10 Monarchs who were not first borns

1. William Rufus II (108g-1100) third son of William I succeeded him. His oldest brother, Robert, reigned in Normandy and the next brother died in a hunting accident iin 1075.
2. Henry I (1100–1135) fourth and youngest son of William I succeeded his older brother William Rufus, who died in a hunting accident.
3. Richard I (1189-1199) second son of Henry II became heir upon the death of his older brother, Henry the Young King
4. John (1100-1216) fourth son of Henry II became king after the death of his older brother, Richard.
5. Henry VIII (1509–1547) second son of Henry VII became heir after the death of his elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, in 1502.
6. Charles I (1625–1649) second son of James I became heir after the death of his older brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales.
7. James II (1685–1688) second surviving son of Charles I succeeded his brother, Charles II.
8. Anne second surviving daughter of James II
9. George V (1910–1936) second son of Edward VII became heir after the sudden death of his elder brother, Prince Albert Victor, in 1892.
10. George VI (1936–1952) second son of George V ascended the throne following the abdication of his elder brother, Edward VIII.

Midweek Meeting January 28 2026

It was very encouraging on Wednesday to have six of us in the kitchen who all prayed plus three on zoom, two of whom prayed. Eddie helpfully led us into prayer with some verses from the end of Joshua 21. Lots to pray about as ever.

Hymn Number Boards

I am aware of Legh Richmond (1772-1827) the evangelical author of The Dairyman's  daughter but until today I had not realised that he has an interesting claim to fame in that at one of his first charges, St Mary's, Brading, on the Islof Wight, he is thought to have originated a now globally popular idea (where people still use hymnbooks that is). It is the idea of using boards with movable numbers to indicate hymn numbers during church services.

A light on the hill

On Monday we met at the Pastors Acadmy for our book group. This time the book was a local church history by a man called Caleb Morrell. Phil Heaps kindly provided with two sets of questions and a helpful outline.

1. “What Shall the Harvest Be?”: 1867–1878

2. “A Helper of the Downtrodden and Lowly”: 1878–1882  Joseph W. Parker – 1879-82 ~3yrs

3. “With Conscience Void of Offence toward God and Man”: 1882–1884 Wilbur M. Ingersoll – 1882-84 ~2yrs

4. “We Do Our Own Thinking in This Church”: 1885–1889 William H. Young – 1885-90 ~5yrs

5. “We Have a Leader of National Reputation”: 1890–1895 Green Clay Smith – 1890-95 ~5yrs

6. “The Future Is Bright with Promise”: 1896–1912 Granville S. Williams – 1895–1903 ~8yrs

7. “War, Fuel Famine, and Influenza Epidemics”: 1913–1918 John Compton Ball – 1903-44 ~41yrs

8. “No Modernism Will Be Tolerated at All in This Church”: 1919–1943 9. “Holding Forth the Word of Life”: 1944–1955 K. Owen White – 1944-49 ~5yrs Walter Carpenter – 1949-55 ~6yrs

10. “A Beachhead for Evangelical Christianity”: 1956–1960 Walter A. Pegg – 1956-61 ~5yrs

11. “Jesus Doesn’t Need a Parking Lot”: 1961–1980 R.B. Culbreth – 1961-66 ~5yrs John Stuckey – 1967-71 ~5yrs C. Wade Freeman Jr. – 1971-81 ~10yrs

12. “When a Christian Leader Falls”: 1981–1993 Walt Tomme Jr. – 1982-88 ~6yrs

Harry Kilbride – 1990-93 ~3yrs

13. “Preach, Pray, Love, and Stay”: 1994–2000 Mark Dever – 1994-present ~31yrs

14. “Doing Nothing and Church Planting”: 2001–Present

We all found the book helpful and interesting and there was a good discussion among the seven present on this occasion. Blaise Pascal next in May.

Example questions

1. What did you think of the book? Strengths / weaknesses?

2. Are there any incidents or characters that particularly lodged in your mind?

3. ch.1: What were Thomas Ustick Walter’s strengths & weaknesses, p10f? Do these things often go together? Have you ever had to change any strongly held and loudly trumpeted views, p16?

