#Second Presbyterian Church

[archinform]

Open House Chicago 2024 - Day 1 part 2

October 19-20, 2024

Sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Center

Second Presbyterian Church

1936 S. Michigan Ave.

1901, Howard Van Doren Shaw, architect

Second Presbyterian Church is well known for its unique collection of stained glass windows. Thirteen of the windows were made by Tiffany and Company, and reflect the artistry of Louis Comfort Tiffany.

More information on the restoration of the church's Tiffany windows here.

The Tree of Life mural, as well as other decorative panels, was painted by Frederic Clay Bartlett. See other information on the church's artwork here.

[minnesotafollower]

The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)    

I am a member and non-ruling elder of Westminster Presbyterian Church (Minneapolis), which is a member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) denomination. The latter’s Constitution consists of the following two parts. Part I: The Book of Confessions This Book contains the following confessions: The Nicene Creed (A.D. 381) The Apostles’ Creed (A.D. 180) The Scots Confession (1560) The Heidelberg…

[yellowpsyduck]

𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮

Thomas Shelby x Reader

Warning: Smut

Her dress was white like the Arctic Snow. 

Her cheeks were red like the Chrysler Imperial. 

A glance was all it took for one to deduce that Y/N Elliot stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the sea of greys in the grimy streets of Birmingham. 

With her short tight curls and her eyes that seemed untinged with the horrors that plagued the notorious English town, she was a sight to behold. 

Mr. Elliot was the preacher at the local Presbyterian Church, but his daughter evoked the urge to sin in the minds of the lads of the town.

 And again, a glance was all it took for one to fixate upon this seemingly other worldly apparition that roamed the streets of Birmingham with her teasing smile and her plump red lips. 

And Thomas Michael Shelby was no exception. 

Soon the occasional glances that he threw her way should they ever cross paths turned into waiting by the front of her house to escort her to finishing school, much to the dismay of the girl’s father. 

The young Elliot girl was infatuated with the older man. The boys that previously courted her couldn’t hold a candle to his suave. With his cigarettes and his well pressed suits, Tommy Shelby was simply a dream come true for the impressionable girl. 

She couldn’t care less about her parents’ disapproval of their relation, nor did she care about what the towns folk had to say. 

‘He loves me, and I love him and that’s all that matters’ she assured herself each night. 

The two soon became inseparable, the leader of the Peaky blinders even barged inside the school and pulled his darling out of the classroom simply because he ‘missed’ her. The teachers and staff knew better than to obstruct the infamous gangster. 

The two went to the fair that day. He bought her all the dainty little trinkets that her heart desired. She didn’t go easy on the spending too; she knew his pockets wouldn’t hurt from her silly purchases. 

And for his kind generosity, she rewarded him with her first kiss. 

A simple kiss on the lips; that’s how it started but it soon turned heated and passionate. 

It goes without saying that she lost her purity to him, right in the backseat of the black Ford. 

Still clad in her school attire, she sat on his lap with his hands encircling her lithe waist. 

He left a trail of kisses down her exposed collarbone, his hands working to unbutton her shirt which her mother had carefully pressed that morning. 

The chemise underneath soon found itself discarded on the floor of the vehicle. 

Her pink coloured bra was on full display for him. The more conservatively fashioned fabric did little to hide the fullness of the plump breasts underneath. 

Her breath was shallow as she looked at him with those beautiful doe eyes of hers. 

Her cheeks tinted with arousal and her eyes misty with desire. 

She was a sight to behold as she guided his hand to cup her left breast, telling him that she was ready. 

Tommy couldn’t contain himself any longer and his fingers found themselves unclasping the fabric that shielded her modesty. He sucked with urgency on her perky nipples while he kneaded the other, giving equal attention to both of those glorious mounds. 

Y/N was a squirming mess. She loved the feeling of his hot mouth as he showered her with his touch.  

She could feel her panties dampen with each passing second. No boy had ever made her this hot and bothered. 

She needed more of him. She needed his touch. 

Tommy could feel the wetness on his thighs as the girl began grinding herself on his thighs. 

“Eager, aren’t we?” he teased with a raspy drawl. 

God! This girl was driving him crazy. 

He continued trailing his kisses down her stomach and halted at the waistband of her skirt. 

He swiftly tossed the heavy garment aside along with her garter and knickers. 

She was on full display for him. For him and his eyes only. 

He couldn’t peel his eyes off her body. 

She had bewitched him.  

Sure, Thomas Shelby had been with his fair share of women before her, but he had never felt so strongly for any woman before, nor did he think he could ever. 

Not after this. 

Not after her. 

His thumb slid across her clit, eliciting a beautiful moan from her. 

Gently, he prodded her glistening hole with a finger. 

She was too tight. 

He thrusted his finger inside her as she coated him in her lewd liquid. 

Now two fingers. 

He was thrusting her insides with just two fingers, yet it completely filled her up. 

She was a panting mess. 

She could feel his now bulging erection poking against her bare butt. 

Just as she could find her release, he extracted his fingers from the throbbing pussy, making her cry in desperation. 

“Tommy please.” she purred as she met his pale blue irises. She was a whimpering, desperate mess. 

“Just a minute darling.” he assured her as he hurriedly unbuckled his belt and freed his pulsating swollen cock. 

Y/N wasn’t sure how he was going to fit his fat cock inside her tight pussy, but she didn’t care anymore. All she wanted was for him to fill her up and make love to her. 

He carefully lined his cock that was leaking with precum to her entrance and gently entered her hole.  

Just the tip was in and even then, Y/N was threatening to spill teardrops from her lustful eyes. 

“It’ll only hurt for a second, Darling.” he whispered in her ear as he forced himself inside of her virgin cunt. 

Y/N was seeing stars. 

Oh! The pain and the pleasure; both feelings intertwined as she felt him thrusting inside of her giving rise to this otherworldly feeling of ecstasy. 

Tommy couldn’t control himself inside of her as he pounded into her. 

Her tight pussy was driving him mad with pleasure. 

He could see the scarlet testament of her purity flowing down her thighs as he corrupted her innocence. 

She was his. 

No one else’s. 

The two continued their lovemaking, completely engulfed in the throngs of their union.  

That night, as they lay in the meadow on the English countryside, with his hands around her and her head on his chest, they looked up at the sky that bear witness to their passions.  

And that faithful day, Thomas Shelby made a woman out of Y/N Elliot. 

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Bunny’s Moral Crisis and Julian being Anti Judeo-Christian

I was positive I got the impression, during my first read of TSH, that Bunny was truly morally bothered by the farmer-killing. Then I started wondering, post-reading, if I was being too generous, and Bunny legit was just worried for his life and was angry that the group was keeping secrets from him (that second one is what Henry told Richard).

But I got to the part in my on-and-off listening to the audiobook where Julian tells Richard he’s wondering what’s going on with Bunny. Julian says Bunny keeps approaching him and asking to talk about morality (particularly sin and forgiveness). Julian says he’s getting concerned that Bunny may convert to Marion’s religion. He asks Richard what denomination she is, and Richard says he thinks she’s Presbyterian. Julian is disappointed and says the only Christian denomination he can gracefully accept losing a student to is Roman Catholic.

Now this scene is interesting to me for a couple reasons. Firstly, it does indicate there may be more going on with Bunny internally than the Greek class gives him credit for. If Bunny is trying to approach Julian privately to talk about ethical dilemmas, this shows some level of genuineness in his questions (Julian also believes it to be earnest questioning). But secondly, Julian’s comment about only finding the Roman rite to be a worthy foe is so, so interesting to me.

The scene shows that something more is going on with Bunny, but it also reveals that Julian hates Judaism and Christianity— making exceptions for people like Dante and Giotto. The thing that’s fascinating to me about this detail is that Julian’s statements show the central theme of the whole book: that beauty is worth something if it’s backed by things of substance (Georges Laforgue says this, and the same thing is said by Theo in The Goldfinch. This is a concept important to Tartt’s writing).

