December 28. Michael Faraday. Being from a poorish family, Faraday got a minimal formal education. But at fourteen, a local bookbinder took Faraday on as an apprentice—for seven years. During that time, he read a lot and covered a wide range of science.
When he was twenty-one, Faraday attended four lectures by a famous chemist Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution and then wrote to the man and asked to be his assistant.
The man turned him down, but within a year Davy appointed Faraday chemical assistant at the Royal Institution.
Thirteen years later, Faraday founded the Royal Institution’s Friday Evening Discourses and the Christmas Lectures—“the UK’s flagship science series,” which is still broadcast on national TV every year.
Faraday went on to make many important discoveries about electricity and magnetism. He became Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Military Academy and scientific advisor to Trinity House—a charity that provides for the maritime community and the official authority for lighthouses and other navigational resources.
On this date in 1848, Faraday delivered his famous Christmas Lecture: “The Chemical History of a Candle.” And that’s where today’s story begins.
Honor God who created you by doing your duty with honor.
Michael Faraday warmly began this year’s Christmas Lecture. “And now, my boys and girls, I must first tell you of what candles are made.” His smile immediately captured the evening’s crowd of several hundred people, who had gathered in the familiar lecture theatre.
The people watched, as he described the qualities of various types of candles, which had been gifted to him for the lecture. He delightfully detailed how each type of candle had been created, and which types would burn with greatest efficiency.
Observing two cosmetically beautiful candles, designed to cast shadows as they burned, as “a glowing sun above and bouquet of flowers beneath,” Faraday said, “All, however, that is fine and beautiful is not useful. These fluted candles, pretty as they are, are bad candles; they are bad because of their external shape.”
Faraday then pulled an old, cracked candle from his collection and raised it in one hand for the room to see. He said the candle had been salvaged from a deep shipwreck after more than fifty years in unfavorable conditions.
“I have here a candle that was taken out of the Royal George, it is said, by Colonel Charles Pasley. It has been sunk in the sea for many years, subject to the action of salt water. It shows you how well candles may be preserved; for, though it is cracked about and broken a great deal, yet when lighted, it goes on burning regularly, and the tallow resumes its natural condition as soon as it is fused.” Faraday then lit the wick of the shipwrecked candle and revealed a strong, golden flame.
“There is not a law under which any part of this universe is governed which does not come into play and is touched upon in these phenomena. There is no better, there is no more open door by which you can enter into the study of natural philosophy than by considering the physical phenomena of a candle.”
The crowd watched in fascination.
As he lit several types of candles, Faraday made his way through the outline of his lecture and experiments, pointing out scientific observations as he went, from how candles burn without immediately being consumed, to how candles can remain a solid and a liquid simultaneously.
He noted that light, heat, and flame occur without effort at first glance. Then he identified the vast array of chemical and physical interactions that made these simple aspects of a candle possible. A miraculous, complex harmony of natural laws at work. Natural laws which Faraday’s faith caused him to attribute to the reliability of God’s laws.
“You would hardly think that all those substances which fly about London, in the form of soots and blacks, are the very beauty and life of the flame,” Faraday said.
Members of the audience nodded silently in agreement.
Faraday masterfully blended his observations of natural law with his principled faith in God, and closed this historic Christmas lecture with a compelling moral challenge:
“Indeed, all I can say to you at the end of these lectures … is to express a wish that you may, in your generation, be fit to compare to a candle; that, in all your actions, you may justify the beauty of the taper by making your deeds honourable and effectual in the discharge of your duty to your fellow-men.”
“‘You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house’” (Matthew 5:14–15 NIV).
How can you better use your influence at work to bring glory to God? Honor God who created you by doing your duty with honor.
BBC. “Michael Faraday (1791–1867).” History. Accessed August 21, 2020. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/faraday_michael.shtml.
Brigden, James. “Faraday and the Christmas Lectures: The Chemical History of a Candle.” Homerton College Library Weblog. December 7, 2018. https://homlib.wordpress.com/2018/12/07/faraday-and-the-christmas-lectures-the-chemical-history-of-a-candle/.
Ouellette, Jennifer. “Christmas with Faraday: The Chemical History of a Candle.” Scientific American. December 25, 2011. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/christmas-with-faraday-the-chemical-history-of-a-candle/.
Story read by Daniel Carpenter
Story written by John Mandeville, https://www.johnmandeville.com/