Robert Buchanan
Robert Buchanan [1]
a Presbyterian minister, was born at Stirling, Scotland, August 15, 1802. He graduated at the Edinburgh College, and was ordained to the Gospel ministry in 1827. After three brief settlements in country parishes, he was called to Glasgow, where his ministry was eminently successful, and where he was largely interested and successful in promoting measures for the amelioration of the condition of the poor, which Chalmers had inaugurated and personally carried forward with success at Edinburgh. He was moderator of the Free Church General Assembly in 1860. He was one of the foremost leaders of the movement in the disruption of the Church of Scotland, being engaged, not only in counsel at home, but in watching and shaping events in the British Parliament, and in ministerial circles in London.
More than once, when the British government was appealed to by the Church of Scotland — over which it claimed to exercise authority — for protection in the exercise of her spiritual rights and independence, and when great anxiety was felt lest heavier bonds should be placed upon her instead of those which already bound her being loosed, Dr. Buchanan was selected by his brethren as one of a deputation to visit London to enlighten cabinet ministers and. leading members of the Lords and Commons in the great principles which had already been worked out in regard to the freedom of the Church. He was chosen historian of the movement for disruption, and he prepared a faithful record of the times, which was printed under the title of Ten Years' Conflict (Edinburgh, 1849, 2 volumes, 8vo), and which is the standard history of the measures which led to the disruption. His health giving way under his many and arduous labors, he went to Rome, in hope that the milder climate of Italy would be beneficial, but his constitution was too far undermined to recover. Sleeping peacefully-in his bed one morning, without any premonition, he was called away to his rest, in 1878. (W.P.S.)