Julian has a basic respect for Catholics, because Catholicism traditionally also has emphasis on art, philosophy, and classical aesthetic beauty. And, perhaps most importantly, Roman Catholics have kept Latin as the language of the Church and Vatican. The medieval Catholic Church was perhaps the biggest patron and commissioner of artists, and from the Catholic Church came Notre Dame, Aquinas, Dante, etc. Here, Julian mentions that the Catholics make “worthy foes” for the pagans, and what he means is that there’s all this aesthetic beauty and classical study within the Catholic Church. But it’s key here that Julian hates other branches of Christianity. The scene emphasizes that the only thing he enjoys about Catholics is their specifically classical history.

The thing I like about this detail is that it is a really specific bit of characterization to show that Julian does not care about morality or the search for truth that’s at the heart of all religions and mythologies. He’s different from people like Aquinas because he does not see human art and language as a means to articulate and pay homage one’s moral beliefs. He sees art/language as the highest good in and of itself. Once you remove the classics aspects of Catholicism, Julian does not care. And we see this because of his apparent disdain for Protestants and Jews. This also reminds me of Bunny saying Henry thinks Jamaicans have no culture. Obviously, they do, but it’s not the particular kind of culture and expression Julian and Henry find legitimate.

I guess I like how Donna Tartt understands her own theme and can show how it’s applicable so naturally just in the way her characters talk. We get a lot of hints about how closed-minded and shallow Julian actually is before we get to the end of the book where it’s confirmed.

[scotianostra]

On October 26th 1640 The Treaty of Ripon was signed, restoring peace between Scottish Covenanters and Charles I of England.

This was a second brief war between Charles I of England and the Scots.

Charles I summoned Parliament (The Short Parliament), in order to raise an army against the Scots. The Scots invaded northern England, won a battle at Newburn on the Tyne and occupied Northumberland and Durham.

It all stemmed from the King attempting to impose a new prayer book on the Scots, remember Jenny Geddes chucking her stool in St Giles shouting “Deil colic the wame o’ ye! Out thou false thief! Dost thou say the mass at my lug?” (“The devil give a colic to your stomach! Out you false thief! Dare you say the mass at my ear?”). It wasn’t so much the prayer book itself, it was Charles trying to enforce Episcopacy or High Anglican system North of the border, this would have seen him taking control of church land and taxing it, the Presbyterians also so the English system as too close to Catholicism.

The First Bishops War ended in The Pacification of Berwick in June 1639, when Charles sent an army north, who didn’t really want to go in the first place, they got to Berwick, saw the size of the Scottish and army and decided they didn’t want to fight. An inconclusive treaty was hurriedly put together and everybody went home

A year later Charles, still brooding over his climb down, was determined to subdue the Covenanters by force and persuaded the English Parliament to finance an army of Irishmen, as well as trying to conscript men from the southern counties of England, they had no appetite for a fight though and the men he mustered were mainly untrained and poorly-disciplined, many of the southern levies deserted on the march to the north. Others were prone to mutiny: two officers found to be Catholics were lynched by their own men, who then dispersed. Violent disorders were reported from all parts of England that the levies passed through. By August 1640, the King's forces had mustered in Yorkshire and Northumberland, most of them poorly-armed, unpaid and underfed. The Irish army was not ready in time to take part in the campaign against Scotland.

In stark contrast the Scottish Covenanter army had remained in arms after the First Bishops' War and, with another war imminent, new levies were quickly raised. By early August 1640, the Covenanter army massed on the border with England was around 20,000 strong with an artillery train of sixty guns. Some of them were fresh from a six-week expedition pillaging and burning the lands of Royalist clans in the Highlands. Once the Scottish Royalists had been subdued, they besieged Dumbarton as a precaution against the possibility of Strafford's Irish army landing in western Scotland.

In August Leslie thwarted the English defensive preparations by simply bypassing the well-defended town of Berwick and marching straight for Newcastle and the rich coalfields that supplied London with coal. As the King hurried north to York, the Scots arrived at the outskirts of Newcastle on 27th August, a day later they soundly beat the ill-prepared English at the Battle of Newburn, Newcastle soon surrendered, most of Northern England was now in Scots hands.

The morale of the English army stationed in Yorkshire collapsed after the defeat at Newburn. On 24th September, King Charles summoned a Great Council of Peers at York — a revival of an institution that had not been used since the reign of Edward III. The Council almost unanimously advised the King to negotiate a truce with the Scots and to summon another Parliament in England. While the Council of Peers continued to sit in York, English and Scottish commissioners met at Ripon in October 1640 to negotiate a treaty.

The Treaty of Ripon was signed - A cessation of hostilities was agreed. Negotiations for a permanent settlement were to be negotiated. Meanwhile, the Scottish army was to occupy Northumberland and Durham, exacting an indemnity of £850 a day from the English government for its quarter; furthermore the Scottish government was to be reimbursed for its expenses in prosecuting the war against England.

In the end it forced Charles I to summon the Long Parliament, which in turn led to the English Civil War. The king had lost control of the situation, it eventually led to him losing his head, literally.

[whencyclopedia]

Battle of Preston in 1648

The Battle of Preston between 17 and 20 August 1648 occurred during the English Civil Wars (1642-1651) and saw Oliver Cromwell lead Parliament's New Model Army to victory against an Anglo-Scottish army which supported King Charles I of England (r. 1625-1649). The Royalists were routed over several days in a running battle that ended the brief action known as the Second English Civil War (Feb-Aug 1648).

The Civil War

Victory for Parliament at the Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold in March 1646 concluded what has since become known as the First English Civil War (1642-1646). The Royalists had not given up their cause yet, though. The king had fled to the north of England but was handed back to the Parliamentarians by a Scottish army in January 1647 following disagreements over future religious reforms should the king ever be restored to power. In November, Charles escaped his English captors and established himself on the Isle of Wight.

The king and his supporters now hoped to create a series of uprisings in Wales and England, which would so occupy Parliament's New Model Army that a Scottish army could invade and bring Charles a victory on the battlefield and then control of London, finally ending the Civil War in his favour. The Scots had become Charles' allies again after he signed the Engagement at the end of 1647, an agreement with the influential Scottish Covenanters. The agreement promised that the king would not interfere in the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, something that Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians might well do, or if not, then they would certainly block the development of this Church in England. The planned uprisings would, it was hoped, not only spring from the desire for religious reform and toleration of holidays like Christmas (which Parliament had effectively banned the celebration of) but also widespread concern over high taxes, felt particularly keenly after there had been a run of poor harvests. This short but consequential phase in the long-running conflict between King and Parliament has since become known as the Second English Civil War.

Continue reading...

[darkbanez]

So if y’all aren’t caught up with the shooting this morning:

Today, in Nashville, Tennessee, a 28 year old trans man broke into and opened fire on a Christian Elementary School.

According to CNN:

“Here's what we know so far:

About Covenant School: The school is a private Christian school founded in 2001 as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church. It has an average enrollment of about 200 people in recent years, according to its website, and it teaches preschool through 6th grade.

What happened: Don Aaron, spokesperson for the Metro Nashville Police Department, said the first calls of an active shooting came in at around 10:15 a.m. local time. When officers arrived, they went through the first level of the building, he said. They then heard gunshots coming from the second level of the building, according to Aaron. He said that's where police confronted and killed the shooter at 10:27 a.m. local time.

The shooter: The shooter has been identified as 28-year-old Nashville resident Audrey Hale. The shooter was armed with a handgun and two AR-style weapons — one a rifle and an AR-style pistol, Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said. Two of those may have been obtained legally and locally in Nashville, Drake said. According to initial findings, the shooter was once a student at the school, he added, though he said police are unsure what years.

