The Enlightenment
Betrayal and the Patronage Act (1712)
How fickle are the ways of mankind. With considerable effort the government had coaxed a suspicious Presbyterian Church into the Union of 1707. Despite promises being made and a law being passed guaranteeing ‘that the said Presbyterian Government shall be the only...
The Union of 1707
It was 1707 and the members of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh feared for their lives. The members had voted for a Union with England by 110 to 69. With the touch of the Sceptre of State on the Union document by the Duke of Queensberry, Scotland had ceased to...
World Mission begins from Scotland (SSPCK, 1701/9)
The large crowd was silent as Revd Richard Cameron raised his voice at the outlawed conventicle. It was to be his last sermon before he was killed at Airds Moss in 1680. As he drew near to the end of his sermon, he uttered these memorable words: ‘Our Lord is to set up...
Professor Thomas Young (1773-1829)
Thomas Young was a genius. At the age of two he had learnt to read and by the age of four had read through the Bible twice; by the age of six he was a scholar in Latin. He seemed to absorb information like a dry sponge and became a private tutor in the classics by the...
Edinburgh, a World Centre for Medicine
In 1681 the Royal College of Physicians was founded by Sir Robert Sibbald, James Halket and Archibald Pitcairne, and in 1697 the first purpose-built Surgeons’ Hall was erected and many of the founding members of both were Christians. Douglas Guthrie wrote: [The torch...