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Missionary John Thayer
John Thayer (1755-1815) was a New England convert, educated at Yale where he was taught that all things Roman Catholic were despicable. Then he went to Europe and underwent a conversion—a most unexpected religious change. He wrote a book about … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Christianity, Great Commission
Tagged bible, Christianity, church-history, Great Commission, history, missionary, Religion
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Junipero Serra: Work and Prayer
Franciscan Junipero Serra (1713-1784), one of the founders of Catholicism in California, should he miraculously walk the paths of California today (on tired, sore, bare feet, for he believed in the practice of mortification), he would be astonished at the … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Christianity, God's Providence, Great Commission
Tagged california, Christianity, faith, history, missionary, saints, travel
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Louis Hennepin (1626-1704), Missionary of Hope
When a person thinks back to the colonial American past imagining what the first Catholic missionaries who braved the elements, journeyed into the forests, and canoed down American rivers, must have been like, they are thinking of such a person … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Biography, Christianity, God's Providence, Great Commission
Tagged history, louisiana, missionary, Religion, saints, travel
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Saint Athanasius: Saint and Doctor of the Church
Athanasius (196-373 AD) lived a long and varied life subject to philosophical, political, and theological controversies, violence, exile, and contentious relations with the most powerful rulers of his time, the Roman Emperors. Athanasius is well known for the Creed named … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, FAQs of Christianity
Tagged bible, Christianity, creeds, faith, fourth-century-ad, history, Jesus, roman-catholicism
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Van Sorrels, the Woodcutting Musician
As the woodcutter sawed and chopped and hewed oak, hickory, maple, and pine, he sang songs to the past, to the land, and to the Lord. His name was Van. He was a simple man. He could read and write … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Biography
Tagged arkansas-history, fiddlers, genealogy, history, rural-arkansas, wood-hewers
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Diary for 1933, 1934, 1935, and 1936 by Lida J. Newcomb of Haverhill, Massachusetts
Lida (Elizabeth) Jane Newcomb was born in San Rafael, California, in 1871; she died at Country Pond, Kingston, New Hampshire, in 1941. She lived most of her life in Maine and Massachusetts, wife to Robert Eugene (Gene) Newcomb, a tinsmith … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Biography
Tagged 1930s, Biography, diary, great-depression, history, housewife, massachusetts, new-hampshire
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God’s Providence: What did Early American Religious Thinkers Believe about the Role of God in Human Affairs?
The eighteenth century in America was a time of awakening from the slumber of the past. Light was shed on the darkness of superstition, irrationality, autocracy, aristocratic privilege, and dogma. The individual, weighed down by the chains of time, institutions, … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Christianity, God's Providence
Tagged bible, Christianity, Early American Christians, god, history, Protestants, Providence, Religion, theology
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The Mirror of the Past is found in Books
The mirror of the past is the only way to peer at the image of what is human. The reflection is darkened by time and sin. Specters of the dead, haunting the dusty stacks of long-ago thoughts, turn up repeatedly, … Continue reading
Posted in books, Christianity, Review of books written by Russell Lawson
Tagged bible, books, history, philosophy, Plutarch
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Review of The Sea Mark: Captain John Smith’s Voyage to New England
The Nautilus: A Maritime Journal of Literature, History, and Culture, (The Nautilus VII (Spring 2016): 115-118: nautilus.maritime.edu/) published a review of my book: The Sea Mark: Captain John Smith’s Voyage to New England (University of New England Press, 2015): the review, reproduced by permission, follows: … Continue reading
Marian Opala’s Fight for Freedom
September 1, 1939, Marian Piotr Opala was an eighteen-year-old student living with his parents in Lodz, Poland, when he heard the news that the Germans had invaded his homeland and were headed toward Lodz from the west. Marian, a law … Continue reading
The American Plutarch 