LOW, DAVID, 1768-1855.
Sermon, 1821 Aug. 12.

MANUSCRIPT NUMBER 104

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CITATION:  David Low Sermon, MSS 104, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University.

David Low was born in November 1768 at Brechin, Forfarshire, Scotland.  He attended Marischal College, Aberdeen, after which he was appointed schoolmaster of Menmuir in Forfarshire.  Low took holy orders in December 1787 and became the pastor of a small congregation in Perth.  Two years later, in September of 1789, he accepted the position as minister of Pittenweem, Fifeshire. Low was consecrated bishop of the combined dioceses of Ross, Argyll, and the Isles on November 14, 1819.  By April 1820, Aberdeen awarded him the degree of LL.D.  Low was a driving force in the creation of the Gaelic Episcopal Society in 1831.  This society organized schools in the highlands under Gaelic teachers and stressed the importance of the Gaelic language in the training of ministers.  Bishop Low also played a significant part in the movement for the repeal of the penal laws of 1746 and 1748, which were directed at the Scottish Episcopalians because of their Jacobite sympathies.  In 1838, the diocese of Moray was added to his domain.  He created and endowed a new see by a division of Argyll and the Isles from Ross and Moray in 1847.  He was awarded an honorary D.D. by Hartford College, Connecticut, and Geneva College, New York.  In December 1850, due to his increasingly poor health, Low was forced to resign his see.  He retired to Pittenweem where he died on January 26, 1855.

This sermon is based on the text of St. John 6:54.  It was delivered by Bishop Low in Scotland on August 12, 1821 and again on August 9, 1829.  The principal topic of the sermon is Holy Communion.