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Electric Scotland News
My Canadian Experience
December 2025 entry at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/canada_add28.htm
This week I've added videos on how Canada just pulled off a major geopolitical win — joining Europe’s new 150-billion-euro SAFE defense pact for only $16 million. GM in Total Meltdown Over New Auto Law. Burkhard Straube, CEO of Vianode, joins BNN Bloomberg as the company's set to build $3.2 billion graphite plant for EV production. Canada's insane plan for the Arctic. Canada’s $6.6B Arctic Radar Pact With Australia Just Blindsided China. Say hello to pro-pipeline First Nations in B.C. Canada Wins Big After Ditching U.S. Cars: A Strategic Pivot Toward Europe’s Auto Industry. Microsoft pledges $19B AI investment in Canada between 2023 and 2027. Massive Australian Fund Picks Toronto Over the Entire USA! Canada Breaks Its Silence as Sweden’s Gripen Strategy Shocks Washington & NATO Allies
From what I can see there are still deals to be made with China, India and Mexico which will likely come in the first months of 2026. So the investment in Canada look to exceed the target made in the 2025 budget. Also still work to be done in the Auto sector.
Also in 2026 we'll find out what fighter aircraft and submarines Canada is going to purchase.
----------
I've not been covering much on the UK for news and that's mostly because the situation there is not that good and news topics are very repetitive. Reform still looks to be the next government for the UK and is making progress in Scotland. However, we all thought that the Conservatives in Canada were a certainty to win and we now know how that turned out! I am still bringing you news on Scotland just not so much on the rest of the UK.
-------
The ENTIRE History Of The Northwest Territories, Canada
I just discovered a slew of these videos on YouTube and they cover all the Provinces and Territories in Canada. I've added them to the web site but I would note that so far I've only watched the one on Prince Edward Island and I wasn't that impressed with it. For those folk that know the history of a Province and would watch them perhaps let me know what you think?
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers and other media
I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
Here is what caught my eye this week...
AMERICA IS BREAKING: Jobs Down, Factories Down, Confidence Down
Watch this report on YouTube at:
https://youtu.be/olkpdiJf5qc?si=cudl3GK_-ng13Pe6
Reform support grows as immigration becomes increasing priority for Scots voters
Scottish Labour's support has dropped sharply in the last six months as voters lose faith in Keir Starmer.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...comes-36380831
Scotland continues to have lowest life expectancy in UK in 'damning indictment' of SNP record on health
Scots can expect to live two years less than people born in England, and over a year less than those in Wales.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...tancy-36379217
Why Malcolm Offord is a game-changer for Reform in Scotland
ON SATURDAY past, at a Reform UK Scotland rally in Falkirk, something happened that strengthened Reform’s prospects for the Holyrood election in May. Malcolm Offord (The Lord Offord of Garvel CVO) resigned from the Conservative Party, including his posts as Shadow Energy spokesman and Treasurer for the Scottish Conservatives, and joined Reform UK. He also announced his intention to relinquish his peerage to run in next year’s Scottish Parliament election.
Read more at:
https://thinkscotland.org/2025/12/wh...m-in-scotland/
How is Scotland's economy performing - and how can it improve?
How can Scotland's economic performance be improved? It's heading towards two decades of very sluggish growth, and hardly any rise in disposable household income.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr7lm2z7lk1o
Conrad Black: Mark Carney's coup de grāce — forcing Guilbeault out of cabinet
The activist former environment minister's departure is great news for this country
Read more at:
https://archive.is/vK7ms
Leading academic takes aim at Scottish Government education statistics as 'deeply flawed'
Professor Lindsay Paterson called educational statistics, published on Tuesday, “deeply flawed” and “misleading”.
Read more at:
https://archive.is/IHFge#selection-949.0-949.113
Fed Cuts Rate to 3.75%
Money Printing Begins on December 12
Watch this video at:
https://youtu.be/rVAsVolS6Pw?si=bw60BmAgTBoSyjso
Japanese Bond Yields Surge
What It Means For Markets?
Watch this video at:
https://youtu.be/D-zczGOXq9s?si=oJYW2VRt7IpFrXDj
A dementia vaccine could be real, and some of us have taken it without knowing
Getting vaccinated against shingles could protect you from getting dementia, or slow the progression of the disease, says a new study
Read more at:
https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/sh...ccine-dementia
Electric Canadian
The Mi'Kmaq Nation - A Story of Survival
Added this YouTube video to the foot of the page.
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...mac/videos.htm
The ENTIRE History Of The Northwest Territories, Canada
(10,000 Years in 66 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/nwt/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of Prince Edward Island
(20,000 Years in 67 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/pei/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of The Yukon, Canada
(14,000 Years in 71 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/yukon/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of Canadian Confederation
A YouTube video.
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/make...tion/index.htm
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning - the 7th day of December 2025 - The Golden Rule
By The Rev. Nola Crewe
View this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...he-golden-rule
Why Canadians In The 1950s And 1960s Became The Toughest Generation Ever
Added this video to our Lifestyle page as the first one down the page.
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/lifestyle/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of Saskatchewan, Canada
(12,000 Years in 63 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...ewan/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of New Brunswick, Canada
(10,000 Years In 84 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/nb/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of British Columbia, Canada
(14,000 Years In 57 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/bc/index.htm
Frank Gehry
Global architectural titan
Read about him at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/makers/frank-gehry.htm
700 vs 3,500: The Midnight Attack That Saved Canada
Battle of Stoney Creek 1813. 4th video down the page.
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forces/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of ALBERTA, Canada
(13,000 years in 58 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...erta/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of Nova Scotia, Canada
(10,000 Years in 45 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...otia/index.htm
James Thompson
Soldier and Office Holder
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/make...pson_james.htm
The Beaver Magazine
Added No. 1 Outfit 264 June 1933 (pdf)
You can read this issue at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...erJune1933.pdf
The ENTIRE History Of Newfoundland and Labrador
(9000 Years in 62 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...land/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of Ontario, Canada
(10,000 Years in 57 Minutes) A video.
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...ario/index.htm
Electric Scotland
Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, from Spanish and Portuguese Domination
By Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald (1859)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...cochranndx.htm
Major Alexander Laing
From Tripoli to Timbuktu (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclan...o-Timbuktu.pdf
Cosmo Gordon Lang
By J. G. Lockhart (1949) (pdf)
You can read about him at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclan...ordon-Lang.pdf
Dictionary of Battles and Sieges
A Guide to 8,500 Battles from Antiquity through the Twenty-first Century, Volumes 1–3 by Tony Jaques (2007) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...0313335365.pdf
The Poetical Works of Donald Watson
With Memoir by Donald Watson (1909) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/poetry/...sofd00wats.pdf
Memorial of James Thompson
Of Charleston, Mass., 1630-1642 and Woburn, Mass, 1642 -1682; Eight Generations of His Descendants By Rev. Leander Thompson, A.M. (1887) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...st00inthom.pdf
The History of Trinity Methodist Church
North Carolina (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...nity00mart.pdf
Life of Rev. Daniel White
With Incidents in Scotland and America By Duncan McNeill (1879) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...ielw00mcne.pdf
Scottish Society of Louisville
Added their December 2025 newsletter which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...ille/index.htm
The Richest Families in SCOTLAND
A YouTube video, the third down on the page.
You can view this at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclans/index.html
The History of the Highland Clearances
By Alexander MacKenzie (1883) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...00mackuoft.pdf
Story
The Monks of the West
From St. Benedict to St. Bernard by The Count de Montalembert, Member of the French Academy in 7 volumes
Next week I am going to add all 7 volumes into our Religious section of Electric Scotland as I believe this is a great historical resource.
ORIGIN OF THIS WORK.
