Thomas Theullosson (T.T.) Carter (1808--1901) was twenty-four when he was called to his first pastorate at a small church in rural England. It was a long-standing custom in the church for the rector to give a mince pie, a loaf of bread, and quart...
Girolamo Savonarola
Active in Florence, Italy, Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) was a Dominican friar who called the medieval Roman Catholic Church to account for its moral corruption. There have been plenty of virtuous popes in church history, but Pope Alexander VI...
Leighton Ford
"There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who enter a room and say, 'There you are' and those who say, 'Here I am.'" The quote is hardly original with me. It's attributed to various people of history. I would put Leighton Ford (1931- ) in...
Helen Keller
Anne Sullivan went to live with the Keller family in Alabama as Helen Keller's (1880-1968) teacher. The story of Anne's tutelage of Helen has been well documented, a relationship that spanned forty-nine years. Anne and Helen travelled to Boston's...
St. Nicholas
How did we get from St. Nicholas to Santa Claus? It's a challenge to separate truth from fiction when it comes to ole' St. Nick. This is what we know with relative certainty. Nicholas (270-343) was a church bishop in Myra (modern Turkey) during a...
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day may be one of the most popular, frequently played songs of the Christmas season. While joyful in tone, the song is borne out of deep anguish and pain. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) wrote the poem...
Elizabeth Rooney
A fifteen-year-old girl wrote in her diary on August 1, 1939, "We picked eight bushels of apples. The men in the quarry blasted out rocks and opened a cave." Not just any cave. It was an underground cathedral of exquisite mineral formations shaped...
Ida Scudder
She was so well-known that a letter reached her simply addressed to "Dr. Ida, India." Ida Scudder (1870-1960) was born to American missionary parents in India. Her father was a missionary doctor as was her grandfather, who left a thriving New York...
John Neale
Sackville College served as a retirement home for poor men in nineteenth century England. Its four-hundred-year-old building remains in use today, providing affordable housing to elderly people. The college's most famous warden (director) was John...
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
Martin Luther said, "Next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise." I concur. Music is often the quickest way into our hearts."Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" is a sublime hymn that reaches into my soul. Its reflective melody sung...
Karle Baker
The nineteenth century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard called fear "the psychological condition that precedes sin." Fear has incredible power to cause people to act irrationally. The person who generated today's prayer has one of the best...
Lord of Light Prayer
During the month of December, sunset in Northern Virginia occurs before 5:00 p.m. The school bus drops off grade school kids in our neighborhood in the twilight hour. Those afflicted with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) suffer the adverse effects...
Johann Olearius
One lasting contribution of the Reformation was the recovery of congregational singing. During the Middle Ages, worshipers didn't typically sing hymns in worship. Music was sung exclusively by choirs of professional singers. Since the musical...
Nerses
I knew nothing about Armenia before I met Eli Takesian, who was Armenian to the core. He had served as Chief Chaplain for the Marine Corps before he joined the pastoral staff at the church where we served together. I still recall something he said...
Lucy Larcom
She was a "mill girl," one of the many who worked in the textile factories of Lowell, Massachusetts, in the early nineteenth century. Lucy Larcom (1824-1893) was born into a family of ten children. Her dad, a retired sea captain, taught his...
James Montgomery
Recently in Sunday worship, we sang four verses of the hymn "O, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing." That's nothing! When Charles Wesley originally wrote the hymn in 1739, it contained eighteen verses! Many of the hymns we know, and love have more...
Johann Wichern
Today's story is about the man who invented the Advent Wreath. Johann Wichern (1801-1882) was born into an impoverished family outside Hamburg, Germany and devoted his life to missionary work among the poor. He started a home in Hamburg for...
Eleanor Farjeon
Percy Dearmer was looking for a hymn to express thanksgiving for each new day to be included in his new 1931 hymnbook Songs of Praise. He approached Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965), a well-known English poet and writer of children's stories for...