4. ch.3: What did Walter Ingersoll do wrong, and what can we learn from this episode, p59,62,65?

5. ch.4: How important are “youth, energy and enthusiasm”, p70 and “unyielding determination to succeed”, p73?

6. ch.5: Does it always feel like we are in a time of social decay and moral regress”, p82? (p90,95; p168)

7. In the early 1890s, 65% of MBC’s members were women, p98. How does that compare with our churches? etc.

Lord's Day January 25 2026

 

I was not preaching again last Lord's Day. My assistant, Eddie, preached from Luke 15. We were encouraged by visitors, one or two rand new, including someone we met giving out tracts, already a professing Christian and a visitor from another church.

Midweek Meeting January 21 2026

We were in the kitchen again on Wenesday, looking at the final part of Romans 12 and spending time in prayer.

Article in the New ET

I've obviously been busy. There is an article of mine on 2 Chronicles 13 in the February Evangelical Times.

Article in the New Banner

The first part of a two part article that I have written on Experiential Calvinism is in the February Banner Magazine.

Day Off Week 4 2026

It was a typical reading day yesterday. I carried on reading Nick Wallis's book on the Post Office scandal on my kindle and, over coffee, completed Ian Shaw's excellent on book on Christians and slavery which is highly recommended (more on that later). (I did have a day off the Tuesday before too when I finished Caleb Morrell's A light on the hill - more about that anon). In the evening we went to the cinema to see Hamnet. The film is about Shakespeare's family life. The first part of the film, set almost exclusively in Stratford, is okay but nothing special. (It also includes an unhelpful and unnecessary scene be warned). It is in the latter part of the film when the focus switches to London and the famous play that things take off and we are presented with a very moving and interesting sidelight on things. While taking the bare facts Maggie O'Farrell has used a her imagination to well to present a compelling drama. Ended the day with a bit of TV including the News.

Evangelical Library Lecture on John Newton

On Monday, it was good to listen, with about twenty others, to the first of three zoom lectures we have organised for the next few months. This first one from Stan Evers was on John Newton, who was born in 1725. It was good to go through what is a familiar story for many of us. Stan has a very helpful way of telling a story. Newton is a towering figure in the history of evangelicalism in the eighteenth century.

We also had a committee meeting after the lecture. Do pray for the work of the Liubrary.

Stan's lecture will soon be with the other thirty already there here - Evangelical Library. Another version of this lecture given at the Reformation and Revival Fellowship Conference towards the end of 2025 can be found here. The next lecture will be from Ryan Burton King on February 23. Subject: Early English Baptists.

Lord's Day January 18 2026

We had a visiting preacher on Sunday, morning and evening. Chola Mukanga from Bexley Heath had not been with us before and it was good to get to know him a little and to hear him preach from the opening verses of Colossians 3. As is usual with us these days, there were a good nmber in the morning but less on the evening, only fifteen. I led the services and spoke to the children and led communion in the evening but it was mostly sitting and listening for me and that is always a blessing, especially if the preacher is competent.

10 people whose hearts were buried apart from their bodies

1. HENRY I

Henry I (d. 1135), body buried in Reading Abbey heart (along with his bowels, brains, eyes and tongue) Rouen Cathedral, Normandy.

2. RICHARD I

Richard I, “Richard the Lion-Heart,” (d 1199) Ddied after being struck by a crossbow while campaigning in Chalus, France. Most of his body buried at Fontevraud Abbey, heart in a lead box Rouen Cathedral, Normandy.

3. ROBERT THE BRUCE

Robert the Bruce (d 1329) asked for his heart to be buried in Jerusalem. The knight he entrusted it to, Sir James Douglas, was killed in battle with the Moors while wearing the heart in a silver case around his neck. Other knights recovered it and brought it back to Melrose Abbey, Scotland, for burial.

4. ANNE BOLEYN

According to legend, after Anne Boleyn’s beheading in 1536, her heart was removed from her body and taken to a rural church in Erwarton, Suffolk, where the queen is said to have spent some happy days during her youth.

5. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Poet PShelley died sailing the Mediterranean in 1822. Local quarantine regulations dictated that his body had to be cremated on the beach. His heart allegedly refused to burn, and a friend, adventurer Edward Trelawny, supposedly plucked it out of the flames. After a custody battle among Shelley’s friends, the heart was given to Percy’s wife Mary, who kept it until she died. Her children found it in a silk bag inside her desk, and it is now said to be buried with her at the family vault in Bournemouth.

6. LORD BYRON

Byron's body was embalmed but the Greeks wanted some part of their hero to stay with them. According to some sources, his heart remained at Missolonghi and his other remains were sent to England for burial in Westminster Abbey. The Abbey refused for reason of "questionable morality". His body is buried at the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.

7. FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN

Romantic composer Chopin died (1849) and most of him is buried in Pere Lachaise but he asked for his heart to be buried in his native Poland. His sister carried it back to Poland, where it is preserved in alcohol (some say cognac) within a crystal urn inside a pillar at the Church of the Holy Cross. Warsaw.

8. THOMAS HARDY

Poet and novelist Hardy wanted to be buried in his hometown, Stinsford, Dorset, but friends insisted that a burial in Westminster Abbey was the only appropriate choice. A compromise was reached - most of Hardy went to Westminster but his heart was buried in Stinsford churchyard.

9. DAVID LIVINGSTONE

Livingstone died May 1873 in Chief Chitambo's village at Chipundu, southeast of Lake Bangweulu, present day Zambia. Led by his loyal attendants Chuma and Susi, his expedition arranged funeral ceremonies. They removed his heart and buried it under a tree near the spot where he died, which has been identified variously as a mvula or a baobab tree but is more likely to be a mpundu tree. That site, now known as the Livingstone Memorial lists his date of death as 4 May, the date reported (and carved into the tree's trunk) by Chuma and Susi but most sources consider 1 May - the date of his final journal entry - correct. The expedition led by Chuma and Susi then carried the rest of his remains, together with his last journal and belongings, on a 63 day journey to the coastal town of Bagamoyo, a distance exceeding 1,000 miles. Seventy-nine followers completed the journey, the men were paid their due wages and Livingstone's remains were returned to Britain for interment  Westminster Abbey.

10. I JAN PADEREWSKI (d 1941), pianist, composer and third Prime Minister of Poland, his heart is encased in a bronze sculpture in the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa near Doylestown, Pennsylvania. His body was also interred in America, near Wahington DC but in 1992, after the end of communist rule in Poland, his remains were transferred to Warsaw and placed in St. John's Archcathedral.

Midweek Meeting January 14 2026

David Köhler

Yesterday's meeting was a little unusual in that we were in the kitchen. The parlour heater is not working. SIx of us huddled together with two on line. Most of us took turns to pray after looking at Romans 12:9-16 and our relations with one another.

Lord's Day January 13 2026

Still several away last Lord's Day for various reasons but a good crowd in the morning and nearly double figures in the evening. I looked morning and evening at some Christian paradoxes - the most basic one in the morning (losing and saving your life) and then the fact that the Christian is sorrowful but always rejoicing. I forgot to say that after the morning meeting we were celebrating the birthday of one of our members who is now 87!

