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William Ashley (Billy) Sunday was born on November 19, in Iowa, USA, 1862.
He never saw his father. Billy, as he is better known, was born four months after his father had marched away to fight in the Civil War – never to return to see this third child. Billy lived with him mum, in a [...]

This is the day that Charles Haddon Spurgeon resigned from the Baptist Union of Great Britain!! It was 1887.
History refers to it as the ‘Downgrade Controversy’, a sorry spectacle of modern theology creeping into the denomination he loved.
He wrote in The Sword and the Trowel his reason for his withdrawal:
“Believers in Christ’s atonement are now [...]

This is the day that … Catherine Booth died, in 1890.
Catherine Booth (nee Mumford), was born to a coachbuilder in Derbyshire, in 1829. She read the Bible eight times by the age of twelve, but was converted at the age of 15, when the words of a hymn led her to assurance of salvation.
At fourteen [...]

This is the day that … Torial Joss was born in Scotland, in 1731.
After his father’s death, young Joss ran away to sea and was captured, and imprisoned, by the French.
Back in Scotland – aged 15! – he was press-ganged on to a man-of-war – escaped, and at a place called “Robin Hood’s Bay” (on [...]

This is the day that … Henry Moorhouse was born in 1840, in Manchester, England.
For the first 20 years of his life he was constantly in trouble and in prison more than once. But at the age of 21 “in the engine room of a warehouse,” a young Christian pointed him to Romans 10:9: “If [...]

This is the day that …William Holmes McGuffey was born in Pennsylvania, USA, in 1800.
Much of his early schooling came from his mother – he “irregularly attended rural schools” – but eventually he was to become president of Ohio University (1839-1843). His mother prayed that he would become a preacher, which he most certainly did, [...]

This is the day that … John Chrysostom died in AD 407.
Actually he was not called “Chrysostom” until the 7th century (by Isadore of Seville) – and it is more of a nickname meaning “the golden mouthed”. Such was his eloquence, which still exists in his 600 written sermons.
“John of Antioch” is how others [...]

This is the day that … John Gotch Ridley was born in Darling Point, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, in 1896.
Young John was given a book by his Bible Class teacher – The Life of Hedley Vicars. This New Year gift told of a Christian soldier and, in his own words, became “one of the [...]

This is the day that … Mary Bosanquet Fletcher was born in Leytonstone, in Essex England in 1739. (Some writers give the date of her birth as 12 September).
Her interest in the Christian faith began when she was only six years of age, through a Methodist maid employed by her parents. She took seriously Wesley’s [...]

This is the day that … Rowland Hill was born in 1744, in Shropshire, England, son of Sir Rowland Hill, a baronet. He was afforded education at the best schools, but he chose to relate most with the common man. He scandalised his superiors by undertaking open air preaching and visitation before he was ordained.
This [...]