Mrs. Eddy Mentioned Them April 27, 1957 Issue

Hugh Blair, 1718–1800

[Mentioned in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 304]

In his century Hugh Blair enjoyed a vast reputation as critical writer, lecturer, and preacher. His father, a well-to-do merchant, sent him to the University of Edinburgh, where he was distinguished in all his subjects and unusually so in logic. A poem which he wrote on the resurrection and shared with his classmates was later published, to his amazement, in a handsome folio dedicated to the Prince of Wales and fathered by a Dr. Douglas.

After eleven years at the university, Blair was licensed to preach. From the beginning he attracted people of position, who like his sermons for their "correctness of design and chastity of composition." He advanced rapidly from the parish of Collessie in Fife to the Ganongate Parish Church in Edinburgh, to Lady Yester's Church, and finally to the highest appointment he could aspire to, the High Kirk in St. Giles, which at that time provided four places of worship. Here also his sermons attracted the fashionable world.

Being a man of wide reading, Dr. Blair was asked to take over a lecture course in literature. As a result the town council founded a chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the university and gave Dr. Blair the post. Public opinion held him in such esteem that students who wrote out their notes in full were able to sell them.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Hugh Blair, 1718–1800

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access