A cold winter had descended upon the rural Scottish countryside in the county of Fife. It was the winter of 1614. Flocks of sheep were in their cold weather quarters, nestled safely inside their folds. During this same season, a new shepherd had been sent to the village of Leuchars. But he was not a shepherd of sheep. He was sent as a shepherd of souls.

The young man’s name was Alexander Henderson. A graduate of the University of St. Andrews, he was a fine scholar, brilliant philosopher, and fresh from an eight-year stint as the respected professor of philosophy at the University. Henderson aspired to rise to the highest ecclesiastical offices in the land.

By this same year (1614), the Kirk (Church) of Scotland had left the roots of John Knox’s reformation and was now in the hands of episcopal bishops. Alexander Henderson, as a philosopher from St. Andrews, held these episcopal views with fervor. He despised the ignorant views of dissenting ministers who still held staunchly to the old views of John Knox.

However, the novice shepherd’s newly assigned parish was in the heart of dissenter country! The bishops hoped that the brilliant, well-respected philosopher would be able to convince the people of Fife to be loyal to their spiritual overseers. Indeed, the hope was that they would submit to the enlightened will of the Stuart kings, all for the best interest of the Kirk.

But when Alexander Henderson came to assume oversight of his flock, he found the door of the parish church fastened shut! It was not merely locked. The people of the parish, resenting the power of remote bishops to send them an appointed hireling for a shepherd, had nailed the door shut.

The ordination party, including Henderson and the ordaining bishop, had to find another way into the building. The new pastor found a window he could open, and the party climbed in through the window and into the empty church. Once inside the church and with no townspeople present, Alexander Henderson was solemnly proclaimed the vicar of the church of Leuchars and the shepherd of the souls of the men, women, boys, and girls of the parish.

Sunday came. The new pastor ascended his pulpit to preach. But looking out at the flock, he saw that the attendance was small. Most of the villagers had absented themselves and were listening to the preaching of a local dissenting minister named Robert Bruce.

Henderson was frustrated! He could not gather a crowd. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how convincing he endeavored to be, no matter how beautifully constructed his sermons were, the people would not come. As the winter dissolved into spring, Henderson’s church remained empty. He was a preacher without hearers, a pastor without people, and a shepherd without sheep.

Finally, one day the philosopher decided to go and hear this dissenting minister. What kind of preaching was it to which the people hearkened? Why were the people of Fife so rebellious? Why was Henderson’s beautiful church empty? Why were his carefully woven philosophical sermons unheeded and ignored? What was there in an ignorant dissenter’s preaching to attract the attention of the villagers?

The frustrated pastor did not want to be detected at the gathering. Henderson laid aside his long, black gown and surplice and dressed in simple country garments. He walked to the nearby church of Forgan where he had heard that dissenter Robert Bruce was preaching that day.

As he approached the church, he saw people flocking into the doors to hear the preaching. The singing of the psalms of David were already wafting from the windows. There was no organ here, no stained glass, no candles, no ornate altar, and no liturgy.

Henderson found a seat in a corner of the building. Here he could observe without being observed. In silent wonder, he heard the congregational singing make the room ring with the sound of praise. Without liturgy, the Scriptures were read. Public prayer was not from the prayer book! Instead, prayers were simply and directly offered from the heart of man to the throne room of God, pleading only the mediation of the great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Finally, the time for the sermon came. Henderson leaned forward in his pew. Bruce ascended the pulpit, opened his Bible, and announced his text. He read aloud the first verse of John 10: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.”

The words of the text pierced Alexander Henderson’s heart! Did the preacher know that he, the pastor of Leuchars, was there? More importantly, did God know Henderson’s thoughts, his ambitions, his motives, and his very heart?

The shepherd in his disguise as a sheep felt his cheeks grow hot with shame. Soon, his cheeks were also wet with tears as he remembered the day that he had climbed through the window of his church. He had not “entered in by the door.” Instead, he had literally “climbed up some other way.” By the very words of Jesus, he must be “a thief and a robber”!

That day, Alexander Henderson was soundly converted to Christ. Over the next weeks and months, he returned to his church and earnestly searched the Scriptures. Turning away from the established church that had sent him, Alexander Henderson proceeded to become one of the most stalwart and faithful ministers ever to fill a Scottish pulpit!

He continued as pastor of the church at Leuchars for twenty-five years, only removing from his station when he was asked to come to Edinburg and occupy the pulpit of John Knox at St. Giles. Throughout his long, faithful ministry, Henderson proved himself to be a true shepherd of the sheep.

In 1637, Henderson refused to use the new liturgy imposed upon the Church of Scotland. He spoke for the whole kirk in his earnest appeal to the Privy Council to maintain the Crown Rights of Jesus Christ alone over the Church purchased by His blood. Other Scottish pastors, themselves worthy and faithful men, looked to Alexander Henderson for leadership in those tumultuous days. His friend, Samuel Rutherford, wrote to him, “Let us pray for one another. He who hath made you a chosen arrow in His quiver, [may He] hide you in the hollow of his hand.”

The next year, after the failure of appeal, Henderson proposed a National Covenant for Scotland. He and Archibald Johnson drafted up the famous and worthy document that bound Scotland as a nation to worship and serve Jesus Christ and Him alone. On February 28, 1638, the barons and nobles of Scotland signed the National Covenant in Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh.

When King Charles I visited Scotland in 1641, so great was his respect for Henderson that he appointed him to become his chaplain, in spite of the preacher’s outspoken resistance to episcopacy.

Alexander Henderson was a fearless man! He boldly confronted the king on his sins, even daring to rebuke the king for playing golf on the Lord’s Day. Even though Charles I admired the courage of the preacher, the king persisted in his sins.

In 1642, Henderson again served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. He was asked to draft up the Solemn League and Covenant, as an attempt to bring England and Scotland into uniformity of worship in subjection to the Word of God. Henderson became one of the few Scots to be invited to London during the Westminster Assembly. He preached several times in the Assembly and even before the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

Alexander Henderson died in 1646. Many years later, Archibald Alexander, the faithful shepherd of another generation and the founder of Princeton Seminary, said of Henderson, “No man whom Scotland ever produced was more universally esteemed.” He who had once climbed up another way as a thief and robber had become, by the grace of God, a true shepherd of the sheep.

Sources and Further Reference:

Jackson, L. Charles. Riots, Revolutions, and the Scottish Covenanters: The Work of Alexander Henderson.

Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2015.