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Archibald Cook was a fearless minister who deeply impacted the Scottish Highlands in the 19th Century and is the subject of a new book - One of Heaven’s Jewels - published in aid of Bethesda Care Home and Hospice on Lewis. The original Free North church in Inverness was built for this Arran-born preacher, who attracted thousands of hearers at communion services.  A man who blended Lowland and Highland Calvinism, he opposed the clearances and was loved by the ordinary people. He helped evangelise the West Highlands through the vast numbers of West Coast fishermen and herring women who heard him preach at Gaelic services he set up for them during the herring seasons in Wick in the 1820s.  His brother, Finlay, was the first evangelical minister in the Church of Scotland in Cross, in Lewis. The new book, One of Heaven’s Jewels, tells how Archie Cook’s generation lived and worshipped. A warm-hearted mixture of community, social and church history, it describes a man of deep spiritual discernment, whose sermons identified and encouraged the least sign of spiritual life. A man of action, he would tramp through deep snow to keep preaching appointments and backed the people’s struggle to have the right to choose their own minister. The first six chapters describe the revival-era atmosphere in Arran, where he grew up, as well as his three pastorates and the famous struggle by the Daviot people to call him as their minister. Several further chapters describe urban grass-roots evangelism, the 1857-1861 revival movement in the Highlands, the Union controversy, the early Inverness career of the Rev. Duncan Macbeth (now better known for his later Ness ministry), Cook’s friendship with Rev. Jonathan Ranken Anderson, communion seasons and the Separatist movement. The last two chapters discuss the possible influences that his mentor Dr John Love had on Cook’s thought, and Cook’s own emphases.

The paperback sells at £19.99, and all profits will go to the Bethesda Care Home and Hospice in Stornoway. One of Heaven’s Jewels has 27 colour photos, several black and white pictures, 278 pages and reflects a dozen years’ worth of research by island author, Norman Campbell. It can be bought at the Free Church Bookshop, Roddy Smith’s (Stornoway), Borders Inverness, or online at the Bethesda website shop: