Andrew Bonar: Diary and Life (1810-1892), gives a panoramic view of one of the most fascinating
periods of Scotland's church history. But first and foremost it is the
record of God's work in the life of a man who represented all that was
finest in the evangelical life of that country.
A pupil of Thomas
Chalmers, friend of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, participant in the revivals
of 1839 and 1859, faithful witness against the inroads of 'Higher
Criticism', Bonar's name became highly esteemed far beyond the borders
of his own church. Yet his life-long concern was communion with God and
his diary discloses that hidden yet most helpful aspect of his witness.
Convinced,
like M'Cheyne, that 'it is not great talents God blesses so much as
great likeness to Jesus' and that 'unholiness lies at the root of our
little success', Andrew Bonar sought to press further and further into
the presence of God. He knew that 'one of the gravest perils which
besets the ministry is a restless scattering of energies over an amazing
multiplicity of interests which leaves no margin of time and of
strength for receptive and absorbing communion with God'. Consequently
prayer, meditation, and Bible study were for him the chief work of every
day. The confession, in reviewing his life and ministry, 'One terrible
failure confronted me everywhere, viz., "Ye have asked nothing in my
name"; want of prayer in right measure and manner', was not the vain
regret of a morbid mind but of one who had learned by experience the
supreme importance and value of prayer.
Unlike some diarists,
however, Bonar was no recluse. Rather he 'seemed to live in a perpetual
sunshine and to spread not gloom but brightness and good nature wherever
he appeared'. His Diary and Life is one of the great treasures left to
the church from the nineteenth century, and deserves to be widely and
eagerly read.