This work originated in a purpose more limited than its title implies. After having narrated, more than twenty years since, in the Histoire de Sainte Elisabeth, the life of a young woman in whom was epitomised the Catholic poetry of suffering and of love, and whose modest and forgotten existence belonged nevertheless to the most resplendent epoch of the middle ages, I had proposed to myself a task more difficult: I desired, in writing the life of a great monk, to contribute to the vindication of the monastic orders. Happy to have been able to attract some attention to an aspect of religious history too long obscured and forgotten, by justifying the action of Catholicism upon, the most tender and exalted sentiments of the human heart, I hoped, by a sketch of another kind, to secure the same suffrages in vindicating Catholic and historic truth upon the ground where it has been most misconstrued, and where it still encounters the greatest antipathies and prejudices.’
The name of St Bernard immediately recurs to any inquirer who seeks the most accomplished type of the Religious. No other man has shed so much glory over the frock of the monk. Yet, notwithstanding, strange to tell! none of the numerous authors who have written his history, excepting his first biographers, who commenced their work during his life, seem to have understood the fact which both governed and explained his career—his monastic profession. By consent of all, St Bernard was a great man and a man of genius; he exercised upon his age an ascendancy without parallel; he reigned by eloquence, virtue, and courage. More than once he decided the fate of nations and of crowns—at one time, even, he held in his hands the destiny of the Church. He was able to influence Europe, and to precipitate her upon the East; he was able to combat and overcome, in Abailard, the precursor of modern rationalism. All the world knows and says as much—by consent of all he takes rank by the side of Ximenes, of Richelieu, and of Bossuet. But that is not enough. If he was—and who can doubt it ?—a great orator, a great writer, and a great man; he neither knew it nor cared for it. He was, and above all wished to be, something entirely different; he was a monk and a saint; he lived in a cloister and worked miracles.
The Church has established and defined the sanctity of Bernard—but history remains charged with the mission of recounting his life, and of explaining the marvellous influence which he exercised upon his contemporaries.
But in proceeding to study the life of this great man, who was a monk, we find that the popes, the bishops, and the saints, who were then the honour and bulwark of Christian society, came, like him, all, or nearly all, from the monastic order. What were they, then, these monks?—from whence came they?—and what had they done till then to occupy so high a place in the destinies of the world? It is necessary, first of all, to resolve these questions.
And there is more. In attempting to judge the age in which St Bernard lived, we perceive that it is impossible either to explain or to comprehend it without recognising it as animated by the same breath which had vivified an anterior epoch, of which this was but the direct and faithful continuation.
If the twelfth century did homage to the genius and the virtue of the monk Bernard, it is because the eleventh century had been regenerated and penetrated by the virtue and the genius of the monk who was called Gregory VII. Neither the epoch nor the work of Bernard should be looked at apart from the salutary crisis which had prepared the one and made the other possible: a simple monk could never have been heard and obeyed as Bernard was, if his undisputed greatness had not been preceded by the contests, the trials, and the posthumous victory of that' other monk who died six years before his birth. It is, then, necessary not only to characterise by a conscientious examination the pontificate of the greatest of those popes who have proceeded from the monastic class, but also to pass in review the whole period which connected the last struggles of Gregory with the first efforts of Bernard, and to thus attempt the recital of the gravest and most glorious strife in which the Church ever was engaged, and in which the monks stood foremost in suffering as in honour.
But even that is not enough. Far from being the founders of the monastic order, Gregory VII. and Bernard were but produced by it, like thousands more of their contemporaries. That institution had existed more than five centuries when these great men learnt how to draw from it so marvellous a strength. To know its origin, to appreciate its nature and its services, it is necessary to go back to another Gregory—to St Gregory the Great, to the first pope who came from the cloister; and further still, to St Benedict, legislator and patriarch of the monks of the West. It is necessary at least to glance at the superhuman efforts made during these five centuries by legions of monks, perpetually renewed, to subdue, to pacify, to discipline, and to purify the savage nations amongst whom they laboured, and of whom t^wenty barbarous tribes were successively transformed into Christian nations. It would be cruel injustice and ingratitude to pass by in silence twenty generations of indomitable labourers, who had cleared the thorns from the souls of our fathers, as they cleared the soil of Christian Europe, and had left only the labour of the reaper to Bernard and his contemporaries.
