Early Church Fathers

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Chris Field

The great diversity in forms of worship and doctrine seen in today’s church has come about over 2,000 years of Church History. Obviously, then, a great deal has gone into creating that diversity.

The principal foundation for Christian faith and practice is the Bible, including the teachings of Christ and the examples of the early church. The next to build on that foundation were the immediate descendents of apostolic days. We refer to the key identities from that era as the Early Church Fathers.

This category starts with such identities as Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian of Carthage, Pachomius, Athanasius, Basil the Great and the Gregory’s.

Key Observations

There are many things to gain from an understanding of early church history. One is the very example and testimony of men and women of God who inspire us by their devotion. Another is the theology expressed in those early days, as a source of light to Christian theology as understood and applied so close to the time of the Apostles. We also get a view of the heresies and philosophies which impacted the church at that time.

Another key area of interest is church government. Since the philosophy and process of church government is diverse and widely debated, it is instructive to see what the concepts of those early days were and to trace various developments from those times.

The Bigger Picture

The early church era and the information gleaned from that time complete tie up some of the loose ends of the New Testament record. We see how widely used the gospels and epistles were. We see the fruit of things which were initiated in New Testament times.

The human record also complements the rich spiritual resource of the New Testament. We see how people lived out the faith that was delivered to them by the Apostles.

And, of course, we find much to confirm the accuracy and reliability of the New Testament documents which have been passed down to us.

The Resources

Some of the characters from the early church are known only by name. There is simply no information about some key people from that era. Others wrote extensively and their writings have been preserved. Some were written about. Others are the subject of legends, where the facts are unsure. For some there is conflicting information, so scholars have to determine what facts can be relied on.

Some of the people are accounted for in documents which date back to their own time. Others are referred to centuries later, where information is recorded, from sources unknown, and the later quote has survived. Because of the variety of resources and their varied character, there is much room for speculation and debate.

These History Posts

The summaries which are provided in this series of posts are intended to be a primer or an introduction to the subject matter. Some students will end up immersing themselves in source documents and analysing minute detail. But most of us are happy to at least have captured the big picture and put a few pieces into place.

These posts are intended to provide that quick sweep of the landscape, with sufficient information to give a sensible understanding, without the depth of detail which may be available for the determined student.

Make a Contribution

If you have further information about the topics which are included here, you are welcome to add a note or two, to give readers additional resource to refer to. As you make your contribution, the value of the whole collection increases. Please assist us in this way.

Thomas Binney Preaches with Power

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Chris Field

Thomas Binney was born on April 30, 1798, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. The author of Great Modern Preachers (1875) (a curious volume where the author’s name is nowhere mentioned), Thomas Binney is described as “one of the greatest non-conformist preachers of these 40 years …” (page 81).

For 40 years he pastored the King’s Weigh House Chapel (Congregational) in Eastcheap, London … “his powerful preaching making it one of the most influential churches in the United Kingdom” (Famous Birthdays, by G. Powell, page 61).

Twice he was elected president of the Congregational Union. He wrote 50 books … and pioneered liturgical services, introducing anthems and chants into non-conformist churches …

One of his hymns is still found in today’s hymnals:
Eternal Light! Eternal Light!
How pure the soul must be,
When, placed within Thy searching sight
it shrinks not, but with calm delight
can live, and look on Thee.

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Binney was a forthright an conscientious man, who claimed the right to criticize everything national, including the Church of England. He was credited with saying that ‘the State Church damned more souls than it saved’ and his outspoken denunciations had great influence in the formation of the Tractarian movement.

He strongly advocated universal fellowship among Christians, seeking to reform and unite the Christian church. And he was keenly interested in political issues, including the British colonies; Australia in particular.

By 1833 his Weigh House chapel had to be extended, as his practical and forthright preaching drew growing crowds. His preaching motivated men to go to the colonies, such as John Brown, Robert Gouger and RD Hanson who won prominence in South Australia, and John Fairfax (newspaperman), David Jones (retailer) and John West in New South Wales. In 1836 Binney was the virtual founder of the Colonial Missionary Society which by 1856 had supplied nearly three-quarters of the Congregational ministers in Australia and Canada. His name became known to thousands of emigrants by his published sermons and by petitions from the Weigh-House in support of colonial self-government.

When he visited Australia in 1858/59 he met with overwhelming acceptance, from religious and political leaders, as well as the general population, from the well-to-do to shearers and simple country folk.

He wrote devotional verse and several of his published sermons circulated widely. He also influenced improvements in the form of worship of Noncomformist churches.

