The Enlightenment

At one time Webster’s Close used to exist in Edinburgh, near Castlehill, roughly where Boswell’s Court is today. It was from a house in this close that the Revd Dr Alexander Webster would sally forth to lead the charge of the High Flyers against the Moderates....

The Scott monument is one of the famous landmarks in Edinburgh and Scotland. Towering over 200 feet above Prince’s Street Gardens, this iconic construction is so well known that often locals who need a meeting place when shopping on the bustling Princes St will say,...

‘Alright, alright, I’m coming!’ called out William Creech as he scurried through his bookshop next to St Giles’ Cathedral in the Royal Mile. It was his famous weekly breakfast, which he held in a large room above the shop, and the line of ‘Creech’s Levées’ outside was...

In the darkness some 800 men stood in silence. Their wait was soon rewarded when Edinburgh’s Netherbow Port gate was opened to allow a coach to pass. With bloodcurdling yells, they ran as one man through the gate and into the High Street, taking the city by surprise....

If you go down the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, you will come across the statue of David Hume opposite St Giles’ Cathedral. Hume’s toe is bright and shiny from all those thousands of agnostic and atheist devotees who annually rub it to respect him, or for good luck. He...

In the American Declaration of Independence, we find the following memorable line, penned by Thomas Jefferson: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among...

If you look at Trumbull’s famous painting of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, you can see the Committee of Five at the front, presenting their draft version. If, however, you study the men seated on the right side, you will find the only active pastor...

At one time Webster’s Close used to exist in Edinburgh, near Castlehill, roughly where Boswell’s Court is today. It was from a house in this close that the Revd Dr Alexander Webster (1707-1784) would sally forth to lead the charge of the High Flyers against the...

The Church of Scotland Assembly in Edinburgh in 1796 had been dragging on, and frustration and emotions were deepening as the Moderates defended their liberal position on world mission. The two leading Moderates, Revd George Hamilton of Gladsmuir, and Revd ’Jupiter’...

The frail, elderly and diminutive figure walked surprisingly briskly along the High St, flanked by two larger men. As they trudged back from Calton Hill they were recollecting their memories over the last thirty-nine years of his preaching in Edinburgh, which, despite...

In 1742 a human fireball hit Scotland. Revd George Whitefield came hurtling from his successful open-air preaching revivals in England to Cambuslang, near Glasgow. A memorial, placed there by the Friends of Cambuslang Park was erected in March 2008. It says:...

With the Patronage system being forced on the Presbyterian Church by a promise-breaking government, the General Assembly tried every means to have it rescinded. As all attempts at righting this government wrong evaporated with the passing years, the national church in...