Alexander Whyte - Bunyan Characters Volume Two: Mr. Brisk

BUNYAN CHARACTERS: VOLUME TWO.....
This is the second volume of four which goes into the details of Characters from John Bunyan's books. This one is about characters of Pilgrims Progress.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY.....
Rev Alexander Whyte D.D.,LL.D. (January 13, 1836 - January 6, 1921) was a Scottish divine. He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland in 1898. He was born in Kirriemuir, Forfarshire to Janet Thomson, an unmarried girl. Janet declined to marry Alexander's father, John Whyte, who thereafter went to America. She did however give Alexander his father's surname. His mother joined the Free Church of Scotland at the Disruption of 1843. In 1848 he began an apprenticeship as a cobbler. In 1854 he took on a role as school teacher at Padanaram in Forfar and the following year moved to teach in Airlie. In Airlie the local minister taught him Latin and Greek, enabling him to apply for university.
He studied divinity at the University of Aberdeen and then at New College, Edinburgh graduating in 1866. This was in part funded by his estranged father. His half-sister, Elizabeth Whyte, came to join him from America to help him keep house. There she met his colleague, Rev Thomas Macadam, whom she married. Whyte entered the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland and after serving as colleague in Free St John's, Glasgow (1866-1870), removed to Edinburgh as colleague and successor to Rev Dr Robert Candlish at Free St George's. In 1909 he succeeded Dr Marcus Dods as principal, and professor of New Testament literature, at New College, Edinburgh.
He was an active educator and author and published widely on subjects ranging from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to St. Teresa of Avila, John Law, and Jakob Böhme. He was also an ecumenicist, maintaining a cordial correspondence with Cardinal Newman and publishing a selection of his work. He became a member of the general committee of the recently established Edinburgh Social Union in 1885. Whyte lived in a huge townhouse at seven Charlotte Square, in Edinburgh's First New Town. The house is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland and open to the public as The Georgian House, Edinburgh.
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