Dr Thomas Binney died in 1874.

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

Joseph Henry Gilmore and Psalm 23

Posted on April 29, 2009 by Chris Field

Joseph Henry Gilmore was born in Boston, Massachusetts USA, in 1834. At the age of 28 he was ordained to the Baptist ministry, later becoming professor of “logic, rhetoric and English literature” at the University of Rochester, New York.

It was when he was 28 – speaking at a mid-week meeting on Psalm 23 – that he jotted down the words of the hymn for which he is remembered:

He leadeth me! O blessed thought,
O words with heavenly comfort fraught.
Whate’er I do, where-e’er I be,
still ’tis God’s hand that leadeth me….

He recounts the events thus: He was a 28 year old student soon to become a pastor and was invited to preach at the historic First Baptist Church of Philadelphia. “I set out to give the people an exposition of the Twenty-third Psalm. I had given this exposition on three or four other occasions; but this time I did not get beyond the words ‘He leadeth me’. So greatly impressed was I with the blessedness of divine guidance that I made this my theme.”

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After the meeting Henry and others “continued our discussion of divine guidance. While I was still talking and listening, I wrote on a piece of my exposition manuscript the words to this hymn. I handed the paper to my wife and more or less forgot the incident.”

Some months later Henry’s wife sent the poem to the Watchman and Reflector, a Christian magazine. It was first printed on 4 December, 1862, under the pseudonym, Contoocook. Nobody, today, knows why (Companion to the Baptist Hymnal, page 85)!

But there’s more! Composer of gospel melodies, William Bradbury, set the poem to music in 1864, and it was not until the following year, when he was preaching at the Second Baptist Church, Rochester, New York State, that Joseph Gilmore found it in the hymnal (Companion to Hymns, page 314)!

Three years after he preached that message, having pastored for some time in New Hampshire, Henry was invited to preach a trial sermon at the Second Baptist Church in Rochester, with the view to possibly becoming their minister. “I picked up a church hymnal to see what songs they sang and was surprised to have the book fall open to the very song I had written three years earlier”.

When he related this to his wife she told him how she had sent the verses on, hoping others would be blessed. Henry took this as a sign that he was indeed to take the pastorate in Rochester, which he did, and which led him to a long and fruitful season of academic involvement as well.

Being in Rochester put Gilmore in position two years later to accept an offer to teach Hebrew at Rochester Theological Seminary. The following year, he was offered a professorship of logic and English literature at the University of Rochester, which he held until his retirement in 1908. An English chair at the school is named after him.

Joseph Gilmore died in Rochester on 23 July, 1918.

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

Anthony Ashley-Cooper Blesses the Helpless

Posted on April 28, 2009 by Chris Field

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, was born in London on April 28, 1801. He was to become the “outstanding Christian layman of the 19th century,” writes JC Pollock in his magnificent biography of this man of God.

Born into aristocracy, young Lord Ashley had his course in life moulded by a godly housekeeper, Maria Mills. When he entered parliament in 1826 he brought his strong evangelical convictions to bear on a variety of social evils. Child labour … cruelty to workers … “in the mines and the factories, in the prisons and asylums, among the waifs of the cities and the toilers on the rural farms, he effected reforms by which life was simply transfigured. Existence for countless thousands was scarcely tolerable until he came to their relief. He revolutionised the whole industrial world” (Dr FW Boreham).

Lord Shaftesbury became president of the British and Foreign Bible Society and worked alongside such other evangelical bodies as the London Missionary Society and the Church Missionary Society.

At his death, on 1 October, 1885, thousands lined the streets to pay their final respects as the funeral cortege made its way to St Giles’ Church.

The Temperance Society Band played Safe in the Arms of Jesus, and in that vast crowd there were none that doubted that was true of “the poor man’s Earl” – the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury.

A more complete history of Lord Shaftesbury can be found at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/ministry/church-history/lord-shaftesbury

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

Anne Ross Cousin Hymnwriter

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Chris Field

Anne Ross Cousin was born on April 27, 1824, in Hull, England. Her father, Dr David Ross Cundell of Leith, who was a surgeon in the British Army and served at the Battle of Waterloo, died when she was only three years old.

Anne proved to be a highly gifted lady and became an expert pianist, and began writing poems and hymns. In 1847 she married Rev William Cousin, an honoured clergyman of the Free Church of Scotland. That marriage produced five children.

By the time Anne was 50 she had composed many devotional poems and in 1876, a volume was published called “Immanuel’s Land and other pieces” by Anne Ross Cousin. Critical review suggests that the title poem was by far the best of the collection of over 100 poems.

