Who Was J. R. Miller? The Pastor Who Wrote for Ordinary Days
J. R. Miller was an American Presbyterian pastor and writer who lived from 1840 to 1912. His full name was James Russell Miller. He pastored churches in Pennsylvania and Illinois, and for more than thirty years he was the editor in charge of Sunday school papers and books for the Presbyterian Board of Publication in Philadelphia. He also wrote dozens of short devotional books, like Silent Times, Personal Friendships of Jesus and The Building of Character. His biographer said they sold more than two million copies in his lifetime.
He wasn't a famous revivalist or a great theologian. He was a pastor who wrote for people with jobs, children, sickrooms and griefs, and he wrote about Christ as a Friend who walks with them through ordinary days. Here's his story, what he taught, and where to start reading him.
A farm boy from western Pennsylvania
Miller was born on March 20, 1840, near Frankfort Springs in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. His parents were of Scottish and Irish stock and belonged to the United Presbyterian Church, a strict Scottish branch of Presbyterianism. When he was about fourteen the family moved to a farm near Calcutta, Ohio, and he went to school in the short winters and worked the fields in summer.
He graduated from Westminster College in Pennsylvania in 1862 and began studying for the ministry at the United Presbyterian seminary in Allegheny.
With the soldiers in the Civil War
The Civil War broke into his studies. In March 1863 he agreed to serve six weeks with the United States Christian Commission, a volunteer agency that cared for Union soldiers. It brought them Bibles, letters from home, food, nursing and the gospel. He stayed more than two years, rising to field agent, and didn't leave until July 1865. Those years among wounded and dying men gave him a lasting tenderness toward suffering that shows on almost every page he wrote.
Pastor in Pennsylvania and Illinois
Miller finished seminary in 1867 and was ordained as pastor of the First United Presbyterian Church of New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. He held firmly to his church's beliefs but couldn't honestly accept its rule that only the Psalms be sung in worship, so after two years he moved to the larger Presbyterian Church.
In 1869 he became pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. It had about seventy-five members when he came. When he left in 1878, it had around twelve hundred and was one of the largest Presbyterian churches in the city. In 1870 he married Louise E. King, and they had three children. After Philadelphia he served a church in Rock Island, Illinois, for a short time.
The editor
In 1880 the Presbyterian Board of Publication in Philadelphia asked him to join its editorial work, and he soon became its editorial superintendent. For the next thirty years he oversaw the Sunday school lesson papers, quarterlies and magazines that went to Presbyterian churches across the country. New papers were added for children, young people, teachers and home classes, and the yearly circulation grew from about nine million copies to more than sixty-six million.
He never stopped pastoring. Alongside his desk work he led the Hollond mission church in Philadelphia, and later the new St. Paul Presbyterian Church in West Philadelphia, which he served until the year he died. He stepped back because of failing health in 1911, and he died in Philadelphia on July 2, 1912.
The books
Miller's first book, Week-Day Religion, came out in 1880, and from then on new titles appeared almost every year. Most are collections of short chapters, each a few pages long, usually opening with a poem. They grew out of his sermons, his weekly newspaper columns and his pastoral letters.
The subjects are the stuff of daily life: home, friendship, work, kindness, temper, the tongue, disappointment, sickness, growing old, and death in the family. In every one he brings Christ near. He was sure that the inner life with God and the outer life of duty belong together:
The truest religious life is one whose devotion gives food and strength for service.
Silent Times, Silent Times
That book, Silent Times, takes its name from a custom at Wellesley College, where a bell marked a few quiet minutes morning and evening for prayer and reading. Miller thought every Christian needs the same:
Every true Christian life needs its daily “silent times,” when all shall be still, when the busy activity of other hours shall cease, and when the heart, in holy hush, shall commune with God.
Silent Times, Silent Times
What he taught
Friendship with Jesus. This is the center of everything Miller wrote. He meant a real, personal walk with a living Savior, not a set of ideas about Him. In Personal Friendships of Jesus he follows Jesus through His friendships in the Gospels, with John, Peter, Thomas, Martha and Mary, and then applies them to us. He wrote:
The central fact in every true Christian life is a personal friendship with Jesus.
Personal Friendships of Jesus, The Humanheartedness of Jesus
When his biographer, John T. Faris, wrote Miller's life the year he died, he gave it the subtitle Jesus and I Are Friends.
Character built day by day. Miller believed the real work of life is what we become, and that it's done in small, daily faithfulness, not in great moments. The Building of Character, Making the Most of Life and Things to Live For all press this home.
Comfort in sorrow. He wrote again and again for the grieving and the sick. He didn't pretend trouble was easy, but he insisted that God means it for good, and that Christ can make us stronger than our circumstances:
When we cannot change our conditions, we must conquer them through the help of Christ.
The Hidden Life, The Outer and Inner Life
Love for other people. He had little patience with a faith that stays at home. Kindness, sympathy, encouragement and the quiet influence of a good life were, for him, part of following Christ.
Why he's still read
Miller's books are short, plain and warm. You can read a chapter in ten minutes, and it will usually leave you with one clear thought to carry through the day. He wrote for ordinary Christians, and he never talks down to them. Readers who find older theology heavy often find Miller easy company, and pastors still borrow his lines for funerals, weddings and hospital visits.
Where to start
TheWay Library has twenty-eight of his books, all free to read. Start with Silent Times, twenty-four short chapters on time alone with God and on daily life. Then read Personal Friendships of Jesus, the book that best shows his heart. If you're going through a hard season, try The Hidden Life or Things to Live For.
Our guide to J. R. Miller's books describes all twenty-eight, and our collection of J. R. Miller quotes gathers his best lines, each checked against his books. You'll find everything he wrote in the library on the J. R. Miller author page.