Prior planning: The shooter had drawn detailed maps of Covenant School, Drake said, including the entry points to the building and detailing "how this was all gonna take place." Drake said police believe the shooter shot through one of the doors to get into the school. Drake said the school was the only location targeted by the shooter. Police have also located a manifesto that they are reviewing.

The victims: The three students who were shot and killed at Covenant School were all 9 years old, police said. They have been identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, according to police. Three adults were also killed in the shooting. They have been identified as 61-year-old Cynthia Peak, 60-year-old Katherine Koonce and 61-year-old Mike Hill, police said.

What's next: Police will spend the next two days processing the scene and working to gather more details about what happened during a shooting at a Nashville elementary school, Aaron said, adding police also intend to release video soon. Officials said they knew where the shooter lived and they have interviewed the shooter's father.

Call for gun safety legislation: President Joe Biden called the shooting at a Nashville school "heartbreaking, a family's worst nightmare," while advocating for gun reform. Biden said Congress needs to pass an assault weapons ban because we "need to do more to protect our schools." However, a bipartisan solution is extremely unlikely this Congress with a slim Democratic majority in the Senate and a GOP-led House. Nashville Mayor John Cooper said too many children are dying from guns and that the community needs to come together to support each other.

Mass shootings in America: The Nashville shooting is the 129th mass shooting in the US so far in 2023, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. The Gun Violence Archive, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.”

(via https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/nashville-shooting-covenant-school-03-27-23/index.html)

Obviously Twitter is having a hayday with this, right-wingers seemingly celebrating the fact that the shooter was transgender.

If you choose to care more about what the shooter identified as, rather than the LITERAL children and teachers that were killed, you are a despicable human being and you deserve everything that comes to you.

Please feel free to add more info in reblogs/replies!

[javelinbk]

Sounds like the new footage from Pete Best is the same one that we've seen before, but cleaned up by Peter Jackson...

Jackson has created a new video, which will be unveiled at 14:00 GMT on Friday.

It will contain previously-unseen footage, including "a few precious seconds" of the earliest known film of The Beatles, provided by original drummer Pete Best and his brother Roag.

Roag said he bought the silent footage from a man who used a cine camera to film the band performing St Paul's Presbyterian Church Hall in Birkenhead in February 1962, eight months before their debut single came out.

Jackson's team have improved the quality and "it looks absolutely fantastic", Roag told BBC News.

It is also the only known footage of the band performing in the leather suits they sported before they became famous.

"The lads are rocking backwards and forwards with guitars, mouths to the microphones, singing," Roag said.

Jackson has used about six seconds of the footage in the Now And Then video. The original lasts for almost a minute and will go on show at the Liverpool Beatles Museum, which Roag Best owns.

I'm more interested in this, though...

In a statement, Jackson said he had found other "unseen outtakes in the vault, where The Beatles are relaxed, funny and rather candid".

He added: "We wove the humour into some footage shot in 2023. The result is pretty nutty and provided the video with much needed balance between the sad and the funny."

The Beatles' final song Now And Then: When is it out and what will it sound like?. BBC News, 1st November 2023

[racefortheironthrone]

After Oliver Cromwell's death was the Commonwealth doomed, because of structural factors, or a republic like the United Provinces could have survived but it failed because of contingency and individuals' actions? How guilty is Cromwell for not setting solid foundations for the continuity of the Commonwealth?

Yes, the Commonwealth was doomed after Cromwell's death, but the reason why is both structural factors and contingency/agency - because the actions of a few individuals (including but not limited to Cromwell) set those structural factors in motion.

In term's of Cromwell's guilt, I would say that he bears ultimate responsbility for the institutional weaknesses of the Commonwealth. To be totally fair, he did try to fix those weaknesses repeatedly - but because of the actions he took at the beginning that set up the structural factors in question, those efforts came to naught.

That's the TLDR, I'll do the specific explanation below the cut, because it's going to go long.

Background

Just to make sure everyone's on the same page: in 1640, Charles I is forced to call Parliament even though he hates doing it. He dissolves Parliament after three weeks. (Hence why it's called the Short Parliament.) He's then forced to call Parliament again, and this Parliament is the Long Parliament. The Long Parliament enacts a whole series of legislation that Charles I hates, and then in 1642 the conflict between King and Parliament breaks out into the First English Civil War (1642-1646).

During this first phase of the conflict, it takes a while for Parliament and the Parliamentary generals to get their act together. Things begin to turn around in 1644 when the Scottish Covenanters join the war on Parliament's side and they win the Battle of Marston Moor - which gives Parliament control of the North of England and is the first battle where Cromwell plays a major role. The next year, Parliament gets rid of the original Parliamentary generals through the Self-Denying Ordinance, forms the New Model Army under Fairfax and Cromwell (the one guy specifically exempted form the Self-Denying Ordinance), and Fairfax and Cromwell go on to completely destroy the Royalist armies at Nasby and Langport.

Charles hangs on for a bit, but is eventually captured in 1646 and the first Civil War ends. The question is now: what do we do, now that Parliament has won?

The Putney Debates

Once the fighting was over, the political fighting could begin and it was quite complicated. You had the Long Parliament, which was dominated by the moderate "Presbyterian" faction who had been locked out of military power by the Self-Denying Ordinance. You had the New Model Army, which was religiously Puritan but split politically (more on this in a second). You had the Scots, politically constituted by the Scottish Parliament and militarily represented by the Covenanter armies, who wanted Presbyterianism to be extended throughout Britain. And then you had the Royalists and Charles I, who were usually but not always the same faction.

I'm going to focus here on the part of this conflict that involved the Long Parliament and the New Model Army. The Long Parliament wants to do a deal with Charles I - although the problem is that Charles is stretching out negotiations in the hopes that if everything collapses into anarchy he might get himself back on the throne - it wants a unified British Presbyterian Church established (because it had kind of agreed to set one up as the cost of getting Scottish support during the war), and it wants to get rid of the New Model Army which it views as dangerously radical and way too powerful.

The New Model Army isn't sure what it wants, because it's split between the Agitators (i.e, the Levellers) and the Grandees (the senior officers of the Army, led by Cromwell and Fairfax) - although the one thing both sides agree on is that they're not going to accept a single established Presbyterian Church and that they aren't going anywhere until they get their back pay and some sort of reforms happen that justify four years of civil war.

In the mean-time, everyone's getting very testy. First, the Long Parliament orders the New Model Army to disband in early 1647. The New Model Army refuses to disband. Then the New Model Army takes control of the prisoner Charles I in early June. In late June, a pro-Presbyterian mob invades Parliament calling for an established Presbyterian Church and for Charles I to be brought to London, causing all of the Independent (i.e, Puritan) MPs and the Speaker to flee the city and seek the protection of the New Model Army. Then in August, the New Model Army marches on London, and forces Parliament to enact a Null and Void Ordinance undoing everything the Long Parliament had done since June, which causes the Presbyterian MPs to withdraw from Parliament (temporarily), which means the Independents are now in the majority.

All of this is very confusing, and no one in the New Model Army is sure what to do now that they hold all the cards. So the New Model Army decides to have a public debate at Putney in late October in order to hash out what the Army's position is going to be.

At Putney, both sides put forward manifestos for what the Army should stand for. The Agitators put forward the "Agreement of the People," which calls for:

the Long Parliament to be dissolved and elections to be held for a new Parliament.

these elections to be held after a reapportionment of Parliament to establish equal districts on the basis of one-man-one-vote.

elections for a new Parliament every two years.

the electorate to be made up of "all men of the age of one and twenty years and upwards (not being servants, or receiving alms, or having served in the late King in Arms or voluntary Contributions)." (i.e, fairly universal male suffrage).

