A City Of Refuge

LISTEN TO ROBERT MURRAY M'CHEYNE'S BEAUTIFUL HYMN, ''WHEN THIS PASSING WORLD IS DONE'' HERE:

EARLY YEARS (1813 - 1827)

Robert M'Cheyne was born in Edinburgh in May, 1813, the youngest child in a family of five. His father was a prosperous lawyer and a man of social importance. Their spacious home, with its gardens, commanded a glorious view across to the shores of Fife. Here in Edinburgh M'Cheyne spent his childhood and youth.

After passing successfully though the High School, he entered the Arts Faculty of the University in autumn 1827. "He was of a lively turn" - his father later recorded - "and, during the first two or three years of his attendance at the University, he turned his attention to elocution and poetry and the pleasures of society …" M'Cheyne became at this time an eager participant in the city's fashionable entertainments, and scenes of gaiety - card playing, dancing, music - occupied his leisure hours.

First, M'Cheyne was different in doctrine. His preaching was clearly and definitely in line with the faith of the Reformers and Puritans. That glorious Puritan document, in which every doctrine is given its true Scriptural proportion - The Westminster Confession of Faith - was his constant text book. "Oh for the grace of the Westminster divines," he writes, "to be poured out upon this generation of lesser men." Ruin by the fall, Righteousness by Christ, and Regeneration by the Spirit was the substance of his preaching. READ HIS FULL BIOGRAPHY HERE: