Overholtzer Reaches the Children

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This is the day that … Jesse Irvin Overholtzer was born in 1877.

The place was San Joaquin County, California, USA, and the little fellow was the seventh son in a family that would eventually number 13.

The family belonged to the Hutterite Brethren, a strict group with roots going back to the German pietist movement.

After a rebellious teenage – during which time his father “beat him severely with a horse whip” (The Indomitable Mr O, by N. Rohrer, page 35) for a misdemeanour, Jesse finally left home at the age of 18.

In 1914, at the age of 37, he read “The Life of Moody” and began to study the Word of God. And he came to an assurance of salvation!

“I was too happy for words,” he later said to his biographer. “The joy-bells were ringing in my heart. I knew I was saved!” (ibid, page 58).

All this, despite the fact that he had been a Hutterite Brethren preacher for over 15 years!

His wife, Anna, “became his first convert as he explained to her the simple way of salvation” (page 59).

In 1937, on 20 May, he officially organised Child Evangelism Fellowship, a ministry dedicated to reaching children with the gospel. Good News Clubs are still run in Australia, and around the world.

The Dictionary of Christianity in America tells of 850 staff workers in the U.S., TV and radio programs, magazines, teaching aids, camping programs, training classes for teachers – and so it goes.

J. Irvin Overholtzer heard the Saviour’s “Well done” on August 6, 1955.

This post is based on the work of my late friend Donald Prout whose love for books and Christian history led him to collate a daily Christian calendar. I continue to work with Don’s wife, Barbara, to share his life work with the world. I have updated some of these historical posts and will hopefully draw from Don’s huge files of clippings to continue this series beyond Don’s original work. More of Don’s work can be found at www.donaldprout.com.

Thomas Kelly Irish Preacher and Hymnwriter

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This is the day that … Thomas Kelly was born in Ireland, in 1769.

After graduating from Dublin University he set his mind to practise law. But an evangelical conversion took place, and from henceforth his steps were directed toward the Christian ministry.

Ordained by the Church of Ireland in 1792 his strong evangelical preaching soon aroused the opposition of the Archbishop. Pulpits of the churches were closed to Thomas Kelly. So he became a Dissenter – building places of worship and preaching in independent chapels – and seeing the Lord bless his ministry with many turning to Christ.

“He was an excellent Biblical scholar and a magnetic preacher”, writes John Telford (Methodist Hymn Book Illustrated, page 169).

His able pen composed 765 hymns, several of which “rank with the finest hymns in the English language” (Dictionary of Hymnology, by Julian). These include:
The head that once was crowned with thorns
Is crowned with glory now…

And -
We sing the praise of Him who died,
Of Him who died upon the cross…

Possibly his most well-known would be :
Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious,
See the Man of Sorrows now;
From the fight returned victorious,
Every knee to Him shall bow;
Crown Him! Crown Him!
Crowns become the Victor’s brow.

At the age of 85 he suffered a stroke, which resulted in his death the following year (14 May, 1855). His last words were: “The Lord is my everything” (Who Wrote Our Hymns, page 106).

This post is based on the work of my late friend Donald Prout whose love for books and Christian history led him to collate a daily Christian calendar. I continue to work with Don’s wife, Barbara, to share his life work with the world. I have updated some of these historical posts and will hopefully draw from Don’s huge files of clippings to continue this series beyond Don’s original work. More of Don’s work can be found at www.donaldprout.com.

William Townsend Births Wycliffe

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This is the day that …William Cameron Townsend was born into a Presbyterian family in California, in 1896.

In 1917, after joining the Student Volunteer Movement in his teens, he was selling Spanish Bibles in Guatemala. But 2000 Cakchiquel Indians had no use for the Bible in Spanish, a language they could not understand. He was confronted by the question: “If your God is so smart, why hasn’t He learned our language?” That did it! For the next 13 years Cameron Townsend devoted his life to mastering the Cakchiquel language and translating the Scriptures for them to read.

It was 1929 when he completed the New Testament, by which time he had caught the vision that became “the world’s largest independent Protestant missionary organisation (From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, by Ruth Tucker, page 353), to assist missionaries in the task of learning a foreign language, reducing that language to writing, and translating the Scriptures into it.

In 1934 he founded Camp Wycliffe in Arkansas for that very purpose – now known as Wycliffe Bible Translators/Summer Institute of Linguistics.

By the end of the twentieth century a mighty missionary force about 5000 strong was busily engaged in translating God’s Word into hundreds of languages and dialects, dedicated to the task of reaching the thousands of tribes who still had no Bible in their own language.

