The great Scottish pastor, social reformer, educator, author, and scientist Thomas Chalmers was born on March 17, 1780 at Anstruther on the Fife coast. His father was a prosperous businessman in the town and Thomas grew up as the sixth in a large family of fourteen children—he had eight brothers and five sisters. Showing early signs of prodigy, at the …
A Lesson in Skirling
During the Christmas holidays in 1841, Thomas Chalmers, then perhaps the most prominent man in all of Scotland, paid a visit to the tiny Borders town of Skirling in Peebleshire. During his stay, he consented to stop by the local village school and give a lecture on Mathematics. The great man was always inclined to leave a moral philosophy lesson …
St. Andrew’s Day
Numbered among the Apostles, the brother of Simon Petereventually became the revered patron of both Greece and Scotland where hisfeast day, November 30, remains a kind of national holiday.Andrew (c. 10-60) may well have been,as tradition asserts, the f…
Hallowmas or Halloween
Christians have celebrated All-Hallows-Eveor Hallowmas since about the 8th century as a night of prayerfulpreparation before All Saints Day. But, the pagan associations of Halloween with the day are actually mucholder—and perhaps more deep…
The Covenanter and the King
The Marquess Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll (1598-1661) defied Oliver Cromwell’s English Protectorate and invited the exiled Charles II to return to Scotland to receive his crown on this day in 1650. A Scots Presbyterian, Argyll was the leader of…
Cameron the Covenanter
On this day in 1680 a company of English dragoons surprised and surrounded a Scottish preacher and a small band of armed men. Deciding to fight to the death, their leader, Richard Cameron, prayed “Lord, spare the green and take the ripe.” The skirmish …