CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHIES B-C

These Christians who once walked on this earth like we do today lived lives filled with the same struggles that we do today. Our world has so few examples of living the Christian life. Here are examples from the past on how to live a deeper Christian life in these latter days.

ABOUT BROTHER ANDREW

Brother Andrew was the name Anne van der Bijl took to protect his identity when smuggling Bibles through the Iron Curtain. He was born May 11, 1928, in the village of Sint Pancras in the northern part of the Netherlands. His formal education ended in sixth grade when the German army invaded in 1940 and occupied the Netherlands until its liberation in Spring 1945.

Shortly after the end of World War II, van der Bijl enlisted in the Dutch army and was sent to fight in Indonesia where he was selected for special commando training. A bullet shattered his ankle and prematurely ended his career as a soldier. That led to a crisis of faith. While recuperating in a Catholic hospital he began reading the Bible. Continuing his recovery in the Netherlands he committed his life to following God wherever that led.

He spent two years studying to be a missionary at the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade school in Glasgow, Scotland. One day while standing before a world map at the college he realized that a large part of that map covered communist countries. Strangely, there were never missionaries from those countries visiting the college. That triggered his interest to travel behind the Iron Curtain.

In 1955 he journeyed with a Dutch delegation to the World Youth Congress in Warsaw, Poland. There he discovered a remnant of the Church behind the Iron Curtain desperately in need of Bibles. Brother Andrew distributed a suitcase full of Christian literature, marking the humble beginnings of Open Doors.

Brother Andrew’s autobiography, God’s Smuggler, an international bestseller with more than 10 million copies distributed in at least 35 languages, details dangerous border crossings, KGB pursuits, and his courageous journey of living radically for Jesus Christ. After the publication of this book, the world became Brother Andrew’s concern, specifically everywhere Christians were under pressure.

He made several trips to Vietnam and his first trip to China in 1965 shortly before the Cultural Revolution. He revisited Indonesia and everywhere he spoke in that country he asked forgiveness for what the Dutch army had done.

In 1975 Brother Andrew had a strong desire to bring together people who were seriously interested in reaching into Communist China. Many experts were saying it was impossible to work in China. With the help of the Open Doors Asia team, he organized “Love China” in Manila, Philippines, that brought together more than 400 mission leaders, most of whom had worked in China before Mao’s government kicked them out.

Johan Companjen, Founding President of Open Doors, says “Every time Andrew heard that word ‘impossible’ he perked up. He had a vision to bring together people who were seriously interested in China. Our organization paid most of the costs. Andrew challenged the group that now was God’s time for China.” Within a year, Mao Zedong died and most of the conference participants started working in China. In 1981 Open Doors completed its most ambitious smuggling operation, delivering one million Bibles in a single night to two thousand Christians waiting for them on a secluded beach in China.

Brother Andrew also travelled to Africa, visiting some 20 countries. During one of his early trips to the continent, he spoke at universities in South Africa during the protests against apartheid. A pastor in Johannesburg, Deryck Stone, launched one of the first fund-raising bases for the work and gave it the name Open Doors, which soon became the name of the international work.

In 1977 Brother Andrew travelled to Uganda to encourage the church when dictator Idi Amin was purging the country of all perceived threats. After returning home Brother Andrew learned his name was on a list of people Amin wanted arrested and executed. “Somewhere in my office I still have a copy of that list,” he said. The next year Open Doors organized the “Love Africa” conference in Malawi that brought together 250 church and organization leaders from 37 countries south of the Sahara. At the conference, Brother Andrew taught about the lessons learned from the Church in communist countries.

Brother Andrew made his first trip to Cuba in the late 1960s and later visited several other Latin American countries. In 2001 he met with leaders of the Colombian rebel group AUC (Autodefensas de Colombia) and urged them to lay down their guns. Within a year 15,000 members of AUC surrendered their guns in exchange for Bibles.

