Old North Dutch Reformed Church on Fulton Street in Manhattan had fallen on hard times. Long-time members relocated to other parts of the city as new immigrants arrived looking for jobs. The church hired a 49-year-old cloth merchant, Jeremiah...
Adela Cathcart was in her late teens and quite ill, what one doctor termed "an affliction of the soul." We call it depression. Adele's family and friends gathered to share stories with her as story-telling therapy. She attended Christmas worship,...
I hardly know what to make of Catherine of Siena's (1347-1380) mysticism. While walking with her brother at age six, she had an ecstatic vision of Christ seated in glory. At seven, she devoted her life to Christ and resolved to live a celibate...
Asia Minor was afflicted with a severe drought in 368 AD, resulting in a famine in Caesarea, the city where Basil (329-379) served as bishop. He had already given away his substantial inheritance and joined a monastic order. Some of his wealthy...
The church was filled to overflow an hour before the service. A 1911 headline in The New York Times announced his arrival, so the press was there, expecting to hear a sensational preacher deliver a dazzling oratory. John Henry Fawcett (1864-1923)...
It's a story about a poor Scrub Lady and a Millionaire who, in the author's words, was "a self-made man who worshipeth his maker." This Millionaire walked past the Scrub Lady often but never noticed her, "for his head was high in the air, and he...
It was a warm, sunny morning in July 1801. They arranged to meet under the shade of elm trees on the lawn of Yale College. The college president, Timothy Dwight, requested the meeting with Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), a former student at the...
Joseph Henry Gilmore (1834-1918) was a young, newly ordained pastor who was asked to substitute for the pastor at a midweek service at First Baptist Church in Philadelphia. The year was 1862, during the darkest days of the Civil War. Gilmore...
Emotions are fickle. Feelings are like waves; they come and go. F. B. Meyer (1847-1929) made popular the slogan “Fact! Faith! Feeling!” in his preaching and writing. The point of the motto is the order. First, the facts about Christ. Second, the...
Her pastor saw real talent in her poetry. Robert Lowry, pastor of Hanson Place Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York urged Anne Hawks (1836-1918) to try her hand at writing hymns. When Anne sent Robert a copy of her simple five-stanza hymn, he...
The Museum of the Bible in DC has more than 600 Bibles in its collection. One Bible on display is a rare 1872 Aitken's Bible, sometimes called Congress' Bible. Less than 30 copies are still in existence. Although Robert Aitken's (1734-1802) Bible...
"Chronological snobbery" was a term coined by Owen Barfield in the 1920s and made popular in the writings of C.S. Lewis in the 1950s. The phrase communicates our modern prediction to regard the past as intrinsically inferior to the present. New is...
It’s hard to say goodbye. You may recall the immortal words Juliet spoke to Romeo, “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” Or consider the endearing line from Winnie the Pooh, “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” Pastor...
News outlets are all over the story that belief in God is on the wane in America. There is no shortage of testimonials on social media of people who have walked away from God and given up on faith. Surely, unanswered prayer has something to do with...
She was, of her own admission, a shy and awkward child. She lived in a house along Main Street in Stockbridge, Mass, which Norman Rockwell painted into "Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas." She said of herself, "I wasn't one of those children who...
It must rank as one of the most imaginative cover letters ever written. Robert Pirosh quit his job as a copy editor in NY to look for work as a Hollywood screenwriter in 1934. He sent the following letter to studio executives and producers, “I like...
What is the second best-selling Christian book of all time? The all-time best seller is a no-brainer—the Bible. The runner-up best-seller is likely one you don’t know and haven’t read. It’s Thomas a Kempis’ (1380-1471) devotional classic, The...
It was his first Sunday at Old Pine Street Church in Philadelphia. The congregation voted by a strong majority to call George Duffield (1732-1790) to be its pastor in 1771. A large crowd gathered to hear his inaugural sermon, but the old guard...