The volumes of which I now begin the publication are destined to this preliminary task.
Ambitious of carrying my readers with me on the way which I have opened to myself, my intention by this long preamble has been to show what the Monastic Order was, and what it had done for the Catholic world, before the advent of St Bernard to the first place in the esteem and admiration of Christendom in his time. In a literary point of view, I know, it is unwise to diffuse thus over a long series of years, and a multitude of names for the most part forgotten, the interest which it would be so easy to concentrate upon one luminous point, upon one superior genius. It is an enterprise of which I perceive the danger. Besides, in showing thus so many great men and great works before coming to him who ought to be the hero of my book, I am aware that I enfeeble the effect of his individual grandeur, the merit of his devotion, the animation of the tale. I should take care to avoid this peril if I wrote only for success. But there is to every Christian a beauty superior to art—the beauty of truth. There is something which concerns us more closely than the glory of all the heroes and even of all the saints—and that is, the honour of the Church, and her providential progress through the midst of the storms and darkness of history. I was loth to sacrifice the honour of an august institution, too long calumniated and proscribed, to the honour of a single man. Had I even been thus tempted, that hero himself, Bernard, the great apostle of justice and of truth, would have resented my so doing—he would not pardon me for exalting himself at the expense of his predecessors and his masters.
The subject, thus developed, embraces but too vast a field—it belongs at once to the present and to the past. The links which attach it to all our history are numerous and manifest. When we look at the map of ancient France, or of any one of our provinces, no matter which, we encounter at each step the names of abbeys, of chapter-houses, of convents, of priories, of hermitages, which mark the dwelling-place of so many monastic colonies. Where is the town which has not been founded, or enriched, or protected by some religious community? Where is the church which owes not to them a patron, a relic, a pious and popular tradition ? Wherever there is a luxuriant forest, a pure stream, a majestic hill, we may be sure that Religion has there left her stamp by the hand of the monk. That impression has also marked itself in universal and lasting lines upon the laws, the arts, the manners—upon the entire aspect of our ancient society. Christendom, in its youth, has been throughout vivified, directed, and constituted by the monastic spirit. Wherever we interrogate the monuments of the past, not only in France but in all Europe— in Spain as in Sweden, in Scotland as in Sicily— everywhere rises before us the memory of the monk,—the traces, ill-effaced, of his labours, of his power, of his benefactions, from the humble furrow which he has been the first to draw in the bogs of Brittany or of Ireland, up to the extinguished splendours of Marmoutier and Cluny, of Melrose and the Escurial.
And there is also a contemporary interest by the side of this interest of the past. Universally proscribed and dishonoured during the eighteenth century, in the nineteenth the religious orders everywhere reappear. Our age has witnessed, at the same time, their burial and their resurrection. Here we have succeeded in rooting out their last remnants, and there they have already renewed their life. Wherever the Catholic religion is not the object of open persecution, as in Sweden— wherever she has been able to obtain her legitimate portion of modern liberty—they reappear as of themselves. We have despoiled and proscribed them—we see them everywhere return, sometimes under new names and appearances, but always with their ancient spirit. They neither reclaim nor regret their antique grandeur. They limit themselves to living—to preaching by word and by example— without wealth, without pomp, without legal rights, but not without force nor without trials—not without friends, nor, above all, without enemies.
Friends and enemies are alike interested to know from whence they come, and whence they have drawn the secret of a life so tenacious and so fruitful. I offer to the one as to the other a tale which shall not be a panegyric nor even an apology, but the sincere testimony of a friend, of an admirer, who desires to preserve the impartial equity which history demands, and who will conceal no stain that he may have the fuller right of veiling no glory.
END.
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you.
