The Poems of Horatius Bonar

Horatius Bonarwas born and educated in Edinburgh, Scotland, one of eleven children. He earned the Doctor of Divinity degree at the University of Aberdeen in 1853, and entered the ministry of the Church of Scotland, serving first in Leith and later in Kelso. He joined the Free Church at the time of the Disruption of 1843, and in 1867 was moved to Edinburgh to take over the Chalmers Memorial Church (named after his teacher at college, Dr. Thomas Chalmers). In 1883, he was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

He married Jane Catherine Lundie in 1843, who died in 1884. Horatius died in 1889 and is buried in the Canongate Kirkyard.

He was a very popular author. He also served as the editor for “The Quarterly journal of Prophecy” from 1848 to 1873 and for the “Christian Treasury” from 1859 to 1879. In addition to many books and tracts, he published his “Hymns of Faith and Hope” in three series, in 1856, 1861, and 1866. I have only been able to find the second and third series.

Perhaps his most famous hymn is “I heard the voice of Jesus say”. But my favourite is “O Love of God, how strong, how true”, which is wonderful when sung to the tune “Ombersley”.

• Hymns of Faith and Hope, Series 2 (574 KB)
• Hymns of Faith and Hope, Series 3 (561 KB)

Caveat: The original text was scanned to text (.txt) format. We have made every effort to fix scanning errors, but there may still be some. Please let us know if you find any. Footnotes added by us are prefixed “RS”.