On March 13, 1733, Joseph Priestley was born in Fieldhead,
Yorkshire, England. He was educated for the Dissenting ministry and became an
outstanding theologian. He wrote many books on religion, including the
influential History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782), which Thomas
Jefferson credited with his conversion to Unitarianism. Priestley also became a
successful preacher, despite a marked and painful stutter. However, he is best
known for chemistry, the hobby he took up in his mid-thirties. He took part in
a group of accomplished liberal religious thinkers (called the Lunar Society
because it met when the full moon promoted safe travel) who also engaged in
science. Priestley is credited with a number of discoveries, including oxygen
and a method of curing scurvy at sea, which was used by Captain Cook on his
voyages. His inventions included anesthesia, carbonated water, a process for
measuring the purity of air, and pencil erasers. Supported in these interests
by his wife’s brothers, Priestley made his inventions available to the public
and received no money for any of them. Priestly’s major ministries were in
Leeds and Birmingham, England, and then in Philadelphia. He taught at
Warrington Academy, a Unitarian school for training ministers and a predecessor
of Harris Manchester College at Oxford. There he conducted many of his
scientific experiements and wrote science textbooks. Extremely liberal in his
politics, Priestly was forced to leave England for America in 1794 after a mob
burned his home and laboratory over his support for the principles of the
French Revolution. He received numerous honors during his lifetime. Priestley
died on February 6, 1804.
WEEKLY INSPIRATION:
"Cherish your
doubts, for doubt is the attendant of truth. Doubt is the key to the door of
knowledge; it is the servant of discovery. A belief which may not be questioned
binds us to error, for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every
belief. Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the
false. Let no one fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it; for doubt is
the testing of belief. The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken
by the testing."
- Robert T. Weston
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