James Buchanan (1804–1870) was a preacher and theological writer. He was born in 1804 at Paisley, and studied at the university of Glasgow. In 1827 he was ordained Church of Scotland minister of Roslin, near Edinburgh, and in 1828 he was translated to the large and important charge of North Leith. In this charge he attained great fame as a preacher, being remarkable or a clear, vigorous, and flowing style, a graceful manner, a vein of thrilling tenderness, broken from time to time by passionate appeals, all in the most pronounced evangelic strain. In 1840 Buchanan was translated to the High Church (St. Giles’), Edinburgh, and in 1843, after the disruption, he became first minister of St. Stephen‘s Free Church. In 1845 he was appointed professor of apologetics in the New College (Free church), Edinburgh, and in 1847, on the death of Dr. Chalmers, he was transferred to the chair of systematic theology, continuing there till his resignation in 1868.
