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There are two confusing things about this day of romance and anonymous love-cards strewn with lace, cupids and ribbon: firstly, there seems to have been two different Valentines in the 4th century – one a priest martyred on the Flaminian Way, under the emperor Claudius, the other a bishop of Terni martyred at Rome.  And...

The inventor of the QWERTY keyboard – now almost universally adopted in English-speaking countries – was born 200 years ago, on 14th February 1819, in Pennsylvania. Christopher Latham Scholes was an Episcopalian who could trace his ancestry back to two of the original Mayflower pilgrims, John and Priscilla Alden. Although he did not invent the...

May we be faithful and guard against the same fate that befell the Laodicean Church. The Faithful True Witness sees into His church, He stands alone not wanted inside, Contented and useless, neither hot or cold, A complacent church more dead than alive. ‘O Laodicea, can you not see? You say you are rich, but...

Consider the birds of the air They do not store up what they eat They need not to worry or care Or tweet with a worry-filled tweet. God looks after them, O it’s true! He grants them their insects and grains He gives all their feathers their hue; And shelters them all from the rain....

The Roman Emperor Claudius II needed soldiers.  He suspected that marriage made men want to stay at home with their wives, instead of fighting wars, so he outlawed marriage. A kind-hearted young priest named Valentine felt sorry for all the couples who wanted to marry, but couldn’t.  So secretly he married as many couples as...

Next month you will see a lot of daffodils about – Marie Curie daffodils.  It’s the charity’s annual Great Daffodil Appeal, which runs in March each year. The appeal is urgently needed, for as the charity explains, one in four people currently don’t receive the care and support that they need at the end of...

What do you most enjoy doing with your spare evenings?  Going to a party?  Probably not – for it seems that the joy of not going out has become the new thing to brag about. It used to be a childhood punishment: go to bed early, don’t leave the house.  Now it is discussed as...

A chap named Zacchaeus was short Too short to see Jesus, so thought In order to see, He’d climb up a tree And in Jesus’ sight he was caught.   ‘Zacchaeus! Come down from your tree! I’m coming to dinner, you see!’ He went for His dinner To the home of a sinner! (A sinner...

Saint Valentine’s Day, many believe, was named after one or more Christian martyrs and was established by Pope Gelasius 1 in 496 AD.  Valentine of Rome was martyred about 269, and this day usually ‘belongs’ to him. The first recorded association of Valentine Day with romantic love (1382) is from Geoffrey Chaucer. He wrote, ‘For...

How many walks do you take each year?  On average, it will be about 255, according to the Dept of Transport.  But only 63 of those are over one mile in distance. As for cycling, men prefer it: in 2017, men made almost three times as many cycle trips as women (24 compared to nine). ...

You are never tired, O Lord, of doing us good; let us never be weary of doing You service.  But as You have pleasure in the well-being of Your servants, let us take pleasure in the service of our Lord, and abound in Your work and in Your love and praise evermore.  A prayer of...

Thomas Bray was once called a “Great Small Man”, with good reason.  This diminutive 18th century English clergyman (1658 – 1730) not only helped to establish the Church of England in Maryland, but he was also founder of the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) in 1698 and the Society for the Propagation...