Comfort in Sorrow

by Robert Murray M'Cheyne

We have all needed comfort at some time in our lives. People search for comfort in all sorts of places, from the empty psychobabble of the self-help book to the oblivion of alcoholism.The only completely satisfying source of comfort is found in the Bible - and, more particularly, knowing Jesus as a friend.This is shown in the story of the death of Lazarus. Jesus comforted Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha, weeping with them, before going on to raise Lazarus back to life after four days in the grave.Robert Murray McCheyne, one of Scotland's greatest preachers who saw great revival in his less than 30 years of life, looks at this wonderful passage, offering us tremendous encouragement and pointing us to the one true source of comfort - Jesus.

144 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1969

About the author

Robert Murray M'Cheyne a minister in the Church of Scotland from 1835 to 1843. He was born at Edinburgh, was educated at the University of Edinburgh and at the Divinity Hall of his native city, where he was taught by Thomas Chalmers. He first served as an assistant to John Bonar in the parish of Larbert and Dunipace, near Falkirk, from 1835 to 1838. After this he served as minister of St. Peter's Church (in Dundee) until his early death at the age of 29 during an epidemic of typhus.

Not long after his death, his friend Andrew Alexander Bonar edited his biography which was published with some of his manuscripts as The Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray M'Cheyne. The book went into many editions. It has had a lasting influence on Evangelical Christianity worldwide.

In 1839, M'Cheyne and Bonar, together with two older ministers, Dr. Alexander Black and Dr. Alexander Keith, were sent to Palestine on a mission of inquiry to the condition of the Jews. Upon their return, their official report for the Board of Mission of the Church of Scotland was published as Narrative of a Visit to the Holy Land and Mission of Inquiry to the Jews. This led subsequently to the establishment of missions to the Jews by the Church of Scotland and by the Free Church of Scotland. During M'Cheyne's absence, his place was filled by the appointment of William Chalmers Burns to preach at St. Peter's as his assistant.

M'Cheyne was a preacher, a pastor, a poet, and wrote many letters. He was also a man of deep piety and a man of prayer. He never married, but he did have a fiancée at the time of his death, Jessie Thain, who died heartbroken.

M'Cheyne died exactly two months before the Disruption of 1843. This being so, his name was subsequently held in high honour by all the various branches of Scottish Presbyterianism, though he himself held a strong opinion against the Erastianism which led to the Disruption.

M'Cheyne designed a widely used system for reading through the Bible in one year. The plan entails reading the New Testament and the Psalms through twice a year, and the Old Testament through once.