Alastair
My Canadian Experience
December 2025 entry at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/canada_add28.htm
This week I've added videos on how Canada just pulled off a major geopolitical win — joining Europe’s new 150-billion-euro SAFE defense pact for only $16 million. GM in Total Meltdown Over New Auto Law. Burkhard Straube, CEO of Vianode, joins BNN Bloomberg as the company's set to build $3.2 billion graphite plant for EV production. Canada's insane plan for the Arctic. Canada’s $6.6B Arctic Radar Pact With Australia Just Blindsided China. Say hello to pro-pipeline First Nations in B.C. Canada Wins Big After Ditching U.S. Cars: A Strategic Pivot Toward Europe’s Auto Industry. Microsoft pledges $19B AI investment in Canada between 2023 and 2027. Massive Australian Fund Picks Toronto Over the Entire USA! Canada Breaks Its Silence as Sweden’s Gripen Strategy Shocks Washington & NATO Allies
From what I can see there are still deals to be made with China, India and Mexico which will likely come in the first months of 2026. So the investment in Canada look to exceed the target made in the 2025 budget. Also still work to be done in the Auto sector.
Also in 2026 we'll find out what fighter aircraft and submarines Canada is going to purchase.
----------
I've not been covering much on the UK for news and that's mostly because the situation there is not that good and news topics are very repetitive. Reform still looks to be the next government for the UK and is making progress in Scotland. However, we all thought that the Conservatives in Canada were a certainty to win and we now know how that turned out! I am still bringing you news on Scotland just not so much on the rest of the UK.
-------
The ENTIRE History Of The Northwest Territories, Canada
I just discovered a slew of these videos on YouTube and they cover all the Provinces and Territories in Canada. I've added them to the web site but I would note that so far I've only watched the one on Prince Edward Island and I wasn't that impressed with it. For those folk that know the history of a Province and would watch them perhaps let me know what you think?
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers and other media
I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
Here is what caught my eye this week...
AMERICA IS BREAKING: Jobs Down, Factories Down, Confidence Down
Watch this report on YouTube at:
https://youtu.be/olkpdiJf5qc?si=cudl3GK_-ng13Pe6
Reform support grows as immigration becomes increasing priority for Scots voters
Scottish Labour's support has dropped sharply in the last six months as voters lose faith in Keir Starmer.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...comes-36380831
Scotland continues to have lowest life expectancy in UK in 'damning indictment' of SNP record on health
Scots can expect to live two years less than people born in England, and over a year less than those in Wales.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...tancy-36379217
Why Malcolm Offord is a game-changer for Reform in Scotland
ON SATURDAY past, at a Reform UK Scotland rally in Falkirk, something happened that strengthened Reform’s prospects for the Holyrood election in May. Malcolm Offord (The Lord Offord of Garvel CVO) resigned from the Conservative Party, including his posts as Shadow Energy spokesman and Treasurer for the Scottish Conservatives, and joined Reform UK. He also announced his intention to relinquish his peerage to run in next year’s Scottish Parliament election.
Read more at:
https://thinkscotland.org/2025/12/wh...m-in-scotland/
How is Scotland's economy performing - and how can it improve?
How can Scotland's economic performance be improved? It's heading towards two decades of very sluggish growth, and hardly any rise in disposable household income.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr7lm2z7lk1o
Conrad Black: Mark Carney's coup de grāce — forcing Guilbeault out of cabinet
The activist former environment minister's departure is great news for this country
Read more at:
https://archive.is/vK7ms
Leading academic takes aim at Scottish Government education statistics as 'deeply flawed'
Professor Lindsay Paterson called educational statistics, published on Tuesday, “deeply flawed” and “misleading”.
Read more at:
https://archive.is/IHFge#selection-949.0-949.113
Fed Cuts Rate to 3.75%
Money Printing Begins on December 12
Watch this video at:
https://youtu.be/rVAsVolS6Pw?si=bw60BmAgTBoSyjso
Japanese Bond Yields Surge
What It Means For Markets?