Parliament is to have full Executive and Legislative authority, except that the people shall have liberty of conscience, freedom from conscription, equality before the law, and there shall be amnesty for anything done or said during the Civil War.

The Grandees, who freaked the fuck out when they heard these terms and started immediately calling the Agitators "Levellers" (i.e, 17th century for "commie bastards"), put forward the "Heads of Proposals," which calls for:

the Long Parliament to be dissolved and elections to be held for a new Parliament.

these elections to be held after Parliament decides on "some rule of equality of proportion...to the respective rates they bear in the common charges and burdens of the kingdom," or on the basis of some other rule that will make the Commons "as near as may be" to equally proportioned.

for the next ten years, Parliament and not the King has authority over the military, finances, and the bureaucracy.

for the next five years, Royalists aren't allowed to run for elected office or hold appointed public offices.

the Church of England will continue to exist, but you don't have to read the Book of Common Prayer if you don't want to, you don't get fined for not going to CoE services or attending other services, and there will be no imposition of a Presbyterian Covenant.

You can see that there are some overlapping areas (no more Long Parliament, elections every two years, some form of reapportionment, some form of liberty of conscience) but there are some really significant differences - a republic versus a constitutional monarchy, a unicameral Parliament versus retaining the House of Lords, and universal suffrage versus property requirements.

During the Putney Debates, Cromwell flatly refuses to accept anything other than a constitutional monarchy, Ireton (Cromwell's son-in-law) refuses to accept universal suffrage, but the two sides agree that a committee will work out a compromise on the basis of everything else from the "Agreement" as long as the Agitators agree to go back to their regiments.

Then the King escapes from captivity and everyone panics. Cromwell and Fairfax scramble a new manifesto together and try to get the New Model Army to approve that manifesto along with everyone taking a loyalty oath to Fairfax and the General Council of the Army, the Agitators see this as a stab in the back and start up a mutiny, and Cromwell and Fairfax crush the mutiny and arrest the Agitator leadership. In late November 1647, Charles I, who has been recaptured by this point, signs a secret agreement with the Scots to invade England and restore Charles to the throne in return for Presbyterianism being established in England.

The Second Civil War

Things slow down for a bit, because the Scots are actually quite divided about this agreement - the Kirk actually condemns it as "sinful" - and it takes until April for the pro-agreement faction (known as the "Engagers") to get a majority in the Scottish Parliament.

In May 1648, Royalist uprisings break out across the kingdom, with South Wales, Kent, Essex, and Cumberland being particular centers of Royalist strength, and the Scottish Covenanter army crosses the border and invades England. Unfortunately for Charles, the Royalists, the English Presbyterians, and the Scots, they completely fail to coordinate their actions and the New Model Army is able to completely crush the uprisings one-by-one and then turns its attention to the Scots.

At the Battle of Preston in August 1648, the New Model Army under Cromwell wins another one of its ridiculously lopsided victories that make his emerging belief that he had been chosen by God somewhat understanable, and the formidable Covenanter army is crushed.

By this point, Cromwell and the rest of the Grandees are convinced of two things: one, no more negotiating with the King. As the Army Council put it rather ominously, it was their duty "to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for that blood he had shed, and mischief he had done." Two, the (English) Presbyterians could not be trusted. They had conspired with the King and their Scottish co-religionists to overthrow the government and abolish religious liberty, and thus they had to go.

Thus, in December 1648, Pride's Purge is carried out, in which a detachment of troops acting under orders from Ireton (and thus from Cromwell) bar 140 MPs from taking their seat and arrest 45 of them. This effectively ends the Long Parliament, and the remaining 156 MPs continue to sit as the Rump Parliament. In the New Year, the Rump Parliament then votes to put the King on trial for treason and then afterwards establishes the Commonwealth as a unicameral Republic.

What Comes Next?

You'll note a couple things at this point: first, Cromwell's political positions are fairly fluid and change with events, so that he goes from being a staunch constitutional monarchist in late 1647 to a determined regicide by January 1649. Second, even though it's been a few years since the Putney Debates, Cromwell and the Grandees haven't implemented the "Heads of Proposals" - most crucially, they haven't dissolved Parliament and called for new elections, nor has a new Constitution been established.

Initially, one might say that Cromwell was distracted by his campaign to crush the Confederate-Royalist coalition in Ireland and then to crush the alliance between the Covenanters and Charles II. But by 1651, he's back in England and there's still no election and still no Constitution. Cromwell tries to get the Rump Parliament to call for new elections, establish a new Constitution that incorporates Ireland and Scotland now that they've been conquered, and finds some sort of religious settlement.

For two years, the Rump Parliament deadlocks on practically everything except the religious settlement, where it manages to piss off everyone by keeping the Church of England and its tithes, but also getting rid of the Act of Uniformity and allowing Independents to worship openly, but also passing all kinds of Puritan moral regulations. In April of 1653, Cromwell proposes that the Rump Parliament establish a caretaker government that will deal with the Constitution and new elections, but the Rump deadlocks on that too. This causes Cromwell to completely lose it and dissolve the Rump Parliament by force, culminating in one hell of a speech:

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!

Now there's no more Parliament and Cromwell and the Council are running the country on their own, but they don't have a plan for what to do next. A Fifth Monarchist member of the Council proposes appointing a "sanhedrin of saints" on the basis of religious credentials who will set up a godly commonwealth and bring about the imminent return of Christ. That doesn't happen, but the Council does like the idea of an appointed (rather than elected) body called the Nominated Assembly, which becomes known as Barebone's Parliament. This Parliament doesn't make it a year because of how badly it's divided between moderate republicans who want a functioning government and Fifth Monarchists who believe that Jesus Christ is coming back to Earth any day now, so why bother? Ultimately, Barebone's Parliament dissolves itself.

This then leads the Council to pass the Instruments of Government, which was essentially an adapted version of the original "Heads of Proposals." Under the Instrument, Executive power would be held by the Lord Protector who would serve for life, Legislative power would be held by a Parliament elected every three years, and then there would be a Council of State appointed by Parliament which would advise and elect the Lord Protector upon the death of the previous occupant. Thus, the Protectorate is born.

In 1654, Cromwell finally manages to get the First Protectorate Parliament elected...and it only lasts a single term, agrees to none of the 84 bills that Cromwell and the Council of State, and is promptly dissolved as soon as the Instruments would allow. And so on it went through the Second and Third Protectorate Parliaments, and then Cromwell died and the rest is history.

Conclusion

Coming back to what I mentioned at the very beginning about the interplay between structural factors and individual actions, I think we can see a kind of ratchet effect whereby decisions taken early on that foreclosed certain options compound on each other over time, leading to structural factors that weakened the Commonwealth.

The crucial turning point(s) to me are the decision to reject the Agreement of the People in 1647 and then the failure to enact the Heads of Proposals in 1647 after the Putney debates, or in 1648 or 1649 after Pride's Purge.

With the Agreement, you could have had a small-d democratic republic which would have offered ordinary working people new political rights and protections and the opportunity to buy-in to the new regime through an election for a new Parliament. With the Heads of Proposals, you could have had a more conservative republic that would have offered much the same to the traditional landed political class, which would have then granted their consent to the new regime by both standing for election and voting in that election for a new Parliament.

That kind of legitimacy was absolutely necessary in order to ensure the long-term allegiance of the population to the new regime in the face of Royalist revanchism, let alone the kind of radical changes (putting the king on trial, declaring a republic, establishing a religious settlement) that Cromwell and the Grandees saw as essential.

