James Buchanan was born in 1804. He held several pastorates before becoming Professor Apologetics and later of Systematic Theology at the Free Church College in Edinburgh. He attained great fame as a preacher, his manner in the pulpit being marked by sustained clarity of thought and eloquent evangelical fervour. The most experimental of Buchanan's theological works is the one from which this article is taken, The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit, which was first published in 1843 and then republished by the Banner of Truth Trust in 1966.