Born: De­cem­ber 10, 1824, Hunt­ly, Ab­er­deen­shire, Scot­land.

Died: Sep­tem­ber 18, 1905, Ash­ted, Sur­rey, Eng­land.

Buried: Bor­di­ghe­ra, It­a­ly.

MacDonald re­ceived his MA de­gree (and hon­o­ra­ry LLD) from King’s Coll­ege, Aber­deen. He brief­ly stu­died for the Con­gre­ga­tion­al Min­is­try at High­bury Coll­ege, Lon­don, then be­came pas­tor of the Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church at Arun­del, Sus­sex (1850-1853). He af­ter­wards preached for a short time to a small com­pa­ny at Man­chest­er and Bol­ton. Re­lin­quish­ing the min­is­try, he be­came a lec­tur­er on Eng­lish li­ter­a­ture at King’s Coll­ege, Lon­don, and ul­tim­ate­ly gave him­self up en­tire­ly to lit­er­ary pur­suits. His works in­clude:

Most of MacDonald’s hymns were con­trib­ut­ed to Hymns and Sac­red Songs for Sun­day Schools, edit­ed by him­self, his bro­ther, and G. B. Bu­bier (Man­ches­ter, Eng­land: Fletch­er and Tubbs, 1855). Others ap­peared in The Dis­ci­ple, and Other Po­ems.

Sources

Lyrics

  1. Daylight Fades Away
  2. Father, I Well May Praise Thy Name
  3. Father, These Souls of Ours Have Been
  4. If We Were Longing for the Food
  5. It Was an Aw­ful Hour That Gave
  6. Let Thy Own Voice, O Fa­ther, Say
  7. O Son of Man, Thy Name by Choice
  8. Our Fa­ther, Hear Our Longing Pray­er
  9. O God, Whose Daylight Leadeth Down
  10. O Lord of Life, Thy Quickening Voice
  11. Quiet Heart, Submissive, Meek, A
  12. They All Were Looking for a King