[lboogie1906]

Lucy Craft Laney (April 13, 1854 - October 23, 1923) educator, school founder, and civil rights activist was born in Macon, Georgia to free parents Louisa and David Laney. David Laney, a Presbyterian minister and skilled carpenter, had purchased his freedom approximately twenty years before her birth. He purchased Louisa’s freedom after they were married. She learned to read and write by the age of four, and by the time she was twelve, she was able to translate difficult passages in Latin, including Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War.

She joined Atlanta University’s first class, she graduated from the teacher’s training program. After teaching for ten years in Macon, Savannah, Milledgeville, and Augusta, she opened her school in the basement of Christ Presbyterian Church in Augusta in 1883. Originally intended only for girls, when several boys appeared, she accepted them as pupils as well. By the end of the second year, over 200 African American children were pupils at her school. Three years after the founding of the school, the state-licensed it as Haines Normal and Industrial Institute. The school was named after Francine E.H. Haines, a lifetime benefactor of the school who donated $10,000 to establish the institute. In the 1890s, the Haines Institute was the first school to offer a kindergarten class for African American children in Georgia. By 1912 it employed thirty-four teachers and had over nine hundred students enrolled. The most prominent graduate of Haines Institute was Frank Yerby, the noted author.

She helped to found the Augusta branch of the NAACP. She was active in the Interracial Commission, the National Association of Colored Women, and the Niagara Movement. She helped to integrate the community work of the YMCA and YWCA. She served as the director of the cultural center for Augusta’s African American community.

She was one of the first African Americans to have her portrait displayed in the Georgia state capital in Atlanta. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[myhauntedsalem]

Villisca Axe Murder House

Past midnight on June 10, 1912 a horrific crime was committed that remains unsolved today. Villisca, Iowa at the turn of the century was the typical peaceful American small town.

June 9th was a Sunday and Josiah “Joe” Moore a Villisca businessman accompanied his wife, Sarah, and their 4 children, Herman 10, Katherine 10, Boyd 7, and Paul 5 to the local Presbyterian churches’ Children’s Day service. The Moore children among other Sunday school attendees performed speeches and recitations.

It was a special night made more exciting by the fact that two neighbor children, Lena 12 and Ina Stillinger 8 attended with the family and were given permission to go home with the Moore children for a sleep over.

The church service ended around 9:30 p.m. and the Moore’s and their 2 guests walked home. The children were treated to milk and cookies and then put to bed for the night.

The church service was the last time these 8 people were seen alive. Even today not all the facts are known including who committed the murders. Tragically, sometime between midnight and the early morning hours each person sleeping in the Moore house was brutally murdered.

Two cigarette buttes where found in the home’s attic so it is speculated that the murderer or murderers waited in this room until the family returned and settled in for the night.

The following morning an elderly neighbor, Mary Peckham became concerned when at 7:30 a.m. the Moore house was unusually quiet and deserted. Joe’s brother Ross arrived and spotted two figures in the back bedroom covered with a sheet–he also saw blood.

The town’s Marshall, Hank Horton was sent for and he announced that there was “somebody murdered in every bed.” The murder weapon an axe that had been partially wiped clean was found leaning against the wall in the back downstairs bedroom.

Horton had found the two Moore adults and the six children all in bed, they were covered with bedclothes. Each of their skulls had been bludgeoned 20 to 30 times with the blunt end of the axe.

The Reverend Lyn George Jackline Kelly was tried and acquitted twice for the murders of the Moore family and the Stillinger girls.

In the early morning following the murders he boarded a train in Villisca headed westbound. He allegedly told his fellow travelers that there were 8 dead souls back in Villisca–butchered in their beds as they slept. At the time he made this statement the bodies had not yet been found.

Kelly had arrived in Villisca for the first time on the Sunday morning of the murders. He had attended the Sunday school performance given by the children. Two weeks later he arrived in Villisca again. He posed as a detective and joined a tour of the murder house with a group of investigators.

The authorities initially became interested in him several weeks later after being alerted by several people who had received “rambling letters” from him.

Kelly was the son and grandson of English ministers. He suffered a mental breakdown while still in adolescence. After immigrating to America he had preached at several Methodist churches across the Midwest.

At the time of the Villisca murders he was preaching in several small Iowa towns just north of Villisca. He had developed a reputation for “odd behavior.” He had been convicted of sending obscene material through the mail and had been committed to a mental hospital for a time.

In August, two months after the murders Kelly signed a confession to the murders. He stated God had whispered to him “suffer the children to come until me.”

During his trail Kelly recanted his confession–eleven of the twelve jurors acquitted him. A second jury was convened and Kelly was acquitted again in November.

Several bizarre items where left at the murder scene. The first was a 4-pound piece of bacon that was found propped against the wall next to the axe.

The murderer had taken items from the bedroom dressers and covered all the mirrors in the home. He also covered the entry doors. He left a plate of uneaten food on the kitchen table along with a bowl of water stained with blood.

Some speculate that the murders were actually done by a serial killer. At the time of the Villisca murders over the course of two years from 1911 to 1912 at least 20 other people had been bludgeoned to death with an axe across the Midwest–none of these crimes were ever solved.

[pastortomsteers]

Reformation Sunday

October 27, 2024

Pastor Tom Steers

Christ the Saviour Lutheran Church, Toronto

The hymns in this service were written by Martin Luther and sung during the Reformation

OPENING HYMN   556  “Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice” 

                                                                                                                                           CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION  Page 184-185  

THE INTROIT

Psalm 91, verses 1-4

                                                                                                                             1 Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High     will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,     my God, in whom I trust.”                                                                                                                   3 Surely he will save you     from the fowler’s snare     and from the deadly pestilence. 4 He will cover you with his feathers,     and under his wings you will find refuge;     his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

COLLECT PRAYER: 

Almighty and gracious Lord, pour out Your Holy Spirit on Your faithful people. Keep us steadfast in Your grace and truth, protect and deliver us from false doctrine, and defend us against all enemies. Help us to remember that we are saved by Your Grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. Grant that Your Church preach the purity of this Gospel, through Jesus Christ,  Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. 

OUR BIBLE READINGS:                                                                                                        First Reading -- Ephesians 2: 4-9                                               Psalm 46                                                                        Second Reading -- Romans 1: 16-17 Third Reading -- Romans 3:19–28

THE APOSTLES’ CREEED    Page 192

HYMN OF THE DAY   657  “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”

THE SERMON

Five centuries ago, Martin Luther posted a challenge to the catholic church on the door of his Church.

This simple act started the Reformation.

Neither the Church, nor the world, would ever be the same.

Luther’s challenge was called the 95 Theses, or arguments against indulgences.

It questioned the catholic church’s practice of forgiving sins based on the payment of money.

Luther made the startling Biblical argument that God forgave sins based on faith in Christ and repentance, not cash.

Luther was a monk, priest, and Professor of Theology.

He had been giving university lectures on the Book of Romans and Galatians.

To do that he’d studied the words carefully.

Before becoming a monk, Luther had been trained as a lawyer.

He was exacting.

He read the New Testament in the original Greek.

What Luther found amazed, and ultimately comforted him.

But much more importantly, it brought Christianity back to the truth of the Bible, to the Gospel.

It restored our understanding that we’re saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.

The Church 500 years ago taught a distorted theology that either terrified Christians or drove them to despair.

It claimed we are, in part, responsible for our own salvation.

Jesus does His best, then we have to do the rest.

The catholic church still teaches this terrible error

Other heretical churches say we ‘choose’ Christ; we ‘make a decision’ to be saved.

The baptists, pentecostals, presbyterians, and many other denominations teach this falsehood.

All these heresies cause believers to lose hope that they can ever be good enough to merit God’s forgiveness.

They place the focal point of salvation on us, rather than Jesus.

The catholic church taught that Jesus was an angry avenger, waiting to condemn less than perfect human beings to eternity in hell.

But Luther went back to the Word of God, and specifically the Apostle who wrote most of the New Testament letters.

