All Grave

On our road trip filming the first season of Our Christian Heritage TV, we had just interviewed a Philip Bliss impersonator, who shared the life and songs of the second most famous Christian hymnwriter. Philip Bliss (1838-1876), wrote many songs in our hymnals, including “Almost Persuaded,” “Wonderful Words of Life,” “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning,” “I am so glad Read more...

Milton Stewart (1838-1923) was described in the 1924 American Biography as: A Christian layman who gave the greater part of a vast fortune and the best thought of a keen and prescient mind to the advancement of the Kingdom to which he yielded devoted allegiance. Milton Stewart furthered great practical and religious projects in a manner distinctively his own, frequently Read more...

Although it is in a cemetery, this is not the grave of Phillip P. Bliss, rather his earthly remains are in the mass grave in Ashtabula, OH. However, because his home was in Rome, Pennsylvania, the cemetery features a cenotaph (a monument built to honor someone whose remains are elsewhere) to P. P. Bliss. Read more...

Reuben Archer Torrey, also known as R.A. Torrey, worked with Dwight L. Moody in Chicago, and became superintendent of what is now Moody Bible Institute, then-Chicago Evangelization Society. In 1894 he was pastor of Chicago Avenue (now Moody) Church. Heading to the West Coast, Torrey was dean of the Bible Institute Of Los Angeles (BIOLA), and in 1915 he was Read more...

James Milton Black (1856-1938) is widely known as the author of the words and music to the popular gospel song When the Roll is Called Up Yonder. He was, however, a very private person whose failure to leave much documentation about his work has frustrated musicologists for decades. No photograph of him suitable for large-size reproduction in gospel song histories, Read more...

Section S, Division 1, Lot 54 – 7 1/2 N 4 1/2 W From FindaGrave: Hymn Composer. The author of over 2,000 hymns which are still available in print, he is remembered his widely popular songs “What a Wonderful Savior!,” “Enough for Me,” “Is Thy Heart Right With God?,” “Are You Washed in the Blood?,” “No Other Friend Like Jesus,” Read more...

From Wikipedia: Judson developed a serious lung disease and doctors prescribed a sea voyage as a cure. On April 12, 1850, he died at age 61 on board ship in the Bay of Bengal and was buried at sea, having spent 37 years in missionary service abroad with only one trip back home to America. Read more...

I left Wisconsin for a visit to Myanmar (ancient Burma), where throughout the entire country the legacy of Adoniram Judson (see Plymouth, MA) is visible. During my trip, I read the biography of Judson, To The Golden Shore. When it mentioned an individual with ties to Wisconsin, I had to learn more, and started digging thru the archives. Over a Read more...

David Brainerd (1718-1747) died at age 29, but inspired missionaries such as William Carey and Jim Eliot. He was a struggling farmer but during the Great Awakening on July 12, 1739, “the Lord… brought me to a hearty desire to exalt him, to set him on the throne, and to ‘seek first his Kingdom,’ i.e., principally and ultimately to aim Read more...

From Banner of Truth: This was certainly true at Hampden-Sydney and the President, John Blair Smith, also a Presbyterian pastor of two nearby, small congregations, Briery and Cub Creek, was deeply grieved. He and the members of his churches began to pray for revival in their communities and at the college. In 1788 eighty young men were at the college and Read more...

From Wikipedia: In 1956, on a sandbar on the Curaray, five Evangelical missionaries were killed by Huaorani tribespeople during Operation Auca, an attempt to evangelize the Huaorani. The missionaries’ bodies were then thrown into the river. A rescue team later recovered four of the bodies and buried them in a mass grave on the river bank. The fifth, that of Ed McCully was claimed to have been discovered downstream by a group Read more...

From Wikipedia: Nikolaus Ludwig, Reichsgraf von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf (26 May 1700 – 9 May 1760) was a German religious and social reformer, bishop of the Moravian Church, founder of the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, Christian mission pioneer and a major figure of 18th century Protestantism. He played a role in starting the Protestant mission movement by supporting two determined Moravian missionaries Johann Leonhard Dober and David Nitschmann to go to the Danish colony of Saint Thomas via Copenhagen to Read more...

From Wikipedia: Baker was the son of Vice-admiral Sir Henry Loraine Baker, C.B., by his marriage with Louisa Anne, only daughter of William Williams, Esq., of Castle Hall, Dorset. His father served with distinction at Guadeloupe in 1815. His grandfather was Sir Robert Baker of Dunstable House, Surrey, and of Nicholashayne, Culmstock, Devon, on whom a baronetcy was conferred in 1796. Sir Henry Williams Baker was born in London on Sunday, 27 May 1821, at Read more...

From Wikipedia:   Upon receiving his degree in theology in 1882, Babcock became pastor of a church at Lockport, New York. He was described as having “an unusually brilliant intellect and stirring oratorical powers that commanded admiration, [that] won for him a foremost place among the favorites of his denomination”.[5] From 1887 to 1900, Babcock was senior minister of the prestigious Brown Read more...

From Wikipedia: Alford was a talented artist, as his picture-book, The Riviera (1870), shows, and he had abundant musical and mechanical talent. Besides editing the works of John Donne, he published several volumes of his own verse, The School of the Heart (1835), The Abbot of Muchelnaye (1841), The Greek Testament. The Four Gospels (1849), and a number of hymns, the best-known of which are “Forward! be our watchword,” “Come, Read more...

  From Wikipedia: Alexander was born at 25 Eccles Street, Dublin, the third child and second daughter of Major John Humphreys of Norfolk (land-agent to 4th Earl of Wicklow and later to the second Marquess of Abercorn), and Elizabeth (née Reed).[2] She began writing verse in her childhood, being strongly influenced by Dr Walter Hook, Dean of Chichester. Her subsequent religious work was strongly influenced by her contacts Read more...

From Wikipedia: Joseph Addison (1 May 1672 – 17 June 1719) was an English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine. Author of: When All Thy Mercies, O My God   1 When all your mercies, O my God, my Read more...

From Wikipedia: Sarah Fuller Flower Adams (or Sally Adams[1]) (1805 – 1848) was an English poet and hymnwriter, best known for writing the words of the hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee“.[2]   In 1841, she published her longest work, Vivia Perpetua, A Dramatic Poem. In it, a young wife who refuses to submit to male control and renounce her Christian beliefs is put to death. She contributed Read more...

From https://hymnary.org/person/Ackley_Alfred and  https://www.ackleygenealogy.com/nicholas/b833.htm Alfred Henry Ackley was born 21 January 1887 in Spring Hill, Pennsylvania. He was the youngest son of Stanley Frank Ackley and the younger brother of B. D. Ackley. His father taught him music and he also studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He graduated from Westminster Theological Seminary in Maryland and was ordained Read more...

The Baptist church at Thrapston, Northamptonshire, was once shepherded by Reynold Hogg (1752-1843), one of the founders of the Baptist Missionary Society (1792). With the construction of the present building, in 1787, a small, Congregationalist-Separtist group opened its doors for worship. In 1790, Reynold Hogg became their preacher. In 1797, they organized into a Baptist church and ordained Hogg as Read more...