Real Men Wear Kilts

Having Scottish ancestry is great. There’s lots of cool things about being Scottish, like wearing a kilt, Scotch (or to be more specific – drinking Scotch), the Loch Ness Monster, the movie Braveheart, Scottish music both old and new, McEwan’s Ale, and of course, bagpipes. Every year my wife and I attend the Ohio Scottish Games. It gives me an opportunity to totally absorb myself in Scottish culture for a day. Pipe bands, Scottish country dancing, the Highland Fling, fish and chips – it’s all there to be enjoyed and I do enjoy myself! But having this Scottish connection often goes deeper for me. Having ties to the great Scottish preachers, the Scottish Puritans means so much more. Many of the names we surely know and have read at least something by them at one time or another in our lives: Andrew Gray, Ralph Erskine, Ebeneezer Erskine, Thomas Boston, Thomas Chalmers, William Guthrie, Thomas Guthrie, Horatius Bonar, Andrew Bonar, Hugh Binning, Andrew Melville, John Knox and Samuel Rutherford to name a few. How blessed we are to have these men in our Christian heritage and to still be afforded the opportunity to read much of what they penned. A great site with links to the works of many of the Scottish preachers can be found here: http://www.newble.co.uk/hall/hallofame.html. Sadly, Scotland’s spiritual condition is not what it once was, but the truth continues to be taught by the likes the Rev. James Frew at the Kiltearn Church in Evanton (http://kiltearnfreechurch.co.uk/index.html) and the Rev. Harry Woods at the Beauly Free Church of Scotland (http://beaulyfreechurch.co.uk/). For me there is nothing better than sipping a McEwan’s Ale and reading the works of these fine men that have gone before us.