He found in the divinely inspired words of Paul a clear and constant theme: our sin debt was paid by what Jesus did for us on the cross, not by our own ‘works’ or merits.

Through faith in Christ’s once and for all payment for our sins,

we’re forgiven and granted eternal life.

And Luther found the Bible taught that faith itself is a gracious gift from God, His work in us.

At Luther’s time the catholic church sold pieces of paper, indulgences, with the pope’s seal.

They said that in exchange for money, the sins of the buyer would be pardoned.

The more money paid, the more forgiveness.

Luther was outraged, disgusted by this.

He saw his poor parishioners spend money on indulgences they needed for food.

Luther argued that there was no Biblical support for the sale of indulgences.

So, he did something many academics did at the time, he posted these Theses on the door of his church.

Today, that would be like putting something on a community bulletin board or posting it on social media.

And Luther did something extremely few churchmen at the time would ever do, he mailed a copy of the Theses to his archbishop, Albert of Mainz.

The subject was a sensitive one for Albert.

Albert had bought his position as archbishop from the pope for a sum of 21,000 ducats, or gold coins, a huge amount of money then.

The vatican’s sale of church positions was common.

The imperial bankers loaned Albert the money he needed for eight years.

The arrangement was that clergy in the catholic church who reported to Albert would sell indulgences to repay the loan.

You can imagine Albert’s reaction when the letter from Luther arrived with the 95 Theses.

Albert forwarded the letter and Theses directly to the pope.

For Luther, the sale of indulgences was an un-Godly abuse.

But Luther also realized the thinking that created the sale of indulgences was the same misinterpretation of Christianity that said people were responsible for saving themselves by what they ‘did.’

It could be paying to see the bones of saints, praying to statutes, or other un-Scriptural practices.

Luther came to understand from the Books of Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians that salvation was not something human beings could earn, or merit, in any way.

It was a loving God’s free gift through faith in Christ as Saviour.

For Luther it was not just what we say ‘no’ to about roman catholicism, but what we say ‘yes’ to in the Word of God, the Bible.

And that is the Gospel, which Luther said cannot be denied because of the word of man, whether it be a pope or anyone else.

So, we come to the pivotal verses in the Bible about salvation.

What theologians call ‘justification,’ or how we, as sinners, are made right with our perfect, Holy God.

In passages from Romans and Ephesians, Luther found the truth.

In Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9, Paul wrote:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

In Romans 1, verses 16-17, the Apostle sets out the theme for the whole Book of Romans, and gives the key to how we’re saved:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”

And as though that wasn’t enough, Paul goes on to make this even clearer in Romans, Chapter 3, verses 19-26.

We read these verses earlier in our service.

It’s the heart of the Gospel.

Luther said to misunderstand these words is to misunderstand Christianity.

Paul wrote:

We are justified by God’s grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

This is all good news.

But even good news, the best news possible, has at times led some to worry, to doubt.

The question can come: if we’re saved by faith alone, is our personal faith sufficient?

We know Jesus says that even mustard seed faith is enough, but how do we know we even have that?

The problem with these questions is they take the focus off Jesus, and put it on us, and our faith.

Faith looks to Christ.

It’s a relationship in which God does everything.

Luther would write that we are utterly passive in this regard.

God is not responding to our faith, He’s giving us faith, in fact, He has given us the perfect faith of Jesus.

Luther called this the “glorious exchange.”

Jesus has taken our sins, and His perfection, including the perfect faith He has in the Father, has been given to believers.

Faith is not something we make better by trying harder to believe.

Faith is a sweet, simple present that God gives.

And for a gift to be a gift,

it only has to be accepted, it can’t be paid for, or earned.

An infant trusts his or her mother and father more than a hospital nurse.

This is not a thing the baby ‘decided’ to do.

The infant did not ‘will’ him or herself to have faith and trust.

It was a gift given by the loving nurture of the parents for the baby.

The little child who says “Daddy” or “Mommy” is expressing the relationship, not creating it with those words.

Many TV evangelists say we ‘make a decision’ to believe in Christ, but the Bible says it’s the other way around entirely.

As Jesus said to His disciples in John 15, verse 16, “you didn’t choose Me, but I chose you.”

The Apostle Paul wants to remove us from the “buy and sell” economy of salvation, a belief system that gives us the credit for being good enough to choose Jesus.

Paul wants to free us from all of that, because Jesus has set us free from it.

Paul explains that God loved you so much He sent His own son to die on the cross to pay for your salvation, and that’s paid in full.

These texts from Romans and Ephesians are at the heart of the Reformation.

Luther reclaimed the Gospel and turned the world of his time upside down.

We still feel the aftereffects, and spiritually benefit every day of our lives as believers.

It would be while preparing his lectures on Romans that Luther had his “tower” experience, in which he came to the realization through God’s Word that his deeds didn’t win God’s favour – it was God’s deeds in Christ.

When Luther felt the weight of having to earn his own salvation taken off of him, he wrote:

“All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates.

Immediately I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light.

I ran through the Scriptures from memory and found that other terms had similar meanings, for example, the work of God, that is, what God works in us; the power of God, by which He makes us powerful; the wisdom of God, by which he makes us wise; the strength of God, the salvation of God, the justice of God by which we are justified.”

To understand all this in an even clearer way, we need to understand a shortcoming of the English language.

Here’s the problem -- the natural English translation of verses 22 and 26 in Romans, Chapter 3, talks about our faith in Jesus.

But this is not what the text actually says in the Greek because of the limitations of English.

The Greek points to an interpretation that this is about Jesus’ faith.

The original Biblical language at verse 22 of Romans Chapter 3 is that the righteousness of God is through the faith of Jesus for all who have faith.

And so, we see in Romans, Chapter 3, that the salvation revealed, is revealed in the faith of Christ.

How are we to understand this?

As Biblical Christians we confess not only Christ’s divinity, but also, His humanity: He was both true God and true man.

To be fully human is to have the capacity to believe.

Christ had “faith,” a relationship of trust in the promise of God the Father in order to suffer and die a willing victim on our behalf.

He was not going to some sort of ‘make-believe’ death, but the real thing on the cross.

Jesus did not raise Himself from the grave.

The Bible is clear on this.

God the Father raised Him from the dead.

Jesus went into that grave believing.

The good news in this explanation of Romans is profound.

Even though our own faith is often weak and inadequate of itself, Jesus’ faith was not.

This also has deep implications for our understanding of Romans 1:16-17.

Because there is what can appear to be a strange phrase in Greek:

“The righteousness of God is revealed out of faith into faith.”

Literally it says that God’s righteousness is revealed out of faith -- the faith of Jesus, into faith, that is, our faith.

This is taking seriously what the writer of the Book of Hebrews says when he calls Jesus, “the author and perfecter of our faith.”

This sharing in the faith of Christ, this participation in the relationship of the Son to the Father, makes each of us different than we were before.

It gives us relief, joy.

It offers hope, that our salvation as believers has been accomplished for us, even when we feel lost.

Even when fears and momentary doubts trouble us.

The faith, the perfect faith of Jesus, seals our salvation as Christians.

His perfect life allowed Him to be the complete payment for our sins. It’s all God’s work in Christ.

It’s all accomplished for us by our Redeemer.

Christ alone.

May the peace of God won for us by our Lord and Saviour be with you this day.

May the truth and comfort of the Gospel, reclaimed by the Lutheran Reformation, be yours forever.

Amen.

PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH

                                                                                                                               SERVICE OF THE SACRAMENT    Page 194

THE LORD’S PRAYER                  Page 196 

                                                                                                      THE WORDS OF OUR LORD      Page 197

Pax Domini                                                                                                                                 Pastor: The peace of the Lord be with you always.                                                                              Congregation: Amen.