Watch this video at:
https://youtu.be/D-zczGOXq9s?si=oJYW2VRt7IpFrXDj
A dementia vaccine could be real, and some of us have taken it without knowing
Getting vaccinated against shingles could protect you from getting dementia, or slow the progression of the disease, says a new study
Read more at:
https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/sh...ccine-dementia
Electric Canadian
The Mi'Kmaq Nation - A Story of Survival
Added this YouTube video to the foot of the page.
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...mac/videos.htm
The ENTIRE History Of The Northwest Territories, Canada
(10,000 Years in 66 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/nwt/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of Prince Edward Island
(20,000 Years in 67 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/pei/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of The Yukon, Canada
(14,000 Years in 71 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/yukon/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of Canadian Confederation
A YouTube video.
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/make...tion/index.htm
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning - the 7th day of December 2025 - The Golden Rule
By The Rev. Nola Crewe
View this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...he-golden-rule
Why Canadians In The 1950s And 1960s Became The Toughest Generation Ever
Added this video to our Lifestyle page as the first one down the page.
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/lifestyle/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of Saskatchewan, Canada
(12,000 Years in 63 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...ewan/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of New Brunswick, Canada
(10,000 Years In 84 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/nb/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of British Columbia, Canada
(14,000 Years In 57 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/history/bc/index.htm
Frank Gehry
Global architectural titan
Read about him at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/makers/frank-gehry.htm
700 vs 3,500: The Midnight Attack That Saved Canada
Battle of Stoney Creek 1813. 4th video down the page.
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forces/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of ALBERTA, Canada
(13,000 years in 58 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...erta/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of Nova Scotia, Canada
(10,000 Years in 45 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...otia/index.htm
James Thompson
Soldier and Office Holder
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/make...pson_james.htm
The Beaver Magazine
Added No. 1 Outfit 264 June 1933 (pdf)
You can read this issue at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...erJune1933.pdf
The ENTIRE History Of Newfoundland and Labrador
(9000 Years in 62 Minutes)
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...land/index.htm
The ENTIRE History Of Ontario, Canada
(10,000 Years in 57 Minutes) A video.
View this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...ario/index.htm
Electric Scotland
Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, from Spanish and Portuguese Domination
By Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald (1859)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...cochranndx.htm
Major Alexander Laing
From Tripoli to Timbuktu (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclan...o-Timbuktu.pdf
Cosmo Gordon Lang
By J. G. Lockhart (1949) (pdf)
You can read about him at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclan...ordon-Lang.pdf
Dictionary of Battles and Sieges
A Guide to 8,500 Battles from Antiquity through the Twenty-first Century, Volumes 1–3 by Tony Jaques (2007) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...0313335365.pdf
The Poetical Works of Donald Watson
With Memoir by Donald Watson (1909) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/poetry/...sofd00wats.pdf
Memorial of James Thompson
Of Charleston, Mass., 1630-1642 and Woburn, Mass, 1642 -1682; Eight Generations of His Descendants By Rev. Leander Thompson, A.M. (1887) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...st00inthom.pdf
The History of Trinity Methodist Church
North Carolina (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...nity00mart.pdf
Life of Rev. Daniel White
With Incidents in Scotland and America By Duncan McNeill (1879) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...ielw00mcne.pdf
Scottish Society of Louisville
Added their December 2025 newsletter which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...ille/index.htm
The Richest Families in SCOTLAND
A YouTube video, the third down on the page.
You can view this at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclans/index.html
The History of the Highland Clearances
By Alexander MacKenzie (1883) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...00mackuoft.pdf
Story
The Monks of the West
From St. Benedict to St. Bernard by The Count de Montalembert, Member of the French Academy in 7 volumes
Next week I am going to add all 7 volumes into our Religious section of Electric Scotland as I believe this is a great historical resource.
ORIGIN OF THIS WORK.
