Who Was Thomas Guthrie? Edinburgh Preacher and Friend of the Poor
Thomas Guthrie was a Scottish minister who lived from 1803 to 1873. He preached in Edinburgh for more than twenty-five years, and in his day he was one of the most popular preachers in Scotland. People crowded his church to hear sermons full of pictures: shipwrecks, mountains, battles, Highland glens and Edinburgh's back streets. But Guthrie is remembered for more than eloquence. He was a leader of the Free Church of Scotland, a champion of temperance, and the founder of the "ragged schools" that fed, taught and trained Edinburgh's homeless children.
Here's a fuller look at his life, his way of preaching, and which of his books to start with.
Brechin and a long wait
Guthrie was born on July 12, 1803, in Brechin, in the county of Forfar (now Angus). His father was a merchant and banker in the town. At about eleven, as was the custom then, he was sent to the University of Edinburgh, where he later studied divinity. He was licensed to preach young, but no parish opened to him for years.
He didn't waste the wait. He worked in his father's bank, and he spent a winter in Paris studying medicine and science. The memoir printed with his parables says this time taught him far more of ordinary life and human nature than most ministers learned. He married Anne Burns, daughter of one of the ministers of Brechin.
Arbirlot: learning to preach
In 1830 he became minister of Arbirlot, a country parish near Arbroath. He set out to make himself understood. He watched what parts of his sermons gripped his people and found it was the illustrations, so he gave special care to them in every sermon. He even went over his sermons with a class of young people to see what they understood. His preaching woke up the parish, and word of it spread.
Edinburgh and the Cowgate
In 1837 Guthrie was called to Old Greyfriars in Edinburgh. His parish took in the Cowgate, one of the poorest and most crowded districts in the city. He preached on Sundays and spent the week visiting the closes and tenements. In 1840 a new church, St. John's, was built for him nearby, with many seats set aside for the poor of the parish.
His church filled with every kind of hearer, from judges and writers to working people. He wrote out his sermons, revised them, and learned them by heart so that he could preach them as if speaking to each person.
The Free Church
In 1843 came the Disruption, when about a third of the ministers of the Church of Scotland left it over the right of congregations to choose their ministers and the freedom of the church from the state. Guthrie went with them and became one of the leaders of the new Free Church of Scotland. His congregation followed him, and Free St. John's was built for them on the Castle Hill.
Many ministers who came out lost their homes as well as their churches. Guthrie offered to travel all over Scotland to raise money for manses. He raised more than £116,000, but the strain damaged his heart, and he lived with heart trouble for the rest of his life.
The ragged schools
Guthrie never forgot the children he had met in the Cowgate. They were hungry, uneducated and often living by theft. In 1847 he published A Plea for Ragged Schools, calling for free schools where such children would be fed, taught to read and work, and taught the Bible. Edinburgh responded, and the schools opened that same year. He made his case in vivid pictures, and in one plain sentence:
God never made men to be reared in flocks, but in families.
The City, Its Sins and Sorrows, Pleas for Ragged Schools: First Plea
He also saw what drink was doing to the city. He became a total abstainer and preached against drunkenness in the sermons gathered in The City, Its Sins and Sorrows, which also includes his Pleas.
Later years
In 1862 Guthrie was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church. Failing health led him to give up regular preaching soon after, and he became editor of The Sunday Magazine, writing for a wide family readership. He died on February 24, 1873, at St Leonards-on-Sea in England.
How he preached
Guthrie's sermons are pictures from first to last, but the pictures always serve the gospel. He loved to show God's justice and mercy meeting at the cross:
Now, there is no greater mistake than to suppose that God, as a God of justice and a God of mercy, stands in antagonism to himself.
The Gospel in Ezekiel, Man Suffering
He pressed for decision and warned against delay. He spoke tenderly to the struggling and practically to busy people. And he knew that love wins hearts where scolding fails:
Men are not to be scolded into the love of God; nor can the terrors of hell frighten any into the love of heaven.
Speaking to the Heart, The Grace of Charity
Why he's still read
Preachers still read Guthrie to learn how to illustrate a sermon. Ordinary readers enjoy him because he's never dull. And Christians who care about the poor find in him a man who preached the cross on Sunday and fought for hungry children on Monday, without seeing any conflict between the two.
Where to start
TheWay Library has nine of his books. Start with The Gospel in Ezekiel, his most famous book, which preaches the whole gospel from one chapter of the Bible. For something lighter, read The Parables Read in the Light of the Present Day, which opens with a short memoir of his life. For Bible portraits, try Studies of Character from the Old Testament, and for a practical study of James, Man and the Gospel.
Our guide to Thomas Guthrie's books explains all nine, and our collection of Thomas Guthrie quotes gathers his best lines. You'll find all his books on the Thomas Guthrie author page.