THE DISTRIBUTION

Post Communion Collect (Left-hand column) Page 201                                                                                                    Salutation and Benedicamus Page 201-202                                                                                                               Benediction Page 202

CLOSING HYMN   938  “In Peace and Joy I Now Depart”

[carrie11]

Open House Chicago

Fourth Presbyterian Church

This masterpiece was designed by Ralph Adams Cram, a champion of the Gothic Revival style. It is the second-oldest building north of the river on Michigan Avenue; only the Water Tower and Pumping Station are older. The Tudor-style parish buildings were designed by Howard Van Doren Shaw. The sanctuary was used to film the wedding ceremony in the movie “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

since the idea hasn't left my head in days, please enjoy this not!fic about Cecilia Stirling and Valancy Gay. (Please note that it does include spoilers for the actual book past where the book club has reached!)

Cecilia Stirling Smith was hastily and scandalously married at 17. Her son was born 6 months into the marriage, validating the whispered rumors that flew through Deerwood. He died a year later, leaving his parents shattered. The marriage, although it lasted, is unhappy. Vincent Smith dutifully made an honest woman out of the girl he courted at college, but the love is gone. While their son lived, it seemed as though he might help mend the ties, but his death ruined any chances they had at happiness together. Cissy has been trying to have another child -- her son was the only creature she had ever loved, other than the fleeting first summer with her husband, and she is desperate to feel that again. But her health is gone, and none of the advice or tinctures or doctor's visits that her family showers upon her have done any good.

Vincent Smith is not a bad man at heart, but he is a foolish and impulsive one. His father is wealthy, but Vincent has no head for business and no interested in it either. He would rather spend his time idling. When Cissy was young, this whimsy swept her away, raised as she was in the stifling clutches of the Stirling clan. Now, older, sadder, fully dependent on Vincent Smith for her continued well being, she finds him desperately unsteady.

Valancy Gay is unmarried at 29 and intends to continue that state. She was raised by her widowed father Abel Gay and the Deerwood Presbyterian Church, and although she has been courted, none have progressed far. Valancy believes firmly that she will either find her predestined match or she won't, but she refuses to settle for anything less. In her secret heart she yearns for love and romance, but she has seen what unhappy marriage can do to a woman and she will not compromise herself that way. Valancy fell in love with Barney Snaith the moment she saw him, but he doesn't love her back, although she is his dearest friend, and she is content to adore him in the confines of her heart. She knows he likes her, and that is all the satisfaction she needs.

Although Cecilia Stirling and Valancy Gay went to school together, Cissy was not encouraged to socialize with Valancy. So they knew each other well enough, but never became friends proper. Cissy always thought Valancy very daring, while Valancy remembers how Cissy would smile shyly at her when her relatives weren't watching. Everyone loved pretty, delicate little Cissy Stirling, but Valancy always felt rather sorry for her. After the scandal, Valancy's feelings doubled down.

Their paths cross again when Cissy finds herself finally pregnant with her second child. The dictates from both the Stirlings and the Smiths are immediate and iron clad: Cissy is to rest. She is not to exert herself in any way, and she is not to get overly excited, for fear that it will harm the baby. Cissy chafes at the inaction, although she doesn't dare defy her families. It's Mrs. Smith, Cissy's mother-in-law, who suggests that they find Cissy a maid to help her keep up with the house. She has a household maid already, of course, but a personal maid who can help her dress and fetch her books and attend to her during the night would do her good.

Vincent Smith mentions to his friends at the bar that he's looking for a good, steady girl to keep his wife company. Barney Snaith, also at the same bar, overhears this and mentions it to Valancy next time he's over at the Gays. Valancy thinks back to kind, meek Cissy Stirling from school and feels a twinge of predestination. She has Barney take her to Port Lawrence the very next day to apply for the position.

The Stirlings are utterly scandalized, but Vincent Smith isn't a bad fellow, and he saw how Cissy reacted to seeing Valancy again. Valancy seems steady enough, and no one can find a bad thing to say about her reputation, although many try, and she's willing to start at once. Since Vincent Smith is the one who will be paying Valancy's wages and the one whose house she will be staying in, the Stirlings can't say anything. Dr. Marsh, once he sees how Cissy enjoys Valancy's company, also steps in and advises the Stirlings in the strongest terms not to kick up a fuss, for the sake of Cissy's baby.

Cissy thrives with Valancy's companionship. Valancy is there to help her, yes, but she also rapidly becomes Cissy's friend and confidant. It's a difficult pregnancy, but with Valancy's companionship Cissy begins to feel that she really can survive this. Barney comes to fetch Valancy twice a week to have dinner with her father, and he also gets to know Cissy, to the horror of her family. Even Vincent Smith is dubious about this, but Barney is never anything other than a perfect gentleman to Cissy. The housemaid is always around to chaperone, and anyway it's plain to anyone with eyes (except for Valancy and Barney himself) that Barney Snaith is utterly devoted to Valancy Gay. Even Olive notices it, when she happens to be over one afternoon when Barney comes to fetch Valancy.

If Vincent Smith is dubious of Barney, he is delighted in Valancy, who seems to him everything that Cissy isn't. She's strong and bold, neat and decorous but not afraid to speak her mind. Never has he more strongly wished that he'd listened to his father and not gotten himself involved with Cecilia Stirling.

The baby is born to great fanfare in September. Cissy's labor is long, but not difficult, and both mother and child come out of it alive and well, although Cissy is quite weak. They name the girl Jane. Cissy tells her family that she's always loved the name, but she confides in Valancy privately that it's in Valancy's honor. Valancy, who has never cared for her middle name, is touched and declares that the baby is welcome to full use of it.

Valancy isn't a wetnurse, and now that the baby is born the Stirlings start again making noise about replacing her with someone more suitable. Yes, she undeniably helped Cissy during her pregnancy, but little Jane is going to need good, solid role models and someone like that definitely won't suit. After all, Valancy Gay is nearly 30 and still unmarried, going tearing through the town twice a week with that horrid Snaith man, and entirely unashamed of any of it. Valancy assures Cissy that she'll stay as long as Cissy will have her around.

When baby Jane is two months old Vincent Smith tries to kiss Valancy. Valancy tenders her resignation the next morning.

She agonizes all night about what to tell Cissy. In the end, John Foster speaks to her about courage and truth and she tells Cissy everything. Cissy is crushed, but she understands why Valancy has to leave as a result. Valancy promises to visit often -- during the day when Vincent isn't home -- and to write even more often than that.

Valancy goes back to her father's house, somewhat at loose ends. She could continue as a nurse or a companion -- the Smiths would give her a good reference, even if the Stirlings won't -- but she doesn't want to spend her life waiting on others. She liked caring for Cissy because she liked Cissy, and she's under no illusions that other positions would be as personally fulfilling.

It takes Barney nearly two full weeks to work up the courage to ask if she'll come keep house for him that winter. Valancy initially scoffs -- Barney Snaith, who fusses every time she makes him take the mud off his boots before he walks into Abel Gay's newly mopped kitchen, couldn't possibly want someone to keep his house. But he talks her 'round and says he'll match whatever Vincent Smith was paying her -- Valancy and Barney agreed long ago not to talk about where he got his money -- and Valancy doesn't really want to spend the long Muskoka winter at her father's house. He has a woman to cook for him anyway, a distant cousin that Valancy's never really liked. So Valancy moves to Barney's island for the winter.

It's delightful. Valancy cooks and keeps the house, yes, but mostly they just enjoy each other's company. Barney declares at one point that her presence alone is worth the money he's paying her, never mind her cooking. Valancy holds the compliment in her heart for a long time. When she writes to Cissy about it, Cissy reads the letter out loud to baby Jane and wonders aloud how two people as perceptive as Valancy and Barney can be so oblivious to what's happening under their own noses.

