The son of a tradesman from County Down, Ireland, he was born in the village of Carrowdore, nearly midway between Donaghadee and Greyabbey, on 26 May 1830.
His parents were poor, but gave him a good school training, and in November 1845 he was entered at the old college in Belfast, with a view to becoming a minister of the unitarian body, with which his father was connected.
His father's poverty forcing him to support himself by his own exertions, he learned shorthand and became a reporter in connection with the Belfast press.
Returning to Belfast, he resumed his connection with the press, becoming first a reporter and subsequently editor of the ‘Banner of Ulster.’ He also officiated on Sundays, but used laughingly to tell that he preached in twenty-six vacant churches before he received a ‘call.’ At length he was invited to undertake the charge of the congregation of Creggan, County Armagh, and on 17 July 1860 was ordained.
In 1866 he received a call to the newly formed congregation of Waterside in the city of Derry, and was installed there on 20 March in that year.
Five long review and magazine articles from his pen sometimes appeared in the same month, besides newspaper leaders and other contributions, and this in the height of the college session, when he was lecturing daily.
In the discussions of the Church courts of which he was a member, he scarcely ever mingled, but even in the midst of his heaviest literary work he usually preached somewhere on the Sundays, his pulpit service being greatly prized.