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Jane Crewdson

I know only the barest outline of Jane Crewdson’s life (1808-1863). She was a British poet married to a cotton manufacturer named Thomas. She was confined to bed during a lengthy, undisclosed illness, during which time she wrote poems. She composed “Aunt...

William Brewster

I’ll get to William Brewster’s (1568-1644) Thanksgiving prayer in a moment, but first, some background. William and Mary Brewster had five children, two of whom traveled with them as young boys on the Mayflower. Their names were Love and Wrestling. The...

Martin Rinkart

Martin Rinkart (1586-1649) came to pastor St. Anne’s Church in Eilenberg, Saxony (modern Germany) in 1618, coinciding with the start of the Thirty Years War. As a walled city, Eilenberg became a place of refuge for neighboring people. A deadly plague broke out,...

Anna Warner

They were known as “Miss Warner’s boys.” A group of West Point cadets would row their boat across the Hudson River each Sunday afternoon to Constitution Island where Susan and Anna Warner (1824-1915) lived. Each cadet came with a Bible verse to...

Henry Manning

Working the docks at the port of London was a dangerous job with no benefits and lousy pay. But if you are poor and have no other options, you take what you can get. Every day at the docks, a surging crowd of desperate men showed up, scrambling to be chosen for a few...