Archive for April 2025
John Henry Newman
John Henry Newman began his career as an Anglican churchman and scholar and ended it as a Roman Catholic cardinal. He was born in London on February 21, 1801, and at the age of fifteen, he enrolled in Trinity College, beginning an association with Oxford University that would last for nearly thirty years. Newman moved from Trinity to…
Read MoreWillam Carey
“Shoemaker by trade, but scholar, linguist and missionary by God’s training,” William Carey was one of God’s giants in the history of evangelism! One of his biographers, F. Dealville Walker, wrote of Carey: “He, with a few contemporaries, was almost singlehanded in conquering the prevailing indifference and hostility to missionary effort; Carey developed a plan for…
Read MoreSojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth was born into slavery about 1797 in Ulster County, New York. Known as Isabella, her parents were James and Betsey, the property of Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh. As a child she spoke only low Dutch and, like most slaves, never learned to read or write. About 1815 Isabella married Thomas, a fellow slave, and…
Read MoreCharles Finney
Charles Grandison Finney was one of the most influential figures of the Second Great Awakening, a man whose faith was not merely a private conviction but a force that reshaped the moral landscape of the United States. His preaching, revival meetings, and later academic career at Oberlin College were all animated by a singular belief:…
Read MoreJohn Henry Hopkins
John Henry Hopkins Jr. may not have a name the average man or woman would recognize, but he was the author of a work virtually everyone knows, the Christmas carol We Three Kings of Orient Are. While he wrote other carols, hymns and songs, it is this Christmastime favorite that will forever afford him a…
Read MoreJoseph Mohr
The world’s most beloved Christmas Carol, Silent Night, comes from the small Austrian village of Oberndorf, just north of Salzburg. On Christmas Eve, 1818, the congregation of St. Nicholas Church heard the first performance of this wonderful music. Since then, Silent Night was been translated into hundreds of languages and sung and played in every corner…
Read MoreRichard Allen
Born into slavery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 14, 1760, Richard Allen went on to become an educator, writer, minister and founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Benjamin Chew, a Quaker lawyer, owned the Allen family, which included Richard’s parents and three other children. Chew eventually sold the Allen family to Stokeley Sturgis, a Delaware planter. At age…
Read MoreCharles Simeon
Charles Simeon was born on September 24, 1759. He attended school at Eton and enrolled at King’s College, Cambridge, in 1779. Although baptized as an infant, his family was not particularly religious and neither was Charles, until an experience during his first few months at university. All Cambridge students were required to receive communion at…
Read MoreWilliam Wilberforce
William Wilberforce (1759-1833), abolitionist and philanthropist, was born to a family of merchants. He was first educated at Hull Grammar School under Joseph Milner, an evangelical Anglican minister. His father died when Wilberforce was nine, and his mother sent him to stay near London where he was reared by an evangelical aunt and uncle. Through…
Read MoreRichard Furman
Clergyman, patriot, educator, and pioneer denominational stateman. More than any other man, he created the basic organizational concepts that are unique in Southern Baptist denominational life. He was the son of Wood and Rachel (Brodhead) Furman, who moved to Charleston, S. C., shortly after his birth and to the High Hills of Santee in 1770.…
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