Light of the world! forever, ever shining,
There is no change in Thee;
True Light of life, all joy and health enshrining,
Thou canst not fade nor flee.
Thou hast arisen, but Thou descendeth never;
Today shines as the past;
All that Thou wast Thou art and shalt be ever,
Brightness from first to last.
Night visits not Thy sky, nor storm, nor sadness;
Day fills up all its blue—
Unfailing beauty, and unfaltering gladness,
And lover forever new.
Light of the world! undimming and unsetting,
O shine each mist away;
Banish the fear, the falsehood, and the fretting;
Be our unchanging Day.
Be the first to react on this!
The son of James Bonar, Solicitor of Excise for Scotland, he was born and educated in Edinburgh. He comes from a long line of ministers who have served a total of 364 years in the Church of Scotland. One of eleven children, his brothers John James and Andrew Alexander were also ministers of the Free Church of Scotland. He had married Jane Catherine Lundie in 1843 and five of their young children died in succession. Towards the end of their lives, one of their surviving daughters was left a widow with five small children and she returned to live with her parents. Bonar's wife, Jane, died in 1876. He is buried in the Canongate Kirkyard.
In 1853 Bonar earned the Doctor of Divinity degree at the University of Aberdeen.
He entered the Ministry of the Church of Scotland. At first he was put in charge of mission work at St. John's parish in Leith and settled at 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 Free Church of Scotland.