10 Acknowledged Geniuses

1. Isaac Newton. Estimated IQ 190 to 200. A scientist - a physicist - ahead of his time. Although best known for his universal principles of gravity (which weren’t inspired by an apple falling in his head), the 17th-century thinker was also a mathematician, astronomer and writer, contributing to the principles of visible light and laws of motion. We also have Newton to thank for calculus, as he developed the techniques of integration and differentiation that are still used to this day.
2. Leonardo da Vinci. Estimated IQ 180 to 220. Like others considered geniuses, he had a wide range of skills, excelling in everything from art and science to music and architecture. Although best known for his paintings, da Vinci’s scientific work spanned topics including aerodynamics, anatomy, botany, geology, hydrodynamics, optics and zoology. Fascinated by anything mechanical, he sketched plans for flying machines, tanks, combat devices and submarines - in the 15th century!
3. William Shakespeare. Estimated IQ 210. He completed 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two narrative poems and a variety of other poems—several of which contain everyday phrases still in use. While Shakespeare’s contributions to the English language have lived on, none of his original manuscripts have survived. He easily could have faded into obscurity had it not been for the efforts of a group of actors who published a collection of 36 of his plays in 1623, in a book known as the First Folio.
4. Blaise Pascal. Like others on such lists Frenchman Blaise was a philosopher and mathematician. WHen he was 3 in 1626, his mother died, leaving his father, Étienne (a lawyer and amateur mathematician) to run the household. Blaise was homeschooled using unconventional methods: most notably, mathematics being forbidden under 15 years of age. Naturally, 12-year-old Blaise (whose IQ was estimated between 180 and 195) wanted to rebel, so he secretly began to teach himself geometry. Eventually, Étienne gave in and gave Blaise permission to read a text by Euclid. As a teenager, Blaise accompanied his father to meetings of Parisian mathematicians and impressed them with his projective geometry theorems. When his father got a job as a tax collector, Blaise spent three years developing the first mechanical calculator to assist him.
5. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Estimated IQ 150-165. This is based on his incredible precocity, musical talent, memory and ability to compose complex works mentally, though some speculate it could be even higher. He demonstrated extraordinary intelligence through skills like playing music after one hearing, mastering multiple languages and describing acoustics without hearing them, indicating intelligence beyond typical IQ measures.
6. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Estimated IQ 165-175. His father was a vicar and headmaster of an elementary school. He had a total of 14 children with two wives. Coleridge was the youngest in the family and accompanied his father to school, where he was known for being a bright student and voracious reader. Following his father’s death in 1781, Coleridge, aged 9,  began attending Christ’s Hospital School, London. With his sights set on following in his father’s footsteps as a clergyman, he enrolled in Jesus College, Cambridge in 1791, but during his first year, he discovered that his personal views did not align with those of the Church of England and dropped out. He spent the next four years planning a utopian community with a philosophy student he met while travelling. After befriending Wordsworth in 1795, he decided to take up poetry - eventually becoming a leader of the British Romantic Movement.
7. Marie Curie. Estimated IQ 180-200.Not only was Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie the first woman to win the Nobel Prize but she was also the first person to win it twice. And in two different categories. Curie  shared the 1903 prize for physics with her husband, Pierre, and another scientist for their “combined, though separate” work on radioactivity, and then was awarded the the prize for chemistry in 1911. Most of her work focused on radioactivity - including discovering radium and polonium and other contributions to the development of X-rays used during surgery. She put her technology to work in World War I, where she served on the front lines as the director of the Red Cross Radiological Service.
8. Albert Einstein. Though someone whose name has become synonymous with “genius” Einstein’s estimated IQ is only around 160. Although IQ tests were readily available during his lifetime, the famous physicist never took one. Although it is unclear how, exactly, his IQ was estimated, his scientific contributions - including theories of space, time, mass, motion and gravitation - are well documented. While he’s best known for his theory of relativity, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921 for his work related to the photoelectric effect.
9. Nikola Tesla. Estimated IQ 160-310. Tesla was born in 1856 in a region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that is now part of modern-day Croatia. His father, Milutin, was a Serbian-Orthodox priest, while his mother, Đuka Mandić, was “an inventor of the first order,” per her son’s description, who created various household tools and devices, as well as innovations related to weaving. “I must trace to my mother’s influence whatever inventiveness I possess,” he wrote in 1919 in an article published in Electrical Experimenter magazine. After studying electrical engineering in Europe, Tesla moved to the USA in 1884. Though best known for inventing the first alternating current (AC) motor and developing AC generation and transmission technology, his numerous other inventions include the Tesla coil (used in radios and televisions), the Tesla turbine and shadowgraphs (a type of X-ray technology).
10. Stephen Hawking. If theoretical physicist Hawking ever took an IQ test, he never revealed his score. In fact, when a reporter for the New York Times Magazine asked him about it in a 2004 interview, Hawking said that he had “no idea” what his score was and that “people who boast about their IQ are losers.” That hasn’t stopped people from trying to figure it out. The estimate is aroound 160. What really matters is that his scientific discoveries were (literally) out of this world, contributing to the basic laws governing the universe. Perhaps even more importantly, Hawking was committed to making his work accessible - something he did on countless television appearances and through his bestselling book A Brief History of Time.