Haarlem is a beautiful little Dutch town on the River Spaarne, 15-minutes by train from Amsterdam. Founded sometime in the 10^th century, in 1245 it was granted city status or stadsrechten and was made the capital of the province of North Holland. By the 14^th century, it had become a mercantile...

We are so tragically, malignantly impatient.  Everything is moving faster and faster in our lives.  We have instant access to the  internet right on the phones in our pockets.  We do business “at the speed of light.” 

Speed and efficiency defines almost...

Poet, literary critic, and novelist, Arthur Quiller-Couch, was best known for his incomparable anthology, The Oxford Book of English Verse. As a lecturer at Oxford beginning in 1886 and a professor at Cambridge from 1912-1944, he taught an entire generation of English writers how to write. ...

In his classic book, The Holiness of God, R.C. Sproul bemoans the absence from our vocabulary of certain, once-familiar, King James Version words. It wasn’t so much the loss of antiquated verb forms like walketh and talketh, or sayest and mayest that bothered him. It wasn’t obsolete...

By the 16^th century virtually no one disagreed on the fact that the West needed to be reformed.  What they disagreed on was what that reform should entail and how it was to be effected.  In frustrated tension, dozens of competing factions, sects, schisms, rifts, rebellions, and...

It is one of the great ironies of our day that Christians can pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,” and not actually mean anything by it. Indeed, it is a stunning paradox that we can live as if such a prayer could not be answered. Even worse, we can live as if such a...

Jeremiad.

Definition: "an elaborate and prolonged lamentation; a cry of woe; and expression of righteous indignation."

Nehemiad.

Definition: "an elaborate and prolonged humiliation; a cry of grief; an expression of righteous repentance."

Well might we plead the case for an outpouring of Jeremiads...

“In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” Thomas Jefferson

“I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I...

The years leading up to the Scottish Disruption and those immediately afterward produced some of the most remarkable servants of God in the history of the church.  Andrew Alexander Bonar (1810-1892) was a member of that galaxy of brilliant, Reformed Scots preachers, writers, and missionaries...

No one in his or her right mind actually wishes for adversity.  No one ever really goes looking for trouble.  No one wants conflict or pain or struggle or loss or scandal or anguish or confrontation or sickness.  Difficulty is never desirable.  Trials and tribulations are just...