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At a Christian broadcasting convention, a friend of mine introduced me to Russell S. Doughten Jr. He looked vaguely familiar, until my host reminded me about his film, A Thief in the Night. In 1972, Doughten and Donald W. Thompson formed Mark IV Productions. Shooting in his native Iowa, he would tell the story of the world’s last days as Read more...

Watch Dr. David Saxon retell the story of Obadiah Holmes on Our Christian Heritage on VCY.tv Obadiah Holmes was born in England and came to Massachusetts Bay after adopting credobaptism (baptism by belief) as opposed to the Puritan pedobaptism (baptism of infants), he was evicted from Rehoboth, MA and joined John Clarke at his Baptist Church in Newport, Rhode Island. Read more...

John Blair Smith was the second president of Hampden-Sydney College, founded by his older brother.   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 Read more...

Wikipedia Crosby and Rider moved to 226 Wells Street, Bridgeport, Connecticut in summer 1906 because of Rider’s cancer.[297] Carrie died of intestinal cancer in July 1907, and Phoebe Knapp died on July 10, 1908.[91] Weeks later, Ira Sankey died having just sung “Saved by Grace”, one of Crosby’s most popular compositions.[298] On May 2, 1911, Crosby spoke to 5,000 people at the opening meeting of the Read more...

Reporter, Lawyer, and Pastor: The Author of “We Three Kings of Orient Are”   Our journey fittingly begins considering the birth of Jesus. The words and music to this popular Christmas carol were composed by John Henry Hopkins Jr. in 1857, and they have been included in Methodist hymnals since 1935. Geographically, we begin at Christ Episcopal Church at Fourth Read more...

The Chautauqua Institution in Western New York hosts over 100,000 people per year in ecumenical pursuit of learning and the arts. Towards the end of the 19th century, the Chautauqua Circuit took famous lecturers beyond New York throughout North America. But Chautauqua was founded in 1874 as the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly, a Protestant training camp for Sunday School Read more...

Phillip Bliss and his wife were headed from their home in Rome, Pennsylvania, to Chicago to reunite with the evangelist D. L. Moody. On December 29th, 1876, their train, the Pacific Express was crossing a trestle bridge near Ashtabula, Ohio. The bridge collapsed, and the train cars fell into the ravine. In that day, each train car had a stove Read more...

Frederick Muhlenberg, son of the “father of the Lutheran Church in North America,” Rev. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, was the pastor of Christs Church, also known as the Old Swamp Church.   On July 2nd, 1776, Muhlenberg left the city. Following the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, sources say the church burned, likely during the Great Fire of New York City.   Read more...

From December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863, almost 3,000 soldiers were killed, and over 15,000 were wounded in the Battle of Stones River near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Union troops under Major General William Rosecrans faced off against Confederate General Braxton Bragg‘s men. During a battle, local homes would be impressed into service, often times as hospitals. Up the road from Read more...

General Sickles: Well, Mr. President, I beg pardon, but what did you think about Gettysburg? What was your opinion of things while we were campaigning and fighting up there?” “O,” replied Mr. Lincoln. “I didn’t think much about it. I was not much concerned about you!” “You were not?” rejoined Sickles, as if amazed. “Why, we heard that you Washington Read more...

Years down the road, Graham met with Eisenhower at Walter Reed Hospital a few months before the president passed away. Graham recalls the conversation in his autobiography, “Just As I Am”: “As my scheduled twenty minutes with him extended to thirty, he asked the doctor and nurses to leave us. Propped up on pillows amidst intravenous tubes, he took my Read more...

  From RocWiki: Third Presbyterian Church is a beautiful stone church on the corner of Meigs Street and East Avenue in the East Avenue Historic District. It has served the Rochester community since 1827. Their first building was located on the northeast center of Main Street and Clinton Avenue. Their current structure was built in 1894. Major renovations to provide full accessibility were completed in December 2010. From Third Pres: Third Church was founded Read more...

From Daytonian in Manhattan: Three blocks to the north, on Ninth Avenue between 33rd and 34th Street, the New York Asylum for the Blind had stood since 1831.  In 1839 it had taken in a 19-year old student, Franny J. Crosby, who quickly was recognized for her talent in writing poetry and hymns.  Fanny had been blinded by an incompetent physician at Read more...

Horatio Spafford, well-off lawyer and friend of D.L. Moody lived here on the north side of Chicago. During the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, he lost much of his real estate holdings. A couple years later he sent his family ahead to Europe where D.L. Moody would be preaching. The Ville du Havre sank, and all four of his daughters Read more...

Clearview School in Iowa represents a small but meaningful piece of the early life and environment that helped shape one of America’s most famous evangelists, Billy Sunday. Though the school itself was a typical rural one-room schoolhouse, its connection to Sunday reflects the broader story of how modest beginnings and local institutions contributed to the development of influential figures in Read more...

The Billy Sunday Baseball Field was constructed in the 1930s to serve as a consistent playing location for Nevada’s semi-pro baseball team. The field was originally located on the west side of S14, but was soon relocated to its current location, just east of S14. The Nevada High School baseball team began playing at the field around 1934, which prompted Read more...

The story of Jeremiah Lanphier and the North Dutch Church in New York City is closely tied to one of the most remarkable religious awakenings in American history, the 1857–1858 Prayer Revival. At a time of economic uncertainty and social anxiety, a quiet layman’s simple initiative helped spark a movement that spread across the United States and beyond. Lanphier’s life Read more...

Since 2002, Within the Secretary of State’s office in the Minnesota State Office Building is a colorized photograph that has been in the public domain since 1995. The photograph “Grace,” depicting an elderly man bowing his head and giving thanks, was taken in Bovey, Minnesota in 1918 by Eric Enstrom, and was adopted as the official state photograph in 2002. A Read more...

Lew Wallace, remembered as a Union general, author of Ben-Hur, and American diplomat, also played a significant role in the history of the American Southwest during his tenure as governor of the New Mexico Territory from 1878 to 1881. Central to this chapter of his life was the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, the historic seat of government Read more...

John Girardeau was pastor of the Anson Street Presbyterian Mission in the late 1850s, before the Civil War. The Mission was targeted to the enslaved population. In Girardeau’s biography we read: The greatest event in his ministry was the revival in the later fifties. This began with a prayer meeting that constantly increased until the house was filled. Some of Read more...