Among her contributions to hymnody is:
O Christ, what burdens bowed Thy head;
Our load was laid on Thee;
Thou stoodest in the sinner’s stead;
Didst bear all ill for me …

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Known as Substitution, this hymn was included in the Sankey Hymnbook (No. 128), Sankey himself composing the melody. It is also of interest that William Barclay, in his Testament of Faith (page 52), quotes this hymn and denies the truths it contains.

Mrs Cousin’s other magnificent hymn was originally a 19 stanza (152 lines) poem based on the dying words of Rev Samuel Rutherford, “Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land”. Rutherford was a saintly 17th century Scottish Covenanter; a Presbyterian who had been imprisoned during the reign of Charles II. From his prison cell there flowed letters so full of Christ that they have become classics of Christian literature.

And the hymn?

The sands of time are sinking,
The dawn of Heaven breaks;
The summer morn I’ve sighed for,
The fair sweet morn awakes.
Dark, dark hath been the midnight;
but dayspring is at hand.
And glory, glory dwelleth
in Immanuel’s land.

Around 1856, Mrs. Cousin was meditating on Rutherford’s letters as she went about her daily chores. While sewing, she scribbled down lines of poetry, ultimately weaving together expressions from thirtysix of his letters and his final words to create a poetic tapestry.

Ann Ross Cousin continued to write poems, hymns and books, and died in Edinburgh at the age of 82, on December 6, 1906.

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

Marcus Dods Jnr the Scholar

Posted on April 26, 2009 by Chris Field

Marcus Dods Jnr died, on April 26, 1909. He was born on April 11, 1834 at Belford, Northumberland in Scotland, where his father, Marcus Dods (senior) was a Scottish Church (Presbyterian) minister.

Young Marcus was trained at Edinburgh Academy and Edinburgh University, and followed in his father’s footsteps, pastoring, and later teaching in New College, Edinburgh.

In 1864 Dods became minister of Renfield Free Church, Glasgow, where he worked for twenty-five years.

At New College, Edinburgh, in 1890, charges of heresy were brought against him (and dismissed) for denying the inerrancy of Scripture. The charge was based on a sermon on Inspiration which Dods delivered in 1878. The charge against him was dropped by a large majority.

One delightful story concerning Dods comes from The Speaker’s Bible (Romans, Vol. 2, page 143). There we read of his long Saturday walks with Alexander Whyte, a fellow Presbyterian clergyman, and of their discussion. “Whatever we started off with in our conversations” said Whyte, “we soon made across country, somehow, to Jesus …”

Dods devoted much time to the publication of theological books. He wrote, edited existing works, contributed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible, and busied himself with many other publications.

Apart from his services to Biblical scholarship, providing resources for the scholarly, Dods sought to present to the less educated reader the benefit of insights not readily available to them.

Marcus Dods was 75 at the time of his death.

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

Robinson Crusoe the Christian Classic

Posted on April 25, 2009 by Chris Field

Robinson Crusoe was published, on April 25, 1719.

Based loosely on the real life adventures of one Alexander Selkirk, Daniel Defoe penned this best seller, which became one of the world’s greatest adventure stories – at the age of 54, in poor health and confined to this bedroom.

In today’s reprints much of the religious element has been omitted, but in the original version Defoe “produced one of the world’s wisest and most tolerant books in the whole field of applied Christianity”. In the original preface to his work Defoe tells us that, whilst historically basing much of his research on the life of Selkirk, yet at the same time he was revealing something of his own spiritual pilgrimage through his writing. Defoe records his castaway’s conversion, of his leading Man Friday to faith in Christ, and of his constant calling upon the Lord in times of trouble.

Crusoe’s eventual rescue by a Spanish galleon posed problems … “I had rather be delivered up to savages and be devoured alive, than fall into the merciless claws of the priests, and be carried into the Inquisition…”

Thus it was in thousands of Christian homes, that the adventures of Robinson Crusoe became Sabbath afternoon reading material.

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Adam Clarke, Wesleyan commentator par excellence, tells how he “learned more of his duty to God, his neighbour and himself from Robinson Crusoe than from all the books except the Bible that were known in his youth”.

Daniel Defoe had been born into a non-conformist family, and in later life displayed fanatical anti-High Church views. Romanism likewise was anathema to him.

