BEFORE the publication of our last issue (British Weekly), announcing the alarming illness of Dr. Horatius Bonar, the venerable poet-preacher had gone hence. His strength had been declining for years, and from Tuesday it was evident that the hand of death was upon him. So has ended a long life, eminently laborious, consistent, and influential.

Dr. Bonar, who had passed the age of eighty, was brought up in a cultured Christian home in Edinburgh, and came of a line of ministers. He was a di1igent student, and a favourite pupil of Dr. Chalmers. Among his early associates were Robert McCheyne, A. N. Somerville, William Wilson, Sir Henry Moncreiff, and others--all of them remarkable, not only for evangelistic fervour, but for their devotion to theological scholarship. His first pastorate--which he occupied for close on thirty years -- was in the beautiful Border town of Kelso, where his memory will long be cherished. There his activity knew no pause. What impressed every one was his unslackening toil. The light burned late in his study window; he was at his desk early; and as he was physically vigorous, and possessed of a resolute will, the work he accomplished was marvellous. He was continually preaching, and was as much at home in speaking to a little gathering at a cottage fireside as in any church. He was always writing. He edited many periodicals, and was chief contributor as well as editor. Almost every year he published a new book, and he conducted a vast correspondence, for inquirers all over the world wrote to him. When he removed to Edinburgh he built up a large and influential congregation, and took his place as one of the foremost ministers of the city continuing at the same time with almost unabated diligence his literary labours. We doubt whether many have put more of sheer toil into their days, and happily his days were not few. And all his labour was devoted to one purpose, for from end to end of his career he was true to his early principles and convictions, never leaving the standard he had raised and gloried in from the first.

His was an eminently influential life. Even if he had not been a sacred poet Dr. Bonar would have been distinguished. He was a scholar, a thinker, a devoted lover of books, which he amassed in vast numbers, paying, we are bound to say, more reverence to the inside than the outside. Indeed he was imbued with that noble passion, the amour antique des lettres hurnaines, and we are persuaded he would have sympathised with the illustrious French orator who, near the end of a toilsome public career, confessed that the dream of his whole life had been that of writing for God and for souls. The influence which his books had among English Nonconformists is witnessed to by Dr. Dale, for whom, by the way, be had much regard. But in the Church of England -- the evangelical section -- it was far stronger; few names stood higher than his. We have said nothing of Scotland and America. But, as it happened, the literary productions he least thought of were by far the most popular. These hymns were ushered into the world in the most unpretending manner. Some of them were printed as leaflets, to be sung by the Sunday School scholars in Kelso; others were used to fill up vacant spaces in the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy. He wrote some of the best known in railway carriages, and some when sitting for a brief rest by the fireside after a day's work. They have gone round the world, have been sung in churches of all communions, have been learned by little children, and hung as lights over the thickly closing waters of death. It is significant of Dr. Bonar's strong conservatism that he had never had these or any other hymns sung in the churches where he ministered till a very few years ago.

It is from these hymns and his other poetical works -- notably, 'My Old Letters' -- that he may be best understood. They show, to begin with, unmistakable poetic genius; perhaps he has hardly had full justice done him in this respect. A quiet refinement of taste reigns everywhere; the colouring is chaste and beautiful. The lines of thought are very simple, and the expression not less so, for he hated obscurity. One class of hymns states with perfect lucidity the main facts of the Gospel; the rest may be termed hymns of homesickness. Through these latter there sounds the refrain of 'the solemn canticle of death.' The very first of them runs thus:--

The pleasures of the world are delusive:--

The world lies in wickedness; its princes have set themselves against our Lord and His Christ; the Church, a little flock, waits and weeps under 'the still unrended skies.' There is a great deal in the 'Hymns of Faith and Hope' which recalls the temper of 'Lyra Apostolica.' Thus in the hymn, 'Little Flock,' where we read:--

We cannot but think of--

Life is so full of temptation that it should be solemn as march of mountain streams.' It is so full of loss and pain that the clods of the valley are sweet as the place of escape and hopeful rest. He rejoices that time is passing. --

It is nearly thirty years since he wrote on the birth of his son.--

And it is nearly fifty years since he wrote a precept some will remember at this time.--

Even the brightness of his verses has something somber in it, like the red flashing of a November sky. In a world where death and change will not suffer us to love in peace, and where the most faithful workers often sow in tears, such strains will always be caught up hungrily.

We have left ourselves no space to speak of Dr. Bonar as a preacher and as a man. His sermons were terse, authoritative, clear; as a rule not ornate, though the poetry at times would not be kept back. He once remarked to the writer that his favourite preacher was Harrington Evans, and there is a considerable similarity in their styles. He was a most winsome preacher to children. As a man, he was full of faith and prayer of warm affections, strong friendships, generous in his gifts, and faithful to his convictions. No one who knew him could doubt that he was one of that high company who seek to measure all things here by the measure of Jesus Christ.

August 9, 1889.