Alexander Moody Stuart

A Memoir

Weight 1.4 lbs
Dimensions 8.8 × 5.75 × 1.15 in
ISBN 9781800402508
Binding

Cloth-bound, eBook (ePub & Kindle), Cloth-bound & eBook (ePub & Kindle)

Topic

General Biography

Original Pub Date

1899

Recent Pub Date Year

2023

Page Count

480

Format

Book

Endorsements

‘Long forgotten and hard to obtain, Alexander Moody Stuart is a book for any Christian to enjoy, and every Christian will find it richly instructive, graciously challenging, and wonderfully inspiring. And for ministers of the gospel it is quite simply a “must have”. While it ranks among the finest Christian biographies of a past century, the effect of reading it will be a fresh desire to love Christ more and serve him better in the present century.’ — Sinclair Ferguson

‘There are few ministerial biographies that are better worth reading than Moody Stuart’s Life by his son.’ — Principal John Macleod (1872–1948) in Scottish Theology

Book Description

Many twenty-first-century Christians still read the works and love the memory of the remarkable Scottish brotherhood that included Robert Murray M‘Cheyne and Andrew and Horatius Bonar. But the name of Alexander Moody Stuart (1809–98), whom they all esteemed so much, has been forgotten. Yet it took only one encounter with his preaching for M‘Cheyne to say, ‘I have found the man.’

Now, this new edition of Alexander Moody Stuart: A Memoir will throw light on a life and ministry which were profoundly influential—a ministry in which Moody Stuart was, variously, a pioneer rural missionary in an island fishing community; a capable church planter in a growing city; a clear and searching preacher; a much-loved pastor; a caring husband and father; and a committed advocate for overseas missionary endeavour.

Alexander Moody Stuart’s long life and ministry encompassed many of the defining events and debates in the Scottish church in the middle and later nineteenth century, including that which led to the formation of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843. But far from being defined by these important debates, his ministry was principally marked by contemporaries for its deep spirituality, earnestness, and originality.

This well-paced and engaging memoir, partly autobiographical and completed by its subject’s eldest son, covers the life, work, friendships, and challenges of one who was fully engaged with the people under his spiritual care, and who was also a willing defender of orthodox belief in an age of rapid change in approaches to Scripture. As Sinclair B. Ferguson notes in the Foreword, ‘like Andrew Bonar’s memoir of M‘Cheyne, there is a touch of heaven about these pages.’

It is hoped that the republication of this long-forgotten book will go some way to lift Alexander Moody Stuart out of relative obscurity—a man who, in his allotted time and circumstances, exercised a deep and penetrating ministry of the word, the character and aroma of which contain much to stimulate and inspire those engaged in that same spiritual work today.

This fresh edition includes numerous illustrations and an extensive appendix containing several of Moody Stuart’s sermons and addresses, and other documents of interest.

Other Commendations

‘He has poetry in his soul, and beyond that, a heart like that of Rutherford, fired with love to the altogether Lovely One.’

— C. H. Spurgeon (1834–92)
Pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Baptist Church, London

‘I know not a greater master in spiritual analysis.’

— Dr John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan (1796-1870)

‘Few were honoured to wield an influence so profound and far-reaching.’

— Address from the Free Presbytery of Edinburgh upon Moody Stuart’s ministerial diamond jubilee in 1897

‘… a man who was the first and earliest of a well-defined and very remarkable school of preaching; who was also its patriarch and survivor; and who, besides being the originator, was himself the most original man not only in that school but, according to my judgment, in the whole Scottish pulpit during the long span of his ministerial career.’

— Alexander Taylor Innes (1833–1912)
Lawyer, political and ecclesiastical adviser, and author

Table of Contents Expand ↓

Foreword by Sinclair B. Ferguson xiii
Publisher’s Introduction xvii
Preface to the First Edition xxiii
1 Parentage and Boyhood 1
2 College Days and Conversion 11
3 Christian Work While a Student 23
4 Holy Island 33
5 Settled as a Minister in Edinburgh 51
6 Visits to Madeira and Brazil 69
7 Minister of Free St Luke’s 83
8 Visit to Ireland During the Famine 99
9 Sabbaths in St Luke’s, Queen Street 111
10 Drops and Showers of Blessing 127
11 Convener of the Jewish Mission Committee 137
12 Visits to Hungary and Bohemia 153
13 Summers at Annat 169
14 Ecclesiastical Work and Honours 183
15 The Correspondent 199
16 A Man of Prayer 215
17 Memorable Sayings 231
18 Influence on Ministers and Others 247
19 Devotional Diary Extracts (1894-98) 265
20 Declining Years and Departure 293
Appendix
Appendix fo the First Edition (1899) 319
Additional Material for this Edition:
- ‘Recent Awakenings’ (Opening address of General Assembly, 1875) 325
- ‘Higher Holiness’ (Closing address of General Assembly, 1875) 342
- ‘Jesus Christ the Bond of the Holy Universe’ (John 17:21,23) 366
- ‘The Manifold Sufficiency of Grace’ (2 Cor. 12:9) 385
- ‘The True Battle of Life’ (2 Chron. 20:15) 392
- Early Minutes of St Luke’s Kirk Session 405
- ‘The Spiritual and Natural Children of Abraham; and the Obligation under which the Gentile Believer has been Laid to Love and Honour the Jew’ (1839) 411
- Report of the Jewish Committee, 1869 426
- Report of the Jewish Committee, 1882 428
- Dr Moody Stuart: Tribute in the Free Church Monthly (1898) 319

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