Sermons & Devotionals by Short Biographies

Born: March 13, 1804, Hope­well, Vir­gin­ia. Died: Ju­ly 31, 1859, Sweet­springs, Vir­gin­ia. Buried: Prince­ton, New Jer­sey. Alexander grad­u­at­ed from Prince­ton Un­i­ver­si­ty in 1820. Or­dained in 1827, he served as pas­tor of the First Pres­by­ter­i­an Church in Tren­ton, New Jer­sey (1829-18... Read More

John Huss (Jan Hus) was born in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) in about 1371. He received a master's degree from Charles University in Prague in 1396, became a professor of theology in 1398, was ordained to the priesthood in 1400, was made rector of the University in 1402, and in 1404 rece... Read More

The Church in Uganda began with the deaths of martyrs (see Martyrs of Uganda, 3 June 1886, and James Hannington and his Companions, Martyrs, 29 October 1885). Around 1900, Uganda became a British protectorate, with the chief of the Buganda tribe as nominal ruler, and with several other tribes includ... Read More

Born: November 8, 1877, Moberg, Denmark. Died: June 22, 1970, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Buried: Sunset Memorial Park, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Aaberg em­i­grat­ed to Amer­i­ca in 1901 and went to the small, close-knit Dan­ish-Amer­i­can com­mun­ity in Min­ne­a­po­lis, Min­ne­so­ta, to join his bro­ther... Read More

Born: September 9, 1863, Ipswich, Suffolk, England. Died: July 15, 1954, York, England. Adams, a mem­ber of the So­ci­e­ty of Friends (Quak­ers), was a pro­gressive teach­er, and lead­er of a lo­cal adult school in Frim­ley, En­gland. She pre­ferred to re­main anon­y­mous, so lit­tle else is known a... Read More

Born: 1613, Walpole, Norfolk, England. Died: 1669, Covent Garden, London, England. Buried: St. Paul’s Church, London, England. Pseudonym: William Birchley. Austin was educated at St. John’s, Cambridge. He became a Roman Catholic, entered Lincoln’s Inn to study for the bar, subsequently became a tuto... Read More

BUNYAN, John, the most popular religious writer in the English language, was born at Elstow, about a mile from Bedford, in the year 1628. He may be said to have been born a tinker. The tinkers then formed a hereditary caste, which was held in no high estimation. They were generally vagrants and pilf... Read More

John Calvin (Jean Cauvin) was born at Noyon, France on 10 July 1509. At fourteen he was sent to Paris to study theology, and developed a particular interest in the writings of Augustine. He received his Ma when 19. His father then insisted that he take up law instead, which he did for three years, r... Read More

John was called "Chrysostom" ("Golden Mouth") because of his eloquence. He was a priest of Antioch, and an outstanding preacher. (Audiences were warned not to carry large sums of money when they went to hear him speak, since pickpockets found it very easy to rob his hearers -- they were too intent o... Read More

St. John of the Ladder (c. 570/579-649) became a monk at Sinai when he was 16. He became a solitary and remained a hermit for many years. Many monks wanted him as their spiritual father, and St. Gregory the Great requested his prayers. To fullfill the wish of Abbot John of Raithu, St. John wrote The... Read More

John Graham Lake was born on 18 March, 1870, in Ontario, Canada. And in 1886 moved with his family to Michigan. He was one of 16 children. Along with many of his brothers and sisters he developed a strange digestive disease. This disease killed eight of them, but he managed to survive. This overexpo... Read More

Born: 1887, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Ordained in 1833 in Rum­ney, New Hamp­shire, Adams served in Clare­mont, New Hamp­shire; Pro­vi­dence, Rhode Is­land; Cin­cin­na­ti, Ohio; and Mal­den, Wor­ces­ter and Low­ell, Mass­a­chu­setts. In New Hampshire, he ed­it­ed the Star in the East, and in Mass­a­... Read More

John Raleigh Mott (May 25, 1865-January 31, 1955) was born of pioneer stock in Livingston Manor, New York, the third child and only son among four children. His parents, John and Elmira (Dodge) Mott, moved to Postville, Iowa, where his father became a lumber merchant and was elected the first mayor ... Read More

John Newton who was born in London, [England], July 24, 1725, and died there Dec. 21, 1807, occupied an unique position among the founders of the Evangelical School, due as much to the romance of his young life and the striking history of his conversion, as to his force of character. His mother a pi... Read More

John is generally accounted "the last of the Fathers". He was the son of a Christian official at the court of the moslem khalif Abdul Malek, and succeeded to his father's office. In his time there was a dispute among Christians between the Iconoclasts (image-breakers) and the Iconodules (image-vener... Read More

Born: July 11, 1767, Braintree, Massachusetts. Died: February 23, 1848, Washington, DC. Buried: First Parish Church, Quincy, Massachusetts. Adams was the sixth Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. He wrote a met­ric­al ver­sion of the psalms, as well as sev­er­al hymns. His di­a­ry ent­ry for June 29,... Read More

John Wyclif (also spelled Wycliffe, Wycliff, Wicliffe, or Wiclif) was born in Yorkshire around 1330, and was educated at Oxford, becoming a doctor of divinity in 1372. In 1374, King Edward III appointed him rector of Lutterworth, and later made him part of a deputation to meet at Brussels with a pap... Read More

Jonathan Edwards was the last and greatest of the great New England Puritan preachers. Some historians account him the greatest intellect of the Western Hemisphere before 1900. (The achievements of his descendants are such that the Edwards family used to be cited in psychology textbooks -- and in Ri... Read More

Jonathan Myrick Daniels was born in New Hampshire in 1939, one of two offspring of a Congregationalist physician. When in high school, he had a bad fall which put him in the hospital for about a month. It was a time of reflection. Soon after, he joined the Episcopal Church and also began to take his... Read More

Jonathan Goforth 1859 - 1936 The Holy Spirit's Man In China by Eugene Myers Harrison Few Christians have been so tempted to carnal pride as was he, for few have been the human instrument of such remarkable revivals or the object of such praise. A Roman Catholic servant girl, in a home where the Gofo... Read More