Who Was Henry Drummond? Author of The Greatest Thing in the World
Henry Drummond was a Scottish evangelist, scientist and writer who lived from 1851 to 1897. He taught natural science at the Free Church College in Glasgow, worked with D. L. Moody in his British missions, and spent much of his life speaking to university students. He's remembered today for one short address, The Greatest Thing in the World, his study of love in 1 Corinthians 13. It has sold millions of copies and is still read at weddings and in Bible studies.
Here's a fuller look at his life, what he taught, and which of his books to start with.
Early years in Stirling
Drummond was born on August 17, 1851, in Stirling, Scotland. His family were seed merchants and earnest members of the Free Church of Scotland. He went to school in Stirling and at Morrison's Academy in Crieff, then to the University of Edinburgh. There he loved science, especially geology and physics, and he went on to New College, Edinburgh, to train for the ministry.
With Moody
In 1873 the American evangelist D. L. Moody and the singer Ira Sankey came to Scotland. Drummond, still a student, was drawn into the work. He was good at talking with young men one by one in the inquiry rooms after the meetings, and for about two years he traveled with the mission in Scotland, Ireland and England. Those years shaped him for life. He learned to speak plainly, he saw lives changed, and he and Moody became close friends.
After Drummond's death, Moody wrote a tribute to him that's printed at the front of A Life for a Life. He said:
Never have I known a man who, in my opinion, lived nearer the Master or sought to do His will more fully.
A Life for a Life, A Tribute, by D. L. Moody
Science teacher and lay preacher
In 1877 Drummond became lecturer in natural science at the Free Church College in Glasgow, and he later held the chair there. He was never a parish minister. On Sundays he led a small mission congregation in a working-class part of Glasgow, and he worked with the Boys' Brigade, a new movement that gathered city boys for drill, games and Bible class. One of his addresses, "One Way to Help Boys," in Stones Rolled Away, describes that work.
He also traveled widely. He joined a geological trip to the Rocky Mountains, explored Central Africa for the African Lakes Company in the 1880s, and later spoke in Australia and America. His book Tropical Africa came out of those travels.
Natural Law in the Spiritual World
In 1883 Drummond published Natural Law in the Spiritual World. It grew out of talks he had given to his mission congregation. His idea was that the laws we see in nature, such as growth, life and death, and the way living things depend on their surroundings, carry on into the spiritual life. The book was a sudden best seller in Britain and abroad.
It also drew criticism. Some theologians thought it pressed the comparison between nature and grace too far. Drummond accepted the theory of evolution and believed it fit with faith in God the Creator, and this view became clearer in his later Lowell Lectures in Boston, published in 1894 as The Ascent of Man. Many evangelicals of his day disagreed with him on evolution, and some objected when Moody invited him to speak at his Northfield conferences in Massachusetts. Moody kept him as a friend and speaker all the same.
His short essay Eternal Life, a chapter from Natural Law printed by itself, shows his method. He sets a scientist's definition of perfect life beside Christ's words in John 17:3 and argues that knowing God is the life death can't break.
The quality of the Eternal Life alone makes the heaven; mere everlastingness might be no boon.
Eternal Life
The Greatest Thing in the World
In 1884 Drummond spoke on 1 Corinthians 13 to a small group in a country house in England. Moody was there. In his introduction to the address, he says it was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard, and he made up his mind to bring Drummond to Northfield to give it again. When it was printed a few years later, it went around the world.
Drummond's point is simple. Paul compares love with eloquence, prophecy, faith and sacrifice, and love wins. Then Paul breaks love into its parts, like light through a prism: patience, kindness, generosity, humility, courtesy, unselfishness, good temper, guilelessness and sincerity. Drummond takes each one and shows what it looks like on an ordinary day.
Love is greater than faith, because the end is greater than the means.
The Greatest Thing in the World, The Greatest Thing in the World
The same book holds his other well-loved talks. Pax Vobiscum teaches that rest comes from learning Christ's meekness and lowliness and taking His yoke. The Changed Life teaches that we become like Christ by beholding Him. Dealing with Doubt counsels patience with honest doubters.
A friend to students
From the mid-1880s Drummond led Sunday evening meetings for students at the University of Edinburgh. Hundreds of young men came. He didn't preach at them. He spoke to them as one man to another about Christ, about sin and temptation, and about their part in the kingdom of God. Then he stayed to talk with any who wanted help. He carried the same kind of meeting to universities in America, Germany and Australia.
The addresses in The Ideal Life and Stones Rolled Away come from those years. Again and again he tells young people that the aim of life is to do God's will:
The real object of life is simply to do the will of God.
A Life for a Life, The Ideal Man
People who knew him spoke of his cheerfulness, his courtesy and his care for others. His friend John Watson, who wrote under the name Ian Maclaren, said in a memorial introduction to The Ideal Life that Drummond was the most perfect Christian he had known.
His last years
In the mid-1890s Drummond fell ill with a painful bone disease. He spent his last two years as an invalid, and friends said he stayed sunny and patient to the end. He died on March 11, 1897, at Tunbridge Wells in England, at forty-five, and was buried in Stirling. Several books of his addresses were gathered and printed after his death, including The Ideal Life and The New Evangelism.
Why he's still read
Drummond's views on science were debated in his day, and readers still weigh them differently. But his addresses on love, rest, the changed life and the will of God are about something else: what it means to live with Christ day by day. They're short, warm and clear, and they've helped more than a century of readers love God and other people better.
Where to start
TheWay Library has nine of his books, all free to read. Start with The Greatest Thing in the World and Other Addresses. It gives you his famous address on love plus Pax Vobiscum, The Changed Life and Dealing with Doubt in one short volume. Then try Pax Vobiscum on its own, or The Ideal Life for his longer talks on the will of God. For something to read a little each day, there's Beautiful Thoughts, a year of short passages from his books.
Our guide to Henry Drummond's books explains how all nine fit together, and our collection of Henry Drummond quotes gathers his best lines. You'll find everything on the Henry Drummond author page.