Who Was Robert Murray McCheyne? Dundee's Young Pastor of Revival
Robert Murray McCheyne (often spelled M'Cheyne) was a minister of the Church of Scotland who lived from 1813 to 1843. He was pastor of St. Peter's Church in Dundee for a little over six years, took part in a famous mission to the Jews in 1839, and saw a powerful revival among his people. He died of typhus at twenty-nine. His friend Andrew Bonar's memoir of his life made him one of the best-loved Christians in the English-speaking world, and his plan for reading the Bible through in a year is still used by thousands of people.
Here's his story, what he preached, and which of his books to start with.
An Edinburgh boyhood
McCheyne was born in Edinburgh on May 21, 1813, the youngest child of Adam M'Cheyne, a lawyer, and his wife Lockhart Murray. He was quick and gifted. Bonar records that at four, while recovering from an illness, he amused himself by learning the Greek alphabet. He did well at the High School and at the University of Edinburgh, wrote poetry, drew and sang, and was popular with his friends.
He wasn't yet a Christian in any deep sense. What awakened him was the death of his eldest brother, David, in 1831. David was a young lawyer of rare and quiet godliness, and Bonar writes that Robert always looked on his brother's death as the event that woke him and turned his heart to Christ. Soon afterward he began studying for the ministry at the Divinity Hall in Edinburgh under Thomas Chalmers.
Larbert and Dundee
He was licensed to preach in 1835 and served first as an assistant in the country parishes of Larbert and Dunipace, near Falkirk. In November 1836 he was ordained as minister of St. Peter's, a new church in a poor, crowded part of Dundee. The congregation numbered about eleven hundred.
He threw himself into the work: preaching, visiting from house to house, teaching children, and leading prayer meetings. Bonar writes that during these first years he often rode out to a ruined church outside town to be alone, "for he felt meditation and prayer to be the very sinews of his work." He kept a careful diary of his own soul, and his longing for holiness runs all through it.
His preaching was simple, warm and urgent. He believed the minister's life was a sermon too. At an ordination he told the new pastor:
Your sermon on Sabbath lasts but an hour or two; your life preaches all the week.
The Sermons of the Rev. Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Sermon XI: Position and Duties of Ministers
The mission to the Jews
By the end of 1838 McCheyne's health had broken down, and he was sent to Edinburgh to rest. That winter the Church of Scotland decided to send a group of ministers to find out the condition of the Jewish people in Europe and the Holy Land. McCheyne and Andrew Bonar were chosen, along with two older ministers for part of the way. They left in April 1839 and traveled through France, Italy and Malta to Egypt, crossed the desert into Palestine, and visited Jerusalem, Galilee and many towns of the Bible. On the way home McCheyne nearly died of fever near Smyrna. They came back through the large Jewish communities of eastern Europe.
His letters home from those travels survive. They're full of the places he saw, his love for the Jewish people, and his heart for the flock he had left behind. Early on he wrote:
May God keep me humble, and prayerful, and holy.
Familiar Letters, Letter II: To the Same (London)
The report of the mission, written by Bonar and McCheyne together, led the Scottish churches to begin missions to the Jews.
Revival in Dundee
While McCheyne was away, his pulpit was filled by a young preacher named William Chalmers Burns, who later became a missionary to China. That summer revival broke out, first in Kilsyth and then in St. Peter's. Crowds gathered night after night, and many people were converted. McCheyne came home in November 1839 to find his church changed. He wasn't jealous that it happened while he was gone. Before he left he had written to Burns that God might use him to reach people who "would never have been saved under my ministry."
His last letter from the trip describes the return:
The first sight of Dundee was animating and refreshing to me; and I felt wonder and thankfulness at the way by which God had led me since I last bade it farewell.
Familiar Letters, Letter XXV: To His Father and Mother (Dundee)
A short, full life
The next three years were busy. McCheyne preached in Dundee and across Scotland, made a preaching tour in the north of England, wrote hymns, and in 1842 drew up his calendar for reading the Bible through in a year, with the New Testament and Psalms twice. He also took a strong part in the church controversies of the time, which led to the great Disruption of 1843.
In March 1843 he caught typhus while visiting the sick in his parish. He died on March 25, 1843, at twenty-nine, two months before the Disruption. Bonar records that thousands mourned him, and that he used to say, "Live so as to be missed."
What he preached
McCheyne preached Christ. He wanted sinners to come to Him and believers to look at Him. He told his people not to spend all their time looking inward:
It is good to consider your ways, but it is far better to consider Christ.
The Sermons of the Rev. Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Sermon II: Consider the Apostle and High Priest of Our Profession
He taught that holiness grows from seeing the love of Christ, not from fear, and that a cold heart is warmed in one way:
The only cure for a cold heart is to look at the heart of Jesus.
The Sermons of the Rev. Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Sermon XII: Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear
He also pleaded with the unconverted, plainly and with tears, warning them that the day of grace would not last forever.
Why he's still read
McCheyne's ministry lasted only seven years, but Bonar's Memoir and Remains went through more than a hundred editions, and his example has shaped pastors ever since. People read him for his love of Christ, his seriousness about holiness and prayer, and his simple, tender preaching. Many who have never read a sermon of his use his Bible reading plan every day.
Where to start
TheWay Library has four books by McCheyne, all free to read. Start with The Sermons of the Rev. Robert Murray M'Cheyne, short sermons you can read in ten minutes each. For his travels and his pastor's heart, read his Familiar Letters from the 1839 mission. For the full story of the mission, read the Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews that he wrote with Andrew Bonar. And for his life, read Bonar's Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, one of the great Christian biographies. You can learn more about Bonar in who was Andrew A. Bonar.
Our guide to Robert Murray McCheyne's books describes each one, and our collection of Robert Murray McCheyne quotes gathers his best lines. All his books are on the Robert Murray M'Cheyne author page.