Robert McCheyne - Grave (1843)
The funeral took place on the Thursday following. "Business was almost totally suspended throughout the bounds of his parish, and, hours before the time appointed for the funeral arrived, crowds began to draw towards the scene of the mournful obsequies from all parts of the town, anxious to pay the last sad token of respect to the remains of one whom living they had esteemed so highly. Long before the hour arrived, the whole line of road intervening between the dwelling-house and the churchyard was crowded with men, women, and children, principally of the working classes. Every window overlooking the procession, and the church itself, were likewise densely filled with females, almost all attired in deep mourning, and the very walls and housetops were surmounted with anxious on-lookers. Altogether not fewer than six or seven thousand people must have assembled. The funeral procession itself was followed by nearly every man in the parish and congregation who could command becoming attire; by the brethren of the Presbytery, and many ministers from the surrounding districts, as well as from a distance; by the great body of the elders, by most of the Dissenting ministers in town, and by multitudes of all ranks and persuasions besides, who thus united in testifying their sense of the loss which their common Christianity had sustained in the untimely death of him in whom all recognised one of its brightest ornaments. The grave was dug in the pathway, near the south-west corner of the church, and within a few yards of the pulpit from which he has so often and so faithfully proclaimed the Word of Life ; and in this his lowly resting-place all that is mortal of him was deposited, amid the tears and sobs of the crowd. There his flesh rests in that assured hope of a blessed resurrection, of the elevating and purifying influences of which his life and his ministry were so beauteous an example. His memory will never perish.
Additional Information
The Grave can be found immediately in front of the Church, to the far left.