He was an enterprising man who made several attempts at business, which left him deeply in debt. He found in life’s experience the forge in which the real lessons are learned. He said, “In the School of Affliction I have learnt more Philosophy than at the Academy, and more Divinity than from the Pulpit: In Prison I have learnt to know that Liberty does not consist in open Doors, and the free Egress and Regress of Locomotion. I have seen the rough side of the World as well as the smooth, and have in less than half a Year tasted the difference between the Closet of a King, and the Dungeon of Newgate.”

He was also no stranger to controversy, engaging in the various political issues of his day. On one occasion, hiding in a graveyard, he saw the name Robinson Crusoe engraved on a tombstone. That is where he took the name of his famous fiction character.

Along with Samuel Richardson, Defoe is considered the founder of the English novel. Earlier prose was usually written in the form of long poems or dramas. Defoe produced some 200 works of non-fiction prose in addition to almost 2,000 short essays in publications, some of which he also edited.

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

Augustine and his Writings

Posted on April 24, 2009 by Chris Field

Augustine was baptised by Bishop Ambrose of Milan, on April 24, in the year 387AD. It was Easter Sunday. “Augustine of Hippo … is one of the central pillars on which our entire Western civilisation is built…” (Christian History Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3). His “massive intellect” shaped Western theology (Latourette). His “significance in the church is difficult to overestimate!” (Christianity Today, December, 1987). Such quotations could be multiplied.

His book, Confessions, written in 401AD is regarded as a classic among Christian literature, powerfully sharing his personal journey and spiritual growth. Roman Catholicism regards him as one of their ‘saints’, whilst many a Protestant finds his theology embedded in Augustine’s writings.

He waged war – verbally and with his pen – against pagans, astrologers, Manichees, Donatists, Pelagians, Arians, Apollinarians, and a host of other beliefs that opposed the Christian faith.

“One statistician counted in his writings 13,276 quotations from the Old Testament … and 29,540 from the New Testament!” (And that was before the days of Cruden’s Concordance!)

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In his ‘De Civitate Dei’, The City of God, written between 413-427AD and inspired by the fall of Rome to the Visigoths in 410, Augustine separated the moral and spiritual realities of Christianity from political elements. He sought to find the proper relationship between the two forces and saw the church as independent from, if not superior to, the civil state.

One may not agree with all of Augustine’s teaching; nevertheless his impact on the church (one way or another) merits him a place in Christian history.

More information about Augustine’s life and conversion is presented in another post on his life, found at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/ministry/church-history/aurelius-augustine

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

Sarasvati Ramabai and Mukti Mission

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Chris Field

Pundita Sarasvati Ramabai Dongre was born in the forests of Southwest India to Brahmin parents. It was April 23, 1858. By the age of 12 years she had committed to memory 18,000 verses from the Hindu scriptures (Famous Missionaries, Famous Missionaries, by J.C. Lawson, page 53).

When she was 16 famine struck and the family lived on water and leaves for 11 days. When both her parents died she was protected by her older brother, who later died, leaving her alone. Her education enabled her to gain respect and she married an educated Bengali who had also thrown off Hindu teaching. Nineteen months later her husband died and Ramabai was unprotected once again. She also had a baby daughter to care for. Such a situation is shameful in Indian culture and young widows are in a very vulnerable state.

Visiting Calcutta in 1878 the educational leaders bestowed upon her the title “Pandita”, meaning “Learned” (English pundit) – the first woman in the world to have received such an honour.

But further study of the Hindu writings – and the realisation that they held “little or no hope of salvation” for women – led her to turn her attention to investigate Christianity. Widowed, the mother of a small child, she visited England and was impressed by Anglican “Sisters of the Cross“, and their devoted Rescue Mission work. In 1883 Pandita Ramabai was baptised into the Church of England.

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Eight years later she chanced upon the book, From Death to Life by Rev. William Haslam – and to quote Pandita Ramabai: “I read the account of his conversion and work for Christ. Then I began to consider where I stood and what my actual need was… I took the Bible and read. One thing I knew by this time, that I needed Christ, not merely His religion” (Pandita Ramabai, by H. Dyer, page 35).

So this brilliant Indian lady came to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus. When she visited the USA she studied their education system and determined to return to India to educated widows, so they would not be at the mercy of those who would exploit them.

She returned to her native land and, in 1896, commenced the Mukti Mission. “Mukti” means “Salvation” (literally the escape from reincarnation’s horrible repeated cycle of life and death), and from that centre the old time gospel was faithfully proclaimed to thousands of women and children.

In 1905 “a Holy Ghost revival swept over Mukti and hundreds of girls and some boys were gloriously saved” (Herald of Hope, by John Ridley, December, 1959). Ramabai had heard of the revivals in Wales and elsewhere and was desperate to see the power of God. She organised the children to pray.

