James Hamilton Books: A Guide to All 15 and Where to Start
Christian LifePrayerBiographyDevotionalBible Study
James Hamilton (1814–1867) was a Scottish minister who pastored the National Scotch Church in Regent Square, London, for twenty-six years. Nearly all his books began as talks to his own congregation, and they keep the warmth of a pastor speaking to people he knew. TheWay Library has fifteen of them, all free to read: books on Christian work, prayer, thankfulness and the home; lectures and studies on Ecclesiastes, Moses, the life of Christ, John 21, the prodigal son and the Bible itself; and four memoirs. For his life story, see who was James Hamilton.
Where to start
If you're new to Hamilton, start with Life in Earnest. It's the shortest of his books and the one that made his name. Then choose by what you need:
- To grow in prayer: The Mount of Olives.
- For young people, or for Ecclesiastes: The Royal Preacher.
- For a Bible character study: Moses, the Man of God.
- For the life of Jesus: Lessons from the Great Biography, then A Morning beside the Lake of Galilee.
- For someone far from God: The Parable of the Prodigal Son.
- To love the Bible more: The Light to the Path.
- For the home and family: The Happy Home.
- For a true story of faith: A Memoir of Richard Williams.
Every quotation below is checked against the book it comes from. For many more, see our collection of James Hamilton quotes.
The Christian life, prayer and the home
Life in Earnest
Six chapters on one verse, Romans 12:11: "Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord." Hamilton urges honest, planned, prompt work in your calling, then shows that its deepest motive is love to Christ, and that a fervent spirit comes from peace and joy in God. The three are a "threefold cord." It was written for young people and working Christians, and it still reads that way.
Life will be long enough for the work assigned if you be prompt enough.
Life in Earnest, Industry
The Mount of Olives, and Other Lectures on Prayer
Ten lectures that start with Jesus going "as he was wont" to the Mount of Olives to pray. Hamilton writes about Christ's promise to be with us always, God as the Hearer of prayer, Christ interceding above and the Spirit prompting within, the reward of secret prayer, the reasons some prayers go unanswered, and the parts of prayer: confession, adoration and thanksgiving. A lecture on praying men and women of the Bible closes the book. It's a gentle, encouraging book for anyone who finds prayer hard.
It is a closet wherever the soul finds itself alone with God.
The Mount of Olives, The Open Reward of Secret Prayer
Thankfulness, and Other Essays
A small collection of shorter pieces from 1847. The title essay calls gratitude the grace that keeps gladness pointed toward God. Then come an address on the unity of all who love Christ, written for the founding of the Evangelical Alliance, his recollections of his friend Robert Murray M'Cheyne, a lecture to theology students on the blessings of the gospel, and a handful of short parables.
A thankful Christian is a happy man, and brings peculiar glory to God.
Thankfulness, and Other Essays, Thankfulness
Read Thankfulness, and Other Essays.
The Happy Home
Short, plain papers written in 1849 for working men and their families. Through stories and sketches Hamilton commends Christ as the true friend of working people, salvation as a gift already sent, the Sabbath as the worker's rest, and a loving fireside, and he says real happiness is found only in Christ.
The sabbath is God's gracious present to a working world; and for wearied minds and bodies it is the grand restorative.
The Happy Home, The Oasis
Lectures and studies on the Bible
The Royal Preacher: Lectures on Ecclesiastes
Twenty-one lectures that picture Solomon as a king who tried every earthly good and found it vanity. The chapter titles show Hamilton's style: The Museum, The Play-House and the Palace, The Clock of Destiny, Dead Flies, Blunt Axes. Each one draws out practical wisdom, and the book keeps pointing beyond Solomon to Christ, the greater than Solomon, who gives the soul what it was looking for. The last lectures, on youth and old age from Ecclesiastes 12, speak straight to young readers. Read The Royal Preacher.
Moses, the Man of God
Twenty-five lectures given at Regent Square in the winter of 1859 to 1860 and printed after Hamilton died. They follow Moses from the ark of bulrushes through his great choice, the burning bush, the plagues and the Passover, the Red Sea and Marah, to the Ten Commandments, the tabernacle, Psalm 90 and his death on Pisgah. Hamilton reads widely and writes with color, and he shows Christ as the one who fulfils the law Moses gave.
God sometimes sends His people trials where they looked for blessings.
Moses, the Man of God, Marah
Lessons from the Great Biography
Nineteen devotional studies in the life of Christ. Hamilton notes that other biographies begin with a birth, but this one begins in eternity, so he opens with the pre-existence of the Son and His appearances before Bethlehem. Then he takes scenes from the Gospels: the temptation, the miracles at Cana, Bethesda, Nain and Gadara, the stilling of the storm, Nicodemus, the promise of the Father's house, the rich young ruler, and the risen Redeemer.
