1817 HT: Dan Graves Once when young Timothy Dwight did not show up for dinner, his parents went looking for him, fearing tragedy. They found him under an apple tree, surrounded by Indians. Four-year-old Timothy was instructing the American natives in the catechism. The boy, grandson of colonial preacher, revival leader and educator Jonathan Edwards,…
Paul James-Griffiths of Christian Heritage Edinburgh, writes, “I’m resuming our articles with a series on Scottish missionaries to Africa in the 19th century. They had a huge impact on this sub-Saharan continent. The first is Robert Moffat from Ormiston, who pioneered so much among the populous Batswana people of southern Africa, and became an inspiration for David…
1915 HT: Dan Graves MARY SLESSOR was one of the best-known missionaries of the nineteenth century. A hard childhood in Scotland prepared her for the strenuous life of the mission field. By age eleven she was working in a mill, preparing jute and flax for weavers. As she grew older she became a weaver, able…
1956 HT: Dan Graves The five men on “Palm Beach,” a strip of sand on the Curaray River, Ecuador, knew that there was danger. But they took the risk for a chance to make friendly contact with the Huaorani (Auca) Indians. Missionaries Ed McCulley, Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, and Roger Youderian, had landed…
1921 HT: Dan Graves On this day, January 6, 1921, Alexander Whyte died quietly in his sleep. The eighty-five-year-old Scotsman had risen from poverty and illegitimacy to become one of the most prominent pastors in Scotland. His faith began when he was young. Sunday mornings, his hardworking mother, Janet Thomson, took him to the Free…
1743 HT: Dan Graves Muscle-builders and pregnant women know that anyone who grows too fast is liable to get stretch marks. Organizations that grow too rapidly can get stretch marks, too. That was the case with the Welsh Methodists in the early 1740s. Converts were coming in so fast that revival leaders were unsure how…
1934 HT Dan Graves After Hitler came to power, he confronted Christians in Germany with uncomfortable choices. At first, few pastors seemed to recognize where Hitler was taking the church. He sought to co-opt both Lutheran and Reformed churches to support his National Socialist Party. Many church people supported him. Sick of the decadence that had…
1560 HT: Dan Graves When Luther’s Reformation began in Germany, it was inevitable that his ideas would seep through border cracks into neighboring Scandinavia. The most vigilant efforts of Denmark’s government and its established church could not stop German ideas, books, and preachers from slipping into the country. A shoemaker’s son was the chief…
1625 HT: Dan Graves No doubt it was with some nervousness that John Livingstone preached his first sermon on this day, 2 January 1625 in his father’s pulpit at Kilsyth, Scotland. But his most famous sermon would come five years later. Born a minister’s son in 1603, John Livingstone decided at a young age to follow Christ.…
1519 The Swiss Reformation begins when Huldrych Zwingli assumes his duties as priest of Zurich and begins preaching through the Bible. 1826 HT: Dan Graves David Nasmith‘s heart was broken. 19th-century Scotland was rich in Industry. But when the 27-year-old man looked around his native Glasgow, it was not industrial wealth he saw, but spiritual…