From Drunk to Disciple

Rev. John Morrison of Petty was on his way home to the manse one day when he found a drunken woman lying by the roadside. He attempted to rouse her, but she responded by saying that if he would chant a tune that she would get up and dance. Morrison began a tune and she danced . . . a man close by tried to shoo her away, but Morrison said, "Let her alone, she is not tired yet. This is the last reel she will ever dance." The pastor's prediction came true: when she later got over her intoxication, she was filled with great shame and remorse. She was convicted of her sin, and this led to her repentance. The former drunkard became a new creation in Christ Jesus.

Death of Halyburton

Thomas Halyburton was an important minister in the early 18th century in Scotland: he had a great impact on the direction of the Scottish church towards orthodoxy. He ministered only twelve years: ten as minister of the parish of Ceres in Fife, and two as professor of theology at St. Andrews. He died young and in a painful way. Yet, his weakness and pain could not stop the praises of Halyburton to the very end of his life. He said on his death-bed when death was near, "When I fall so low that I am not able to speak, I will show you a sign of triumph when I am near glory, if I be able."

And he did. In his last act, "He lifted up his hands and clapped them"!

Guthrie

If you can find William Guthrie's little book The Christian's Great Interest it is worth the time to read. John Owen once remarked that there was more divinity in this book than in all the many books and manuscripts that he himself had written. Thomas Chalmers said that, apart from the Bible, it was the best book he had ever read.

McCheyne Quote

Robert Murray McCheyne: "It is not great talents God blesses, so much as likeness to Jesus."

James White

In the churchyard of Fenwick, Scotland is the grave marker of James White. He was one of the six covenanting martyrs in that cemetery. He was shot to death by the order of Captain Peter Inglis because he was attending a forbidden prayer meeting. To add abuse upon abuse, the soldiers cut off White's head and used it as a football. On his tombstone reads the following six line verse:

This martyr was by Peter Inglis shot,
By birth a tyger rather than a Scot,
Who that his monstrous Extract might be seen
Cut off his head and kicked it o'er the green
Thus was that head which was to wear a Crown
A football made by a profane Dragoun.

Thomas Hog

Thomas Hog became minister at Kiltearn in 1654. He had a glorious ministry in that town with many converts to the gospel. But in 1662 he was a victim of the Great Ejectment in which Episcopacy was restored to Scotland and non-conforming ministers were thrown out of their pulpits. Hog fled to Holland, but later after the "bloodless and glorious Revolution" in 1688 the spiritual independence of the Scottish church was restored. Hog returned to pastor his church in Kiltearn in 1691 . . . almost thirty years after he had been ejected. He died in January, 1692. He was buried near the main entrance to the church in Kiltearn; a flat stone marks the place, and there is an inscription on the grave marker that reads:

This stone shall bear witness against the parishioners of Kiltearn if they
bring an ungodly minister in here.

This is a fitting memorial, indeed!

John Milne on Sufficiency

John Milne, pastor in Scotland and great friend of Andrew and Horatius Bonar and Robert Murray McCheyne, dealt often with the issue of the common thought of earning one's salvation. On one occasion he dealt with this problem in the following way: "In seeking some recommendation in yourselves to come to God, you are dishonouring His justice in thinking you have anything fit for its acceptance, dishonouring His grace in thinking He cannot love and save freely, and dishonouring His Son's blood in thinking it cannot cleanse from all iniquity and make a full atonement."