Newton Bateman (1822-1897) was born in poverty in New Jersey, moved to Illinois, started a school in St. Louis, then became Illinois Superintendent of Public Instruction, and authored the Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois. While Bateman was a student at Illinois College here in Jacksonville, Lincoln was a state legislator representing nearby in New Salem, in the also nearby Springfield. They Read more...

Inscription: In 1782, at the coffee house on Market Street, Robert Aitken, bookseller, publisher and printer issued the FIRST BIBLE PRINTED IN ENGLISH. Printed in America, which by Congressional Resolution was recommended “To the inhabitants of the United States.” One of the Chaplains of the congress of the United States who examined this Bible was Bishop William White, the first Read more...

Inscription America’s first Bible society, founded in 1808 by Robt. Ralston, Bishop Wm. White, and Dr. Benj. Rush. In 1812 PBS was first in the U.S. to print Bibles using stereotyped plates which made them affordable and advanced literacy. Bible House has been its center of distribution since 1854. Photo By Thomas Anderson, January 25, 2019, HMDB.org Read more...

Lyman Beecher was Henry Ward Beecher’s father, a traditional Calvinist that would be common in Puritan New England. Yet as the 1800s went on, Henry Ward Beecher would lay the foundation for the “social gospel” movement. “Harry Emerson Fosdick would comment that whenever we preach freely to sympathetic audiences the social gospel…, we are building on foundations that Mr. Beecher Read more...

Inscription: This marker commemorates the placement of the first 25 Bibles in November 1908 by the Gideons in the Superior Hotel, Superior (formerly Iron Mountain), Montana then located on this spot. From that small beginning, The Gideons International has placed multiplied millions of Scriptures throughout the world. To God be the Glory(second plaque above) This marker commemorates the 100th. anniversary Read more...

From HMDB.orgPreacher “One of the most useful qualifications of a good minister is that he have a lively sense of religion upon his own heart.” John Witherspoon Born in Gifford, Scotland, in 1723, Witherspoon was educated at the University of Edinburgh, completing his divinity studies in 1743. The son of a clergyman, he became pastor of the Presbyterian congregation in Read more...

From Wikipedia: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German: [ˈdiːtʁɪç ˈbɔn.høː.fɐ] (listen); 4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity’s role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship has been described as a modern classic.[1] Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including Read more...

From Wikipedia: The Sutherland Springs church shooting occurred on November 5, 2017, when Devin Patrick Kelley of New Braunfels, Texas, fatally shot 26 people and wounded 20 others during a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in Texas and the fifth-deadliest mass shooting in the United States.[2][note 1] It was the deadliest shooting in an Read more...

From Mat Staver: John Allen Chau, a Covenant Journey alumni, was martyred on November 17, 2018 by the Sentinelese tribal people on the island of North Sentinel. “When I heard the news of John’s death, I couldn’t believe it. I was numb. John loved people, and he loved Jesus. He was willing to give his life to share Jesus with Read more...