This work originated in a purpose more limited than its title implies. After having narrated, more than twenty years since, in the Histoire de Sainte Elisabeth, the life of a young woman in whom was epitomised the Catholic poetry of suffering and of love, and whose modest and forgotten existence belonged nevertheless to the most resplendent epoch of the middle ages, I had proposed to myself a task more difficult: I desired, in writing the life of a great monk, to contribute to the vindication of the monastic orders. Happy to have been able to attract some attention to an aspect of religious history too long obscured and forgotten, by justifying the action of Catholicism upon, the most tender and exalted sentiments of the human heart, I hoped, by a sketch of another kind, to secure the same suffrages in vindicating Catholic and historic truth upon the ground where it has been most misconstrued, and where it still encounters the greatest antipathies and prejudices.’
The name of St Bernard immediately recurs to any inquirer who seeks the most accomplished type of the Religious. No other man has shed so much glory over the frock of the monk. Yet, notwithstanding, strange to tell! none of the numerous authors who have written his history, excepting his first biographers, who commenced their work during his life, seem to have understood the fact which both governed and explained his career—his monastic profession. By consent of all, St Bernard was a great man and a man of genius; he exercised upon his age an ascendancy without parallel; he reigned by eloquence, virtue, and courage. More than once he decided the fate of nations and of crowns—at one time, even, he held in his hands the destiny of the Church. He was able to influence Europe, and to precipitate her upon the East; he was able to combat and overcome, in Abailard, the precursor of modern rationalism. All the world knows and says as much—by consent of all he takes rank by the side of Ximenes, of Richelieu, and of Bossuet. But that is not enough. If he was—and who can doubt it ?—a great orator, a great writer, and a great man; he neither knew it nor cared for it. He was, and above all wished to be, something entirely different; he was a monk and a saint; he lived in a cloister and worked miracles.
The Church has established and defined the sanctity of Bernard—but history remains charged with the mission of recounting his life, and of explaining the marvellous influence which he exercised upon his contemporaries.
But in proceeding to study the life of this great man, who was a monk, we find that the popes, the bishops, and the saints, who were then the honour and bulwark of Christian society, came, like him, all, or nearly all, from the monastic order. What were they, then, these monks?—from whence came they?—and what had they done till then to occupy so high a place in the destinies of the world? It is necessary, first of all, to resolve these questions.
And there is more. In attempting to judge the age in which St Bernard lived, we perceive that it is impossible either to explain or to comprehend it without recognising it as animated by the same breath which had vivified an anterior epoch, of which this was but the direct and faithful continuation.
If the twelfth century did homage to the genius and the virtue of the monk Bernard, it is because the eleventh century had been regenerated and penetrated by the virtue and the genius of the monk who was called Gregory VII. Neither the epoch nor the work of Bernard should be looked at apart from the salutary crisis which had prepared the one and made the other possible: a simple monk could never have been heard and obeyed as Bernard was, if his undisputed greatness had not been preceded by the contests, the trials, and the posthumous victory of that' other monk who died six years before his birth. It is, then, necessary not only to characterise by a conscientious examination the pontificate of the greatest of those popes who have proceeded from the monastic class, but also to pass in review the whole period which connected the last struggles of Gregory with the first efforts of Bernard, and to thus attempt the recital of the gravest and most glorious strife in which the Church ever was engaged, and in which the monks stood foremost in suffering as in honour.
But even that is not enough. Far from being the founders of the monastic order, Gregory VII. and Bernard were but produced by it, like thousands more of their contemporaries. That institution had existed more than five centuries when these great men learnt how to draw from it so marvellous a strength. To know its origin, to appreciate its nature and its services, it is necessary to go back to another Gregory—to St Gregory the Great, to the first pope who came from the cloister; and further still, to St Benedict, legislator and patriarch of the monks of the West. It is necessary at least to glance at the superhuman efforts made during these five centuries by legions of monks, perpetually renewed, to subdue, to pacify, to discipline, and to purify the savage nations amongst whom they laboured, and of whom t^wenty barbarous tribes were successively transformed into Christian nations. It would be cruel injustice and ingratitude to pass by in silence twenty generations of indomitable labourers, who had cleared the thorns from the souls of our fathers, as they cleared the soil of Christian Europe, and had left only the labour of the reaper to Bernard and his contemporaries.
