John Dickie (January 1823, at
Irvine Irvine may refer to:
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Australia
*Irvine Island
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Canada
*Irvine, Alberta
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United Kingdom
*Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotla ...
,
Ayrshire
Ayrshire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Àir, ) is a historic county and registration county in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine and it borders the counties of Re ...
– 18 January 1891, also at Irvine) was a Scottish evangelist and writer.
Life
His father (a grocer) died when John was 15; his mother had died 4 years before. He and one sister were left orphans. In 1841 he entered the
University of Glasgow
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, and between 19 and 20 years of age “he was led to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his all-sufficient Saviour”.
[The information contained in the biographical part of this Wikipedia article as originally written in July 2005 is entirely selected from the preface to Dickie’s book ''Words of Faith, Hope and Love, from the Chamber of a Dying Saint'' (London, 1891).]
After finishing his university career he entered the Divinity Hall, but became ill with pulmonary consumption and went back to Irvine to carry on the grocery business with his sister. In 1848 he was told by a London doctor that he would not survive 12 months. He went home and stayed with his brother-in-law for four or five years, when he moved to
Cairnryan
Cairnryan ( sco, The Cairn;
to teach in the
Free Church
A free church is a Christian denomination that is intrinsically separate from government (as opposed to a state church). A free church does not define government policy, and a free church does not accept church theology or policy definitions from ...
school, but with his health failing again he returned to Irvine.
After a while he became a missionary in his native town, supported by John Watt, merchant, a godly
Baptist
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...
.
In 1858 he moved to
Kilmarnock
Kilmarnock (, sco, Kilmaurnock; gd, Cill Mheàrnaig (IPA: ʰʲɪʎˈveaːɾnəkʲ, "Marnock's church") is a large town and former burgh in East Ayrshire, Scotland and is the administrative centre of East Ayrshire, East Ayrshire Council. ...
at the invitation of John Stewart and continued his evangelism there. At Kilmarnock he met John Todd (later in Dublin), to whom he later wrote many letters which were published in two books. Stewart and Dickie were involved in an
Open Brethren
The Open Brethren, sometimes called Christian Brethren, are a group of Evangelical Christian churches that arose in the late 1820s as part of the Assembly Movement within the Plymouth Brethren tradition. They originated in Ireland before spreadi ...
assembly, where he preached regularly.
He wrote a number of tracts (
Religious Tract Society and Drummond's) with large circulation; contributed to periodicals including the
Family Treasury; and wrote many poems and hymns.
In 1878 he returned from Kilmarnock to Irvine because of further ill-health, where he was cared for by his sister and her husband,
Provost Watt, and their family. After his death in 1891, he was buried in Irvine Churchyard.
Published Writings
* ''Words of Faith, Hope and Love, from the Chamber of a Dying Saint'' (London, 1891).
* ''More Words of Faith, Hope, and Love'' (London, 1897). These two consist of letters written to John Todd from 1883 onwards.
* ''Unsearchable Riches, being meditations and letters from the chamber of a suffering saint'' (Kilmarnock, 1900).
Notes
External links
* J.T.
“John Dickie”(from Henry Pickering (ed.), ''Chief Men among the Brethren'', London ²1931, pp. 157–160).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dickie, John
1823 births
1891 deaths
19th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis deaths in Scotland
British Plymouth Brethren