Thirty young women met for prayer every day. On the morning of June 29 a missionary working at the Mission “was awakened at 3.30, by one of the senior girls saying, ‘Come over and rejoice with us, J. has received the Holy Spirit. I saw the fire, ran across the room for a pail of water and was about to pour it on her, when I discovered that she was not on fire.’ When Miss Abrams arrived, all the girls of that compound were on their knees weeping, praying, and confessing their sins.”

The next evening, during a message on the adulterous woman “the Holy Spirit descended with power, and all the girls began to pray aloud so that she had to cease talking. Little children, middle-sized girls, and young women, wept bitterly and confessed their sins. Some few saw visions and experienced the power of God, and things that are too deep to be described. Two little girls had the spirit of prayer poured on them in such torrents that they continued to pray for hours. They were transformed with heavenly light shining on their faces.”

The girls called the revival “a baptism of fire. They say that when the Holy Spirit comes upon them it is almost unbearable-the burning within. Afterwards they are transformed, their faces light up with joy, their mouths are filled with praise.”

Ramabai also had inexplicable ecstatic experiences: “a consciousness of the Holy Spirit as a burning flame within her and times when, alone in prayer, she involuntarily uttered some sentences in Hebrew.” This Pentecostal revival was marked by confession of sins, prayers, much singing, dancing, clapping, speaking in tongues, and sensations of being consumed by fire.

Before her death on 5 April, 1922, apart from impacting so many lives that would otherwise have been ruined, Pandita Ramabai had also translated the Bible into the Marathi language.

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

Elijah Coleman Bridgman Goes to China

Posted on April 22, 2009 by Chris Field

Elijah Coleman Bridgman was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts, USA April 22, 1801. He was to become the first missionary sent to China by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). It was this Board that had also sent Adoniram Judson to India – America’s first foreign missionary.

Mainly Congregationalist in its denominational make-up, the ABCFM later embraced other denominations – until about 60 years later when “denominations came to feel they could operate more effectively with separate organisations … and left the ABCFM with Congregationalists as its chief supporters” (Encyclopaedia of Modern Christian Missions, page 655).

Elijah Bridgman trained at Andover Theological College and then sailed for China on 14 October, 1829. Here he met up with London Missionary Society worker, Robert Morrison, China’s pioneer missionary.

Bridgman devoted a year to conquering the Cantonese language – later writing a 730-page manual on it! (Dictionary of the Christian Church, page 155). In 1832 Bridgman started a mission press and began publication of ‘The Chinese Repository‘, which he edited until 1847. This monthly magazine was designed to awaken the Christian world’s interest in the spiritual needs of that vast land. This was the world’s first major journal on China, making Bridgman America’s first China expert.

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In 1836 he commenced translating the Scriptures into Cantonese, but this task was suspended when the tragic “Opium War” broke out (1839-1842). But by 1845 the Chinese Emperor pronounced an edict permitting missionary work. The same year Elijah Bridgman married Miss Eliza Jane Gillett. Together they continued to serve the Lord, “on one occasion nearly sacrificing their lives to an infuriated mob” (Great Missionaries, page 102).

They worked together at Guangzhou and adopted two little Chinese girls. Eliza later, in 1850, founded and managed for 15 years the first girls’ school in Shanghai.

Failing health led to Dr Bridgman’s death in Shanghai on 2 November, 1861, and his wife temporarily returned to America. Then, at the age of 59, and alone, she returned to the mission at Peking, where she and her late husband had laboured. Here she secured substantial property and started Bridgman Academy, noted for educating a large number of Chinese women leaders.

Just a decade later she, too, passed into the presence of her Lord, on 10 November, 1871.

To put Bridgman’s work in perspective, Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission which directed English missionaries to China, was formed in 1865, four years after Bridgman’s death.

This post is based on notes by my late friend Donald Prout. I have updated these historical posts with information gleaned from other sources. I am indebted to Don for awakening in me an interest in Church History. Don’s notes can be found at: www.donaldprout.com

Find hundreds of succinct Church History posts at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/topics/ministry/church-history

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Category Archives: Church History

Early Church Fathers

Thomas Binney Preaches with Power

Joseph Henry Gilmore and Psalm 23

Anthony Ashley-Cooper Blesses the Helpless

Anne Ross Cousin Hymnwriter

Marcus Dods Jnr the Scholar

Robinson Crusoe the Christian Classic

Augustine and his Writings

Sarasvati Ramabai and Mukti Mission

Elijah Coleman Bridgman Goes to China