James Hamilton

James Hamilton was a nineteenth-century Scottish Presbyterian minister and religious writer associated with Regent Square Church in London. His sermons, lectures, and devotional books reached audiences in Britain and the United States, where Robert Carter issued several editions of his work. The Harp on the Willows addresses the disruption within the Church of Scotland that preceded the Disruption of 1843. Drawing its title from Psalm 137, Hamilton writes about congregations separated from familiar places of worship and ministers facing a conflict between civil authority and church conviction. The volume was circulated with related pieces including Remembering Zion, Farewell to Egypt, The Church in the House, The Dew of Hermon, and Destination of the Jews. That grouping shows the range of Hamilton’s pastoral concerns, from institutional controversy to domestic devotion and biblical interpretation. The Harp on the Willows belongs to a career devoted to translating current religious questions into direct, accessible prose for congregational readers.