Posts by Zach Kincaid
David Livingstone
A young Scotsman had come to hear an address by a celebrated missionary. Following his conversion several years earlier, the young man had begun to grapple with the question, “What shall I do with my life?” The Great Commission had come to have a singular hold upon his mind. Its majestic syllables had for him…
Read MoreHenry Ward Beecher
Henry Ward Beecher was a political and social reformer and a prominent clergyman in nineteenth century America. Beecher was born on June 24, 1813, in Litchfield, Connecticut. His father, Lyman Beecher, placed a heavy emphasis on education. He was a Congregational minister and dedicated his life to his religion and to helping others. Lyman Beecher…
Read MoreHarriet Tubman
Reverently called “Moses” by the hundreds of slaves she helped to freedom and the thousands of others she inspired, Harriet Tubman became the most famous leader of the Underground Railroad to aid slaves escaping to free states or Canada. Born into slavery in Bucktown, Maryland, Tubman escaped her own chains in 1849 to find safe…
Read MoreJames Finn
James Finn was born in London. The classic lnaguages, including Greek and Hebrew, were part of his early education. By 1846, he and his new wife Elizabeth Ann McCaul journeyed to Jerusalem. He worked as the British Consul until 1863 when they returned to England. Both he and his wife were concerned about the welfare…
Read MoreGeorge Mueller
George Mueller was born in Germany on September 27, 1805. In his early life he was not an honest person. From the time he was ten years old he was stealing money from his father. As time passed he also stole from his friends. He finally was arrested and locked up with other thieves such…
Read MoreSamuel Ajayi Crowther
Crowther was born with the name Ajayi in Osogun, in the Egba section of the Yoruba people, in what is now western Nigeria. When about 13, he was taken as a slave by Fulani and Yoruba Muslim raiders and sold several times before being purchased by Portuguese traders for the transatlantic market. His ship was…
Read MoreJohn 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 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…
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