Alexander Moody Stuart: A Memoir

Kenneth Moody Stuart

Reviewed by: Derrick B. Leitão

Alexander Moody Stuart: A Memoir, by Kenneth Moody Stuart. Banner of Truth, 2023. Hardcover, 448 pages, $27.00. Reviewed by OP minister Derrick B. Leitão.

Alexander Moody Stuart stands in the great train of Scottish ministers who have gone before us, one being his mentor and professor Thomas Chalmers. He lived among the likes of Horace and Andrew Bonar, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, and “Rabbi” John Duncan. He lived during some of the most defining moments of the Scottish Kirk, from the mid to late 1800s, including the formation of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843.

Although his memoir was completed by his son, Kenneth Moody Stuart, it contains large sections of Alexander’s own words. First published in 1899, it is well written and captures the imagination of its readers with beautiful environmental descriptions and details about his life and mission.

The book begins in the busy town of Paisley, about eight miles west of Glasgow, where Alexander Moody Stuart was born in 1809. Then it moves quickly from his childhood to his college days and his conversion. From there, we read about his pulpit ministry. He seemed “impressed, sometimes almost oppressed with his position as standing between God and man, and bearing a direct message from the divine Father, Son, and Spirit, to his hearers” (60). As he moved from place to place, he trusted in God’s providence and his empowering Spirit to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to lost souls. He realized the preciousness of the promise, “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone” (Ps. 91:11–12). In this book, you’ll follow him on his journeys from Holy Island, off the coast of Northumberland, to becoming a minister in Edinburgh to a congregation with 750 members on the rolls, to visits to Brazil and to the island of Madeira due to his health issues. He returned to Scotland to serve the congregation of St. Luke’s almost immediately following the Disruption and the formation of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843. Although he was not directly involved, he favored the split from the established church.

As you read this memoir, I believe you will be convinced, as I have been, of this man’s warm piety, a love for the Lord and his people that we would do well to emulate. He also had a love for neighbor, as he would lead the effort to gather others together to form the Jewish Mission Committee, which would later appoint him to visit the mission stations of the Free Church in Hungary and Bulgaria. Also, during his stay in Brazil, he burned with anger against the evils of African slavery: “Oh! accursed African slavery, darkest and sorest of human ills!” (79).

I commend this book to you. It is a story of a life devoted to the glory of God and the proclamation of his gospel. And, if that were not enough, it is worth reading just for the quotes, correspondence, and sermons that make up half the book.