REV.
PEARSON McADAM MUIRTHE minister of Glasgow Cathedral was born 26th January, 1846, in the manse of Kirkmabreck, Kirkcudbrightshire, of which parish his father was incumbent. When the boy was twelve years of age his father died, and his mother having removed to Glasgow he received his education at Glasgow High School and University. Licensed in December, 1868, he became assistant successively in the parish of Monkton and Prestwick and in the parish of Stevenston. His first charge was the chapel-of-ease at Catrine, to which he was ordained in 1870, and before he left it, two years later, it had been erected into a parish church quoad sacra. After eight pleasant years as minister of Polmont, he was called to Morningside Parish, Edinburgh, to succeed the Rev. Dr. Taylor, who had become professor of ecclesiastical history in Edinburgh University. This charge he conducted with the greatest success till 1896, when, on the death of the Rev. George Stewart Burns, D.D., a unanimous call brought him to the pulpit of the High Church of Glasgow.
Here the personal care of his great congregation, with its numerous agencies and organisations, might well be labour enough for the ablest, but Dr. M'Adam Muir has to fulfil, besides, in the city, not a few of the social duties of the ancient bishops of Glasgow in whose shoes he stands. For his own sake, too, he is greatly sought after, as a ready, graceful, and witty speaker, who can always be relied upon to say the appropriate thing, and say it well. Outside the work of his own parish he is convener of the Glasgow Presbytery's Committee on Church Extension, and he is President of the Glasgow Branch of the Scottish Christian Social Union. He is also Past Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of Free Masons of Scotland, and chaplain of the 4th V.B.S.R. (Cameronians). For a time in Edinburgh he was a member of the School Board, and he has been convener at various times, under the General Assembly, of the Committees on Admission of Ministers from other Churches and on Correspondence with Foreign Churches, of the Church Interests Editorial Committee, of the Colonial Committee, and of the Church Congress Committee. From 1888 till 1907 he was secretary of the Church Service Society, becoming Convener of the Editorial Committee on the death of Principal Story; and in 1895-7 and 1902-5 he was the General Assembly's lecturer on Pastoral Theology to the Scottish Universities.
At the same time Dr. M'Adam Muir is author of "Samuel Rutherford" in the St. Giles' Course of Lectures for 1881-2, of the well-known "History of the Church of Scotland" (1890), "Religious Writers of England" (1898), and of the highly interesting chapter on "Monuments and Inscriptions in Glasgow Cathedral" in The Book of Glasgow Cathedral (1898).
In recognition of his distinguished services he received from Glasgow University in 1893 the degree of D.D. While settled at Catrine in 1871 he married Sophia, daughter of the Very Rev. James Chrystal, D.D., LL.D., minister of Auchinleck, who was moderator of the General Assembly in 1879, and who at his death was father of the Church of Scotland. Mrs. Muir died in February, 1907.