Topic Archives: History & Biography

‘How did we get here?’ is a question that is always relevant and often illuminating. Yet contemporary evangelicals don’t ask it as often as they should. In his book Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism, 1750-1858,1 Iain Murray tells a story that helps explain how evangelicals – Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and […]

Hodge lived from 1797 to 1878 and was one of the outstanding theologians of the nineteenth century. In a fragment of autobiography which forms the first chapter of the book, Charles Hodge provides recollections of his family background and early life. Much of the remainder of the book consists of letters and other documents collected […]

Mr. Murray has done the Christian world a great service by writing this biography of Archibald Brown. Mr. Brown was one of the great pastors and preachers of the late 19th and early 20th century yet today he is hardly known. This probably because up to now no complete biography of this life has ever […]

Francis Nigel Lee died on December 23, 2011 in Australia. One thing he left behind is the story of the conversion of the man who murdered his father. In April 1994, I was invited to fly round the world and expound the Lord’s Prayer in the USA during September. Having acquired the plane ticket, as […]

The conversion testimony of Kevin McGrane, elder of Bury St Edmunds Presbyterian church. I was raised in a Roman Catholic family, my father having been born in Dublin of Roman Catholic ancestry. Baptism, Confession, Holy Communion and Confirmation followed in regular course. After junior education under Ursuline nuns, I moved to a boys’ grammar school […]

This is part of a lecture ‘Witnessing in the Workplace’, given by the writer at the Barton Conference on Saturday 15th November 2008. A meeting at a carpenter’s bench at Ramsgate about 1895 was the means of the call by grace of my late grandfather, John William Walley. Working beside him for three months was […]

There have been better-known preachers of the gospel in Scotland than Hugh MacLean Cartwright but few can have been better loved by those whom they served. Among other features that distinguished his ministry was the way in which, by many published articles, he sought to keep alive the memory of Christians of former days.2 He […]

Although John Newton is best remembered as a hymn writer, many believe that his greatest gift was as a letter writer. This wonderful book strengthens that point of view. It consists of 83 letters written to Pastor John Ryland Jr. between 1771 and 1803. The editor, Grant Gordon, has not only unearthed dozens of letters which had […]

Not many people get the opportunity to attend seminary. In an amazing way I have attended two. The first was training for the Roman Catholic priestÂhood in Ireland and the second at a conservative Evangelical seminary in England. Raised a Catholic . . . but not knowing God Like most boys in the Republic of […]

These are some notes of what was said on a tour which took place during a Free Presbyterian Youth Conference in Edinburgh, on Wednesday 13 April 2011. 1. John Knox’s House and Trunk’s Close. John Knox’s house is one of the oldest surviving houses in Edinburgh. It is not definite that Knox lived in the […]

Jakob Herman did not have an easy childhood. Born into a Reformed family, he lost his father while still a child. Adopted by the family Pastor, young Jakob was sent to school, but when he was fourteen the Pastor died, and his mother was tragically killed just a year later. Befriended by Rudy Snell, a […]

By Brian Ellis, Manila, Philippines. What do I mean? I must start with some personal testimony so that I can explain. My interest in religion began when I was in the 6th form at Grammar School and I began to attend the Student Christian Movement meetings each week. There we discussed all manner of matters […]

My father was taken as a prisoner of war. He was assumed dead, so it was a shock for my mother when he returned home. I was one of the results of his homecoming! I was born at home in Finsbury Park in north London, on 23 September 1946. That was just over 65 years […]

‘And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me’ (Psa. 50:15). The following account is a true incident in ‘the Battle of the Java Sea’ (27th February to 1st March 1942) in the experiences of Victor Hannaford, of Plymouth, England. ‘Abandon Ship!’ – the Captain issued […]

The word Puritan was originally a nickname, applied to those who, in the late sixteenth century, were anxious to have the Church in England further purified, in the light of Scripture. The name continued to be applied to their spiritual successors down to the end of the following century; among the best known of them […]