Category: HISTORY & BIOGRAPHY
Surviving Failure: The story of Renée of France
The news traveled quickly through Europe. Renée, the great patron of the Reformation in Italy, had failed. She had been betrayed by her husband, browbeaten by a priest of the Inquisition, stripped of her wealth and her jewels, and isolated from her books, her family and...
Remembering a Christian: The Story of Yu Kuliang
“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). Silently and at first imperceptibly, the wind of the...
Patrick, Missionary to Ireland
As Attila the Hun prepared his first attack on Roman provinces and Augustine secluded himself in his study writing The City of God, Patrick’s parents worried about their son. At almost 16 years old, he hadn’t professed faith in Christ, even though his father Calpornius was...
October 31, 1517
It was October 31st, 1517 in Wittenburg, Germany. Martin grasped a hammer and a long piece of paper covered with his writing. He walked out into the street and straight over to the castle church door. It was here that community messages were often posted. Martin...
Methodical Love
They loved her. The rest of the world remembers Frances Ridley Havergal for writing such great hymns as “Take my Life and Let it Be,” “Like a River Glorious” and “Count Your Many Blessings,” but to her fourteen students, she was just Miss Havergal, the dear...
Marching on to a Better Land
“La, me, child! I never thought anybody would care enough for me to tell of my trials and sorrows in this world!” That was Charlotte Brooks’ response when she heard that her friend, Octavia, planned to write the story of Aunt Charlotte’s life for publication. Both...
Lessons from the Friends of William Cowper
Any way you look at it, the poet William Cowper (pronounced “Cooper”) had a difficult life. His mother and five siblings died by the time William was six years old. He was sent to a boarding school where an older student abused him. As an adult...
Isaac Watts – Rejected Suitor
Isaac had butterflies in his stomach as he paced nervously around the room. Today was the day he would meet Elizabeth Singer for the first time. Several months ago Elizabeth, a noted poet in her own right, wrote to tell Isaac how moved she was by...
If Darwin Could See Us Now
In a recent U. S. District Court decision, Judge John Jones ruled that intelligent design is a theological argument and not science. This religious belief, he said, is “masquerading as a scientific theory” and has “utterly no place in a science curriculum.” I cannot delve into...
I Leave the Costing to You—Darlene Deibler Rose
The last words Russell Deibler would say to his young wife were, “Remember one thing, dear: God said He would never leave us nor forsake us.” That was on Friday, March 13th, 1942, when Russell Deibler was taken from the cottage where he, his wife, Darlene,...
