He attended school in his native town and in the Belfast Academical Institution, where he took the medal for classics in 1829.
In 1835 a pamphlet which he wrote on ‘The Position of the Church of Ireland and the Duty of Presbyterians in reference to it’ had a wide circulation.
In 1842 he was the chief means of establishing the ‘Banner of Ulster,’ a newspaper devoted principally to the interests of Irish presbyterianism.
In 1847 he was appointed the General Assembly's Professor of Christian Ethics.
His chief work was ‘The Year of Grace, a History of the Ulster Revival of 1859’, Edinburgh, 1860.