Spring thaws out the frozen countryside, and with it comes Barney's father. Barney had been taking money out of his account to pay Valancy's wages, and Dr. Redfern had finally tracked him down. He arrives on a day when Barney is out -- Barney's been going out on his own quite a bit lately, and Valancy worries that he's getting tired of her. Dr. Redfern introduces himself and tells Valancy the full story, including the lost love, and Valancy understands. She understands why Barney had never seemed interested in her, why he always shied away from the subject of love and marriage. She writes him a letter and leaves for the mainland that evening.

She goes first to her father's house, and tells him that she's going to Montreal, to find work and make a life. He's sad to see her go, but he's in a fatalistic, predestination stage of drunkenness and doesn't try to keep her. She promises to write.

With some of her last month's salary, she buys a train ticket to Port Lawrence. She can't leave without saying goodbye to Cissy, who is her dearest friend and like a sister to her. For Cissy, she will endure an evening of Vincent Smith.

Cissy convinces her to stay the night. While Valancy is playing with Jane, Cissy, in a rare show of determination, demands that her husband find Barney Snaith and tell him that Valancy is staying with them, and that he must talk with her as soon as possible. She knows the two of them, and knows that without some intervention of the non Divine kind, they will drift apart from each other forever and both be miserable thinking they've set the other free.

Barney arrives at the Smith house the next morning, not having slept a wink all night but freshly washed and shaved and wearing clean clothes. The housemaid lets him in with a poorly concealed laugh -- she watched him and Valancy for nearly a year same as Cissy did -- and takes him to Valancy's room.

Barney confesses everything to Valancy. Not that he loves her, not quite yet, but about his childhood and his adolescence and the girl who got away. He compares it to Cissy and Vincent Smith, and how unhappy they have become with each other. Slowly, Valancy relaxes, but she's not ready to come back yet. She realized, in her own sleepless night, that she can't keep living in hope that God will do everything on His own. If she is going to meet her predestined love, she needs to go out and find him. It's then, when he realizes that she's still serious about leaving without him, that Barney blurts out that he loves her. He hadn't known, hadn't realized until he came home and found her gone, but he's loved her for years.

Valancy is very still. Her world is spinning before her, all the certainties save one crashing down. Without thinking further, she asks him to marry her.

Barney hesitates, Valancy pulls back, and just as the housemaid thinks that it's ruined after all, Barney breaks into laughter and kisses Valancy, saying he's always liked a girl who went after what she wanted. After the kiss, he says he might as well tell her everything, and Valancy figures that this is where he admits to the terrible crime that they'd joked about his having committed for years. Instead, he admits to being John Foster, and it says something about the emotions of the day that this is the least important of the revelations.

Barney and Valancy marry in a small ceremony at the Presbyterian church that Cissy, in a second bout of determination in as many days, insists on attending. After the ceremony, Barney pulls Vincent aside and, married man to married man, tells him that he really needs to get his act together. He's never going to be the husband that Cissy longs for, but he can be a husband she grows to like again, and he owes it to her and to their child to be that person. If he really can't do that, he needs to once again step up, like he did when they married, and get a divorce, instead of keeping her chained to him while he makes eyes at the maids.

Valancy steadfastly refuses to be a society hostess, and Barney promises her she won't have to be. They plan to travel for their honeymoon and then settle in Montreal, out of the city but near enough that they can visit his father regularly. Cissy and Valancy keep up a correspondence, and when Valancy and Barney return to Montreal, Cissy and Vincent and Jane visit regularly. Over the course of these visits, Vincent takes an interest in Dr. Redfern's work. Since it's clear that Barney is never going to consent to take over the business, Dr. Redfern takes Vincent on as a potential successor. Things between Vincent and Cissy aren't perfect, but they are better -- Vincent is trying to take Barney's words to heart, and Cissy is learning to assert herself when she needs to. Amelia Stirling is just thrilled to bits that her daughter is Mrs. Redfern's intimate friend, and that her son-in-law is poised to take over the business when Dr. Redfern retires. Olive is positively sick over the entire affair. Valancy thinks it's the funniest thing she's ever seen.

[scotianostra]

November 19th 1600 saw the birth of King Charles I at Dunfermline Palace.

No-one knew that Charles would be the last of the Stewart king s to be born in Scotland. He had an elder brother who was destined to be king and Charles was a frail, sickly child.

Three years after the birth of Charles, his father, King James VI, became King of England also and his elder brother Henry, became Prince of Wales - an English title created by Edward I. Prince Henry died in 1612 and suddenly Charles became the heir apparent. But he was soon under the malign influence of the Duke of Buckingham, eight years older than Charles, who had been made a favourite of King James alledgedly, on the basis of his foppish good looks.

In 1623, in pursuit of King James' plan to create an alliance with Spain, Buckingham accompanied Charles to the Iberian peninsula to arrange the marriage of the King of Spain's daughter to Charles. The plan was badly bungled (Buckingam gets the blame) and war was declared between Britain and Spain shortly after their return!

As lord high admiral, Buckingham continued to mismanage various expeditions and was eventually murdered in 1628.

King James died on March 27th 1625 and Charles was crowned at Westminster Abbey on February 2md the following year, With an alliance with Spain now abandoned, a French one was pursued instead, this time with a bit more success, and King Charles married Henrietta Maria, the sister of King Louis XIII.

His wife had an even more exaggerated view than Charles of the "Divine Right of Kings" which led him into conflict with Parliament both in Westminster and Scotland. Charles fell foul of the "puritans" favouring a church more in line with Catholicism, a "high" church with richness and ceremony.

He also fell out with the English parliament over him raising taxes without their permission, so what is man who believes in that "Divine Right of Kings" do? Dissolves Parliament and rules the country himself for 11 years.

Charles eventually came to Scotland in 1633 to be crowned at Holyrood. Although the Union of the Crowns had taken place in 1603, the monarch ruled two separate countries, each with their own laws - and church. In Scotland the meddling of the king in church affairs led to the signing of the National Covenant in 1638 and a call to arms.

The English Parliament and the Scottish Presbyterians were now both at loggerheads with the king and civil war broke out in 1642. In Scotland, the Marquis of Montrose carried out a brilliant campaign on behalf of the King. But in England, the battle between the Royalists and the Roundheads (led by Oliver Cromwell) swung back and forwards. But with defeats at Marston Moor in 1644 and Naseby in June 1645, his cause was all but lost in England. Charles surrendered to a Scottish army in 1646. He tried to sew dissension between the Scots and the English Parliaments but he was eventually handed over to the English Parliament.

Charles continued to attempt to "negotiate" but following an attempt to escape to France, rebellions in Wales and the south-east of England and an invasion of England by the Scots in 1648, convinced the English Parliament that Charles should be tried for treason. Charles argued (with some justification) that the court was illegal but he was sentenced to death and beheaded on January 30th 1649.

Despite his many failings, his refusal to compromise and save himself by accepting Presbyterianism, the illegal nature of his "trial" and his dignity at his execution, have all retrospectively provided Charles with a halo of martyrdom.

If nothing more, Charles did provide us with some fantastic portraits of himself, and if he was around nowadays I am sure he would love a wee selfie to himself! I particularly like the first one by van Dyck, the large Royal coat of arms of the House of Stuart stands to the lower left of the painting it measures a massive 3.68 × 2.7 metres. The second is another van Dyck, Charles I at the Hunt the third is by Gerrit van Honthorst another Dutch painter. The National Portrait Gallery, London say, on their web site Charles is associated with 335 portraits.

[garthglaz]

"Baptism of the Skies, the Dove and the Cross"

This is the second variation for my commission for The First Presbyterian Church of Troy this month. I have made a large number of refinements in the process of completing two alternate variations with the cross and he dove.