Writing the Nineteenth-Century Scottish Calvinist Self

Nineteenth-century Scotland witnessed the proliferation of spiritual biographies and diaries that recounted the lives of Scottish Calvinist ministers as examples of piety and Christian living. These relatively inexpensive and popular works appeared in a culture of decreasing church attendance and growing secularism. One of the most notable authors of these texts was Andrew Bonar (1810–1892), minister, missionary, and leading figure of the Free Church. Bonar’s biographies and diary reflected both the depth of his Calvinist piety as well as the anxieties arising from rigorous self-examination and the attendant risk of spiritual depression. Bonar’s work reveals the centrality of commemoration and memory in constructing a life of faithful living in the wake of the seemingly irreversible decline of churches in the life of the nation.