Robert M’Cheyne

He started a church in the working-class neighborhood of Dundee, Scotland. The first thing this twenty-three-year-old novice pastor did was organize a weekly prayer meeting for spiritual renewal. A committed core of believers met every Thursday to pray for God’s awakening in people’s hearts. When the young pastor who organized the prayer group, Robert Murray M’Cheyne (pronounced Mak-shayn) (1813-1843) took ill and left on an eight-month mission trip, a neighboring pastor, William Burns, served in his absence. In those days, travel was believed to have healing, recuperative powers. Shortly after Robert left, revival broke out at the prayer meeting. At subsequent prayer gatherings, more people came alive in the Spirit. On the evening Robert returned, twelve hundred people had gathered for prayer. It was standing room only. The singing moved him deeply, “as if people felt they were praising a present God.” While Robert prayed for revival, William was there when it actually happened. Yet I can’t detect the slightest bit of envy on Robert’s part. He wrote, “Often God does not bless us when we are in the midst of our labors, lest we say, ‘My hand and my eloquence has done it.'”
Robert’s struggle with typhus returned a few years later and he died before his thirtieth birthday. He made the most of his twenty-nine years. His yearly Bible reading plan is still in use by Christians today. In the words of the Roman philosopher Seneca, “It’s not how long, but how well is the main thing.” Robert also wrote hymns for people to sing to accompany his sermons. Several verses of his hymn “When the Passing World is Done” lead us to pray: