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Before you leave Plymouth, head on up to Burial Hill. It’s a steep climb, but there are steps. Inside a white fence is not a grave, but a cenotaph, “a monument to someone buried elsewhere.” Adoniram Judson was the son of a Congregational minister in Plymouth, but he fell in with the wrong friends. While at Brown University, he was Read more...
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Watch Our Christian Heritage interview with Terrence White inside the Billy Sunday Home! Billy Sunday (1862-1935) was born north of Des Moines, Iowa. His father died just five weeks after he was born, in the Union Army during the Civil War. Sent to the Iowa Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home, he discovered his athletic abilities. Upsetting the state champion, Sunday went Read more...
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The Wycliffe Discovery Center offers visitors a thoughtful and engaging look into the history, process, and global impact of Bible translation. Located in Orlando, the center serves as an educational extension of Wycliffe Bible Translators, an organization long committed to making Scripture accessible to people in their own languages. Named after John Wycliffe, often called the “Morning Star of the Read more...
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Watch Our Christian Heritage at the Christian Hall of Fame Canton, Ohio, is the home of the Professional Football Hall of Fame. Pastor Harold Henniger had suffered a heart attack and was recovering at the Aultman Hospital. On the radio he heard about the Hall of Fame, and thought back to his Bible reading in Hebrews 11, the “Hall of Read more...
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According to the organization, “In the early 1970’s while Pastor Richard Diamond and his wife, Alwilda, attended a crusade in Atlanta, Georgia, they toured a historical wax museum. After viewing scenes of past presidents, generals, and war heroes to their surprise the last scene was the Ascension of Jesus Christ.“ Ten years later Pastor Diamond started a Biblical wax museum, Read more...
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Ida Lilliard Reed (November 30, 1865 – July 8, 1951) was an American religious writer and music composer from West Virginia. Composer and author Ida L. Reed was born on a hilltop farm near Philippi on November 30, 1865. In the face of illnesses, family deaths, and constant poverty, she was a devout Methodist all her life. She wrote some Read more...
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The University of Chicago was founded (and funded) by John D. Rockefeller, the oil baron. He spent millions digging up artifacts all over the Middle East, and floated much of it back to Chicago. The Oriental Institute collection contains over 300,000 items. In the first sections, look for artifacts from Ur – Abraham lived in Ur from 2166 BC to Read more...
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Philip Bliss (1838-1876) is reported to be the second most famous hymnwriter in American history after Fanny Crosby, and if he would have lived as long as her, he may be even more famous. In Chautauqua, New York, he and his wife visited the Palestine Park. In 1863-64 he built his home in Rome, Pennsylvania. In 1965, it became the Read more...
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In 1857, the California gold rush was in decline. The railroad bubble peaked in July. Business failures began in August. The fashionable churches were moving north, but Jeremiah Lanphier lived in the nonreligious lower part of the city. Lanphier never married, and had no formal schooling to prepare him for ministry, but he was commissioned as a lay missionary of Read more...
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Her funeral was held at her church, now Golden Hill Methodist, close to downtown Bridgeport. She is buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery, built by her friend P.T. Barnum. Just down from Fanny’s grave you’ll see the statue of General Tom Thumb, and Barnum’s own grave. Fanny requested a simple grave, but forty years after her death, the townsfolk built Read more...
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From Wholesome Words: Her funeral filled the church with friends. The choir sang her favorite song …”Faith of Our Fathers”…then, her own…”Safe in the Arms of Jesus”…and, “Saved By Grace.” Her minister, George M. Brown, of the Methodist church said it well: There must have been a royal welcome when this queen of sacred song burst the bonds of death Read more...
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Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was the son and grandson of colonial ministers. He started at Yale when he was 12, and at 19 was an interim pastor in New York. At 23 he joined his grandfather Solomon Stoddard at the Northampton church and married Sarah Pierpont. At 25 his grandfather died, leaving him as senior pastor. At age 30 a revival Read more...
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Watch our interview on George Whitefield Sept 30th, 10:30 AM – Historic Reenactment Service The congregation began meeting in the 1750s, following the ministry of the Methodist evangelist and preacher George Whitefield in the region. He died in Newburyport in 1770 and his remains were buried under the pulpit of the meeting house at his request. The bell Read more...
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This hymn is a uniquely Wisconsin hymn. The words were written by a pastor buried in Wisconsin, and set to music by a pastor born in Wisconsin. Rev. Warren D. Cornell was born in Michigan but left at 19 to teach and preach in Texas. At 23 he came to Wisconsin, where he’d spend the next 40 years of Read more...
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Site of one of the most famous trials in the 20th Century, featuring Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan. My first visit to the Scopes Trial Museum proved unsuccessful. It was the Christmas season and the County Executive ordered the building closed early for the day. So I took some pictures outside – the statues of William Jennings Bryan and Read more...
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Learn from Tim Schmig about the multiple references to God in the Jefferson Memorial We’re at the Jefferson Memorial, a monument to Thomas Jefferson, a man who in his lifetime was full of personal contradictions, and he was also conflicted about those contradictions. And yet, the life of Thomas Jefferson, the writings of Thomas Jefferson, give us some Read more...
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Blaine Myron Cedarholm (1911–1999) was a devoted pastor, teacher, and writer whose life’s work left a steady mark on mid-20th-century Baptist life, particularly among churches committed to historic doctrine and local church ministry. Though not a household name, his influence was widely felt through his preaching, pastoral leadership, and printed works that encouraged clarity in belief and consistency in practice. Read more...
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Hymn History: In the Sweet By and By Authors: Sanford Fillmore Bennett and Joseph Philbrick Webster “His (Bennett’s) poetry began appearing in [Illinois] newspapers and hymn collections; later he studied medicine while owning a drugstore in Wisconsin.” (Hymntime.com) The Origin of the Hymn “In the Sweet By and By” Among the most enduring and beloved hymns of the Read more...
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One night in September 1898 two salesmen, John H. Nicholson and Samuel E. Hill, shared room 19 in the Central Hotel, Boscobel. They wondered if some organization could not be started for the mutual help and recognition of Christian travelers. A chance meeting of the two on May 31, 1899 in Beaver Dam led to plans for an organizational meeting Read more...
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On September 14, 1898, John Nicholson, a travelling salesman (think of the Music Man era) from Janesville, checked into the Boscobel Central House Hotel. Back in the day, not all hotel rooms were private – in fact often you may not have a bed to yourself. In 1776, John Adams wrote of having to share a bed with Benjamin Franklin, Read more...