The volumes of which I now begin the publication are destined to this preliminary task.
Ambitious of carrying my readers with me on the way which I have opened to myself, my intention by this long preamble has been to show what the Monastic Order was, and what it had done for the Catholic world, before the advent of St Bernard to the first place in the esteem and admiration of Christendom in his time. In a literary point of view, I know, it is unwise to diffuse thus over a long series of years, and a multitude of names for the most part forgotten, the interest which it would be so easy to concentrate upon one luminous point, upon one superior genius. It is an enterprise of which I perceive the danger. Besides, in showing thus so many great men and great works before coming to him who ought to be the hero of my book, I am aware that I enfeeble the effect of his individual grandeur, the merit of his devotion, the animation of the tale. I should take care to avoid this peril if I wrote only for success. But there is to every Christian a beauty superior to art—the beauty of truth. There is something which concerns us more closely than the glory of all the heroes and even of all the saints—and that is, the honour of the Church, and her providential progress through the midst of the storms and darkness of history. I was loth to sacrifice the honour of an august institution, too long calumniated and proscribed, to the honour of a single man. Had I even been thus tempted, that hero himself, Bernard, the great apostle of justice and of truth, would have resented my so doing—he would not pardon me for exalting himself at the expense of his predecessors and his masters.
The subject, thus developed, embraces but too vast a field—it belongs at once to the present and to the past. The links which attach it to all our history are numerous and manifest. When we look at the map of ancient France, or of any one of our provinces, no matter which, we encounter at each step the names of abbeys, of chapter-houses, of convents, of priories, of hermitages, which mark the dwelling-place of so many monastic colonies. Where is the town which has not been founded, or enriched, or protected by some religious community? Where is the church which owes not to them a patron, a relic, a pious and popular tradition ? Wherever there is a luxuriant forest, a pure stream, a majestic hill, we may be sure that Religion has there left her stamp by the hand of the monk. That impression has also marked itself in universal and lasting lines upon the laws, the arts, the manners—upon the entire aspect of our ancient society. Christendom, in its youth, has been throughout vivified, directed, and constituted by the monastic spirit. Wherever we interrogate the monuments of the past, not only in France but in all Europe— in Spain as in Sweden, in Scotland as in Sicily— everywhere rises before us the memory of the monk,—the traces, ill-effaced, of his labours, of his power, of his benefactions, from the humble furrow which he has been the first to draw in the bogs of Brittany or of Ireland, up to the extinguished splendours of Marmoutier and Cluny, of Melrose and the Escurial.
And there is also a contemporary interest by the side of this interest of the past. Universally proscribed and dishonoured during the eighteenth century, in the nineteenth the religious orders everywhere reappear. Our age has witnessed, at the same time, their burial and their resurrection. Here we have succeeded in rooting out their last remnants, and there they have already renewed their life. Wherever the Catholic religion is not the object of open persecution, as in Sweden— wherever she has been able to obtain her legitimate portion of modern liberty—they reappear as of themselves. We have despoiled and proscribed them—we see them everywhere return, sometimes under new names and appearances, but always with their ancient spirit. They neither reclaim nor regret their antique grandeur. They limit themselves to living—to preaching by word and by example— without wealth, without pomp, without legal rights, but not without force nor without trials—not without friends, nor, above all, without enemies.
Friends and enemies are alike interested to know from whence they come, and whence they have drawn the secret of a life so tenacious and so fruitful. I offer to the one as to the other a tale which shall not be a panegyric nor even an apology, but the sincere testimony of a friend, of an admirer, who desires to preserve the impartial equity which history demands, and who will conceal no stain that he may have the fuller right of veiling no glory.
END.
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you.
Alastair