Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket was an English archbishop and martyr, famously murdered by knights of Henry II at Canterbury Cathedral. After his death, his tomb and relics became a focus for pilgrimage and he was made a saint. Thomas Becket was born in Cheapside, London, to reasonably affluent Norman parents who had settled in England some years earlier. He was given a good…
Read MoreWilliam Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison, born in 1805 in the seaside town of Newburyport, Massachusetts, came of age in a nation teetering between the ideals of liberty and the brutal realities of human bondage. The son of a struggling Baptist mother and an absent father, Garrison was raised in poverty and piety. His mother, Frances Maria Garrison,…
Read MoreTheodore S. Wright
Theodore S. Wright was one of the founding members of the American Anti-Slavery Society and a towering figure in American abolitionism. Born in 1797 in Providence, Rhode Island, Wright’s life was defined by his dual commitment to faith and freedom. As an African American man in the early 19th century, his very existence was a…
Read MorePeter Cartwright
Peter Cartwright was a man forged by the frontier, a plainspoken, passionate, and fiercely convicted man. Born on September 1, 1785, in Amherst County, Virginia, Cartwright came of age in the raw borderland of Logan County, Kentucky, where his family settled amid the hard edges of early American expansion. It was here, in the rough…
Read MoreJames Wilson
James Wilson was born on September 14, 1742, into a family of tenant farmers who lived near Cupar, Scotland. His father worked tirelessly, but the Scottish soil refused to yield large harvests. Hence, after the rent was paid, there was little left over to fill the family’s coffers. As well, the Wilson’s dwellings were cramped…
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 MoreThomas Aquinas
Thomas is believed to have been born in the castle of Roccasecca in the old county of the Kingdom of Sicily, which is now known as the Lazio region of Italy, in 1225. His parents were well-off, but as the youngest son Thomas was expected to enter the monastery. At 5-years-old, Thomas began his education…
Read MorePatrick
Much myth and legend surrounds the story of Patrick, born in Britain in the late 4th century. St. Patrick is often reduced to a mythical figure who performed magical feats (like driving all the snakes out of Ireland). The truth, as usual, is better than fiction! All that can be known about Patrick comes from two…
Read MoreJohn Wesley
John Wesley was born on the seventeenth of June, 1703, in Epworth rectory, England, the fifteenth of nineteen children of Samuel and Susanna Wesley. The father of Wesley [right] was a preacher, and Wesley’s mother was a remarkable woman in wisdom and intelligence. She was a woman of deep piety and brought her little ones…
Read More