649
The monks of the monastery on Iona are all keeping the same secret from one another.
Columba brought twelve monks to Iona in 563. His little community supported itself by farming a fertile plain on the western side of the island, but the monastery stood on the eastern side, and to get home the monks had to trudge across a mile of tumbled upland moors. By half way, the loads they bore at harvest time felt decidedly heavy.
Picture: © Richard Webb, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted May 2 2020
650
In one of the world’s most popular legends, bold hero St George rides to the rescue of a maiden in distress.
St George was a real person, a Roman soldier martyred in 303, but the story of the Dragon is a myth. The dragon symbolises the devil, a serpent with honey on his forked tongue, whose angels (St Paul tells us) are the real rulers behind the darkness of this world. George is the Christian, who puts on the whole armour of God and stands up to them armed with unceasing prayer.
Picture: © Maigheach-gheal, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted May 1 2020
651
In 1846, Daniel O’Connell stood up in the House of Commons to draw attention to the Great Hunger in Ireland, and to plead for a swift response.
Between 1845 and 1851, repeated attacks of potato blight led to the deaths of a million Irishmen from starvation and disease and the emigration of a million more. Had Parliament listened to Irish MP Daniel O’Connell, the worst of the Great Hunger might have been avoided; but that would have required the courage to ease up on the reins of power.
Picture: © Espresso Addict, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted April 30 2020
652
With Christian Europe tearing itself apart over the Protestant Reformation, the Ottoman Turks saw an opportunity for Europe-wide domination.
The Battle of Vienna took place on September 12th, 1683 (when Charles II was on the English throne). American soldier and politician John Sobieski describes here how his namesake John Sobieski, Grand Marshal and later King of Poland, saved northern Europe from conquest by the Ottoman Turks, an event that undoubtedly changed the course of world history.
Picture: © Kgbo, Wikimmedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.
Posted April 27 2020
653
The Foreign Office had a long tradition of regarding a strong Russian Empire as ‘not in the British interest,’ but John Bright saw only mutual benefit in it.
In January 1878, John Bright MP addressed a meeting in Birmingham on the subject of Russia. Russia and Turkey were at war over Turkey’s treatment of Christians in the Balkans, and there were those in Parliament who said it was ‘in the British interest’ to support Turkey and clip Russia’s wings; but Bright thought that Russian aggression was a Foreign Office myth.
Picture: By Nicholas Chevalier (1828-1902), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted April 25 2020
654
In 1877, John Bright told a meeting of the Manchester India Association that he had wanted to put India on the path to independence nearly twenty years before.
In 1858, government of India’s various Presidencies in Madras, Bombay, Bengal and other centres was taken out of the hands of the East India Company and vested in the Crown — or as John Bright put it, ‘a Governor-General and half-a-dozen eminent civilians in the city of Calcutta.’ Nineteen years later, he told a meeting in Manchester that he had wanted it done very differently.
Picture: Via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.
Posted April 24 2020