Billy Graham described him as “the greatest missionary of our time” (ibid, page 351).

It is to be confessed that “Uncle Cam” never quite fitted in to the evangelical framework of the majority of his workers, or supporters. Involving his translators in “government-sponsored social programs”, his defence of socialism in Mexico and his co-operation with Roman Catholics, have all caused controversy for Wycliffe Bible Translators over the years (see ibid, pages 353-354).

But none can argue with his conviction that “the greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue.” And thousands of dedicated evangelical missionaries are doing what they can to bring the gospel to every nation, in their mother tongue.

This post is based on the work of my late friend Donald Prout whose love for books and Christian history led him to collate a daily Christian calendar. I continue to work with Don’s wife, Barbara, to share his life work with the world. I have updated some of these historical posts and will hopefully draw from Don’s huge files of clippings to continue this series beyond Don’s original work. More of Don’s work can be found at www.donaldprout.com.

Bishop Ryle’s Legacy

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This is the day that …Bishop Ryle heard the Saviour’s “Well done, good and faithful servant!” It was 1900.

Born in 1816 at Macclesfield, England, John Charles Ryle was educated in his native town, then attended Eton and Oxford. It was in 1837, while finishing his Oxford studies that Ryle found faith. He was attending a parish church and, although there was nothing memorable about the sermon or the service in general, the New Testament Bible reading impacted him profoundly. The reader took pains to pause between each phrase of the same truth that so impacted Luther, ‘By grace are ye saved – through faith – and that not of yourselves – it is the gift of God.’ Four years later Ryle entered the Church of England ministry.

In 1880 Queen Victoria appointed him to the bishopric of the newly created Diocese of Liverpool. His evangelical and Protestant stance was soon evident. And the work flourished. Forty-two new churches and fifty new mission halls were opened during his ministry.

But it is as a writer his fame has continued to spread.

Three hundred tracts came from his pen – many of them defending the “glorious truths of the Reformation”. Larger works include his commentary on the Gospels (which is still in print!), Old Paths and Knots Untied … this latter volume often crossing swords with Romanist and Anglo-Catholic teachings.

His Christian Leaders of the 18th Century contains the biographies of some of England’s spiritual giants.

“It has been said,” writes B.C. Mowll, “that few in the 19th century did so much for God, for truth and righteousness, among Englishmen, as Bishop J.C. Ryle.”

Bishop Ryle served as Bishop until he was 83 years old, dying just four months after he retired.

This post is based on the work of my late friend Donald Prout whose love for books and Christian history led him to collate a daily Christian calendar. I continue to work with Don’s wife, Barbara, to share his life work with the world. I have updated some of these historical posts and will hopefully draw from Don’s huge files of clippings to continue this series beyond Don’s original work. More of Don’s work can be found at www.donaldprout.com.

John Raleigh Mott – Ecumenist

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This is the day that … John Raleigh Mott was born in New York State, in 1865.

He was an Ameican Methodist evangelist and became “the most influential world religious leader of the 20th century” – according to Ruth Tucker (From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, page 268).

He influenced more students onto the mission field during his lifetime than any other Christian leader.

At the age of 32 he was acclaimed as “Protestantism’s leading statesman” (20th Century Dictionary of Christian Biography).

In 1886 he had responded for missionary service at D.L. Moody’s student conference … and in the nearly 70 years that followed he travelled two million miles, stirring up missionary interest … and “plagued with sea sickness”.

In 1910 he served as Chairman, and organiser, of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference, a movement designed to bring mission societies together and face them with the challenge of “the evangelisation of the world in this generation…”

But it was not to be.  The “social gospel” replaced evangelism and the Edinburgh Conference became the forerunner of the World Council of Churches.  Mott was the opening speaker in 1948 when the W.C.C. was officially launched … and became Honorary President.

His ecumenical leaning was also seen as president of the YMCA when he encouraged Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians to become members (Dictionary of Christianity in America, page 779). Mott is credited with starting the ecumenical movement, initially as a protestant domain, but then extended to non-protestant denominations (Learning to Give).

At age 81 he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He travelled widely covering more than two million miles (equal to seventy times around the world).

After his first wife died in 1952 he remarried a year later (at the age of 88).  He died on 31 January, 1955.

And I notice that one book claims “Raleigh” was a fictitious name he gave himself when he was 11 years of age!  (20th Century Dictionary of Christian Biography, page 265).