelus, Pax Vobiscum, "First!" and The Changed Life. It doesn't have Dealing with Doubt. In this edition the chapter breaks don't line up with the addresses, so the volume above is easier to find your way in. Read Addresses by Henry Drummond.
Pax Vobiscum
A short book on rest, from Christ's words "Come unto me... learn of me... and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Drummond argues that rest isn't dropped on us from heaven. It's the effect of a cause: learning Christ's meekness and lowliness, and taking His yoke, which makes the load easier to carry. A last section applies the same idea to joy and the other fruits of the Spirit.
A yoke is not an instrument of torture; it is an instrument of mercy.
Pax Vobiscum, What Yokes Are For
Addresses to students and young people
Stones Rolled Away and Other Addresses to Young Men
Seven plain talks, mostly given at American colleges. Drummond clears away the "stones" that keep fair-minded men from Christ, speaks to the man who is down in temptation, describes the Boys' Brigade, and warns that the mountaintop of a summer conference is a place to visit, not a place to live. The last talk finds three parts of a full life, work, love and God, in Millet's painting The Angelus. Read Stones Rolled Away.
A Life for a Life, and Other Addresses
Three short talks with a tribute by Moody written after Drummond's death. A Life for a Life says people are saved not by words shouted from a distance but by a life given, and that Christ's kingdom spreads like leaven. The Ideal Man teaches that the real object of life is to do the will of God. Read A Life for a Life.
The Ideal Life: Addresses Hitherto Unpublished
Fifteen addresses printed after his death, with memorial introductions by W. Robertson Nicoll and John Watson. They take up ill-temper as a real sin, "to me to live is Christ," the facts of sin and salvation, Peter's penitence, and a closing series on what God's will is and how to know it. This is the fullest picture of Drummond as a preacher.
There is a will of God for me which is willed for no one else besides.
The Ideal Life, How to Know the Will of God
The New Evangelism, and Other Addresses
Seven addresses, mostly to theological students, also printed after his death. Drummond calls for preaching that starts from Christ's own teaching and the kingdom of God, and he discusses missions, the care of souls and the relation of science and evolution to Christianity. These talks show the views on theology and science that were debated in his day. It's the book for readers who want to understand that side of him, not the place to start. Read The New Evangelism.
Science and faith
Eternal Life
One chapter of Natural Law in the Spiritual World, printed on its own. Drummond starts from biology: a living thing lives by its connection with its surroundings, and dies when that connection breaks. He sets a scientist's definition of perfect life beside Christ's words, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee," and argues that knowing God is the one connection death can't break. Read Eternal Life.
Daily readings
Beautiful Thoughts
A year of short passages from Drummond's books, one for each day, chosen by Elizabeth Cureton in 1892. Most come from Natural Law in the Spiritual World, with others from The Changed Life, Pax Vobiscum and The Greatest Thing in the World. It's an easy way to meet his ideas a few lines at a time.
Fruit-bearing without Christ is not an improbability, but an impossibility.
Beautiful Thoughts, July 25
Why read Drummond today
Drummond writes about love, rest and the will of God the way a good friend would talk about them: plainly, warmly and without a wasted word. Begin with The Greatest Thing in the World, then go on to Pax Vobiscum and The Ideal Life. All nine books are on the Henry Drummond author page.