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Topic Archives: Pastoral Biography

The following was given as a radio address for the BBC in Wales, 25 June, 1944 and is featured in Knowing the Times: Addresses Delivered on Various Occasions, 1942–1977. Nothing is more significant of the great change which has happened in the field of theology during the past twenty years than the place now afforded, […]

Category Book Excerpts
Date March 5, 2024
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Approximately halfway between the Scottish cities of Perth and Dundee, on the southern slope of the Sidlaw Hills above the fertile landscape of the Carse of Gowrie, nestles the small settlement of Kilspindie. Next to its seventeenth-century parish church stands the walled family tomb of the Stuarts of Annat. On the far interior wall of […]

Category Articles
Date July 10, 2023
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Some books belong to the category of ‘must have’. Alexander Moody Stuart: A Memoir belongs to that category, and perhaps especially for ministers of the gospel it is a ‘must read’. It becomes clear soon enough why Robert Murray M‘Cheyne on first hearing him preach was immediately anxious for his close friends Andrew and Horatius […]

Category Articles
Date July 3, 2023
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The Rev Kenneth A MacRae (1883-1964) exercised a powerful ministry over 50 years in the Free Church of Scotland and his memory lives on in the monumental work, Diary of Kenneth A MacRae, edited with additional material by Iain Murray.* He made a lasting impression on my early Christian life. I had correspondence with him […]

Category Articles, Resources
Date October 7, 2022
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The name Thomas Charles of Bala had been familiar to me for many years and I knew that he was an eminent evangelical Welsh minister of a bygone day. But beyond that, I confess, I knew next to nothing about him. If any reader of these lines has to make the same admission let me […]

Date October 4, 2022
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This series is in three parts, the first (Williams’ early years and conversion) can be read here, and the second (his marriage and ministry) can be read here. The Later Years The revival of 1762 may have broken out at Llangeitho, but it was given impetus by the works of William Williams, in particular the […]

Category Articles
Date June 16, 2017
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This article is part two of a series. The previous section (Williams’  early years, conversion, and call to ministry) can be read here. Writings and Married Life William Williams moved to the farmhouse at Pantycelyn, by whose name he is generally known, soon after his marriage in or around 1747. His bride, Mary Francis, had […]

Category Articles
Date June 14, 2017
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This year sees the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of William Williams of Pantycelyn, the ‘sweet singer’ of the eighteenth century Welsh revival and pre-eminent hymn-writer of Wales. The third of the great figures of the Methodist revival after Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland, Williams is claimed by Wales as a whole to a […]

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Category Articles, Resources
Date June 12, 2017
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David Dickson was one of God’s greatest gifts to the Scottish Church. Born about 1583, he became minister of Irvine, in Ayrshire, in 1618. God very much blessed his ministry there, though Dickson modestly stated that the vintage of Irvine was not equal to the gleanings of Ayr in John Welsh’s time.1 In Dickson’s time, […]

Category Articles
Date July 14, 2016
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2015 marked the two-hundredth anniversary of a change of pastorate for the Rev. Thomas Chalmers. On Sunday 9th July 1815, after a ministry of twelve years, Chalmers preached a farewell sermon to his congregation in Kilmany (Kilmany is a village in the Fife region of Scotland). Later that month he was inducted to the pastorate […]

Category Articles
Date February 11, 2016
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It’s quite overwhelming to see so many of you here today, November 14th 2015, numbers of you having travelled far, even hundreds of miles to be with us, and have gone to such expense to be at my Golden Jubilee – fifty years of being in the pulpit of Alfred Place. I’m tempted to think […]

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Category Articles
Date November 25, 2015
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That was the question posed to me. I was asked to consider in the light of fifty years’ ministry in one small congregation in a bi-lingual town of 20,000 people in mid-Wales whether I had gained any understanding of the work of the ministry that might colour the choices I made all those years ago […]

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Category Articles
Date September 17, 2015
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Augustine of Hippo is without doubt one of the most significant figures of the early Church, and perhaps the most important of all those to write in Latin. It has been said that, ‘Apart from the Scriptural authors, no other figure had a greater impact on Christian life and thought up to the time of […]

Category Articles
Date August 17, 2015
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Thomas Charles of Bala (1755-1814) remains one of the great figures in the history of Christianity in England and Wales, remembered especially for his work for the Bible Society and Sunday schools in Wales.1 A clergyman of the Church of England, he was one of the leading figures in the emergence of the Calvinistic Methodists […]

Category Articles
Date August 7, 2015
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Robert Murray McCheyne died a young man, yet his achievements were broad, and his significance is consequently substantial and diverse. The focus for this paper is the ‘Life and Sermons’, and therefore I will focus particularly on McCheyne the preacher. His importance in this area is more than sufficient to justify serious and sustained attention, […]

Category Articles
Date May 29, 2015
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