Even those who sometimes look forth to Christ on the Cross, too seldom look up to Christ on the Throne.
Lessons from the Great Biography, The Risen Redeemer
Read Lessons from the Great Biography.
A Morning beside the Lake of Galilee
A devotional study of John 21, where the risen Christ meets His disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. Hamilton follows the night when they caught nothing, breakfast on the shore, the threefold "Lovest thou me?", the charge to feed His sheep, and the words to Peter and John, and he closes with what it means to follow Christ. It reads well beside Lessons from the Great Biography.
Having died to atone, He lives to pity and pardon, to intercede and to save.
A Morning beside the Lake of Galilee, chapter IV, Lovest Thou Me
Read A Morning beside the Lake of Galilee.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son
Published in 1867, the year Hamilton died, this book follows Luke 15 step by step in twelve chapters: the father's home, leaving it, the far country, riotous living, the famine, the swine, coming to himself, the father's welcome, the best robe, the feast, and the angry elder brother. It's tender toward the wanderer and plain about sin.
Of all God's cords the finest, and perhaps the strongest, is the cord of love.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son, chapter I, The Fatherland
Read The Parable of the Prodigal Son.
Emblems from Eden
Seven short chapters that read the plants of the Bible as pictures of the Christian life: the tree of life, the vine, the cedar, the palm, the enclosed garden of the Song of Songs, the harvest, and the amaranth, the flower that never fades. It's a small book with Hamilton's love of nature on every page.
There are crotchetty Christians; but they are not palms.
Emblems from Eden, chapter IV, The Palm
The Light to the Path
A popular book about the Bible itself: what it gives the inquirer, the believer and the invalid, plain evidence that it is true, its growth and its power to change a society (pictured in the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven), its beauty as literature, and practical hints for studying it.
The Bible is the book out of which every reformation of doctrine has issued, and every revival of religion.
The Light to the Path, chapter II, The Bible and the Believer
Memoirs
A Memoir of Richard Williams, Surgeon
The story of a young English surgeon from Burslem who came to faith, joined Captain Allen Gardiner's mission to the people of Tierra del Fuego, and died there of starvation in 1851 when supplies never came. Hamilton built it mostly from Williams's own journal, which stays full of prayer and joy to the last pages. It belongs beside the great missionary biographies.
The love of Christ fills my heart; but with this love which loves him supremely, I love you as I never did before.
A Memoir of Richard Williams, Sickness and Famine
Read A Memoir of Richard Williams.
A Memoir of Lady Colquhoun
The life of Lady Janet Colquhoun of Rossdhu on Loch Lomond, daughter of Sir John Sinclair, drawn from her diaries and letters. She founded a Bible society and a Sabbath school, wrote devotional books, bore the deaths of her father and husband with faith, and stood with the Free Church after the Disruption of 1843. It's a fine portrait of a devoted Christian woman and mother. Read A Memoir of Lady Colquhoun.
Memoirs of the Life of James Wilson of Woodville
The life of an Edinburgh naturalist, brother of the writer John Wilson ("Christopher North"), built from his letters and journals. Wilson filled a life of leisure with natural history, writing, angling, travel and public service, and Hamilton shows the hidden life of faith that deepened in him through sorrow.
"Christianity is the religion of the sorrowful," and the balm which then healed his wounded spirit left a deepened tincture in all his after history.
Memoirs of the Life of James Wilson, chapter IX, Glimpses of the Hidden Life, and Close of the Mortal Pilgrimage
Read Memoirs of the Life of James Wilson.
Life of Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich
A short life of Joseph Hall (1574–1656), the devotional writer and bishop, first written as a preface to Hall's Contemplations. Drawing largely on Hall's own account of himself, Hamilton follows him from Cambridge through quiet parish years and the Synod of Dort to imprisonment, the loss of his income, and his last years at Higham. Read Life of Joseph Hall.
A book about Hamilton
His friend William Arnot wrote the Life of James Hamilton in 1870, mostly from Hamilton's journals and letters. It's the place to go for his student years, his London ministry and the story behind Life in Earnest.
A note on these editions
These books were restored from scans of the original printings and are still being proofread. A Memoir of Lady Colquhoun has badly garbled Scripture mottoes at the head of its chapters, and Lessons from the Great Biography has scattered misread and run-together words. The others read cleanly for the most part.
Why read Hamilton today
Hamilton is bright, kind and easy to read. He writes for people with work to do and little time, and he always brings them back to Christ. Begin with Life in Earnest, then go on to The Mount of Olives. All fifteen books are on the James Hamilton author page.