Never afraid to go into dangerous situations, Brother Andrew visited war-torn Lebanon twice per year during the 1980s, encouraging the Christians and attempting to build bridges among the various factions. With Bibles in hand, he went to see the prime minister and the president and most of the generals of the various armies engaged in civil war. He also had his first contact with Ayatollah Fadlallah, the spiritual inspiration for the fundamentalist group Hezbollah. Later he made contact with Hamas when their leaders were deported by Israel to Southern Lebanon in 1993. For several years after that, he reached out to various terrorist groups, claiming that the best thing he could do for Israel and Western nations was to “lead their enemies to Christ.” That story is told in his book Light Force, co-authored with Al Janssen. Light Force was published in September 2004. It has been translated and published in nine languages.

Besides God’s Smuggler, Brother Andrew wrote 15 other books, including The Calling, which reveals his secrets for ministry. His last major release, co-authored with Al Janssen and published by Revell and Hodder and Stoughton, was Secret Believers: What Happens When Muslims Believe in Christ. It is written in two parts. Part 1 is in the form of a non-fiction novel and tells the story of the Church in an unnamed Islamic country. Part 2 issues a challenge to the Church in the West.

In 1993, Brother Andrew was knighted by Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands. In 1997, he was the recipient of the World Evangelical Fellowship’s Religious Liberty Award, recognizing his lifetime of service to the Persecuted Church and passion for spreading the Gospel. On February 22, 2003, in California, he received the Heritage of Faithfulness Award from the Christian Association of Senior Adults. However, Brother Andrew said he was proudest of being named a “Blood Brother” of the Apache Indian tribe in the 1980s. As part of the ceremony, he was given an Apache name that means “He who breaks through the lines.”

One more honour that Brother Andrew was proud of: after the fall of the Iron Curtain he obtained copies of the KGB reports numbering more than 150 pages about his work in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He was surprised that they knew so much about him yet were not able to stop his work.

Brother Andrew’s work through Open Doors has led the organization into places where most Christians are unwilling to go. Today Open Doors works in more than 70  to strengthen the Persecuted Church, sustaining indigenous Christians in hostile lands so they can spread the Gospel in their cultures and languages. The organization trains thousands of Christian pastors and lay leaders through trauma counselling, theological education, and preparation-for-persecution seminars. It also assists with economic relief, literacy training, and vocational training in the most dangerous countries in the world.

Brother Andrew passed away on September 27th, 2022. He and his late wife, Corry, who passed away in 2018, are now with Jesus. They lived all of their lives in the Netherlands and are survived by five children and eleven grandchildren.

- Source: opendoorscanada.org/brother-andrew-1928-2022/

QUOTES BY BROTHER ANDREW

IF WE ARE GOING TO BE ARRESTED

"“If we’re going to be arrested for carrying Bibles, we might as well be arrested for carrying a lot of them.”

- Brother Andrew (1928-2022) Dutch Christian Missionary 

FIRST, EARN THE RIGHT TO GET THEIR ATTENTION

"“First, earn the right to get their attention; then show them Jesus – perhaps not with words but always with action.”

- Brother Andrew (1928-2022) Dutch Christian Missionary 

LORD, IN MY LUGGAGE I HAVE SCRIPTURE

“Lord, in my luggage I have Scripture I want to take to your children. When you were on earth, You made blind eyes see. Now, I pray, make seeing eyes blind.  Do not let the guards see those things You do not want them to see.”

- Brother Andrew (1928-2022) Dutch Christian Missionary 

BROTHER ANDREW BOOKS AND SERMONS

Brother Andrew Sermons - Sermon Index 

God's Smuggler 1964

Secret Believers: What Happens When Muslims Believe in Christ

Light Force: A Stirring Account of the Church Caught in the Middle East Crossfire 2004

The Narrow Road: Stories of Those Who Walk This Road Together

And God changed his mind 1990

Cross and the Switchblade: God's Smuggler

God's Call

Battle for Africa 1977

The Calling: A Challenge to Walk the Narrow Road

Prayer Works

The ethics of smuggling 1974

Building in a Broken World 1981

No Guts, No Glory! Slaying Today's Giants 2013

Brother Andrew Shrink Wrap Pack 2008

What I Met Along the Way 1987

Operation Desert Light Merchandising Kit

For the Love of My Brothers 1998

Calling: Unforgettable Story of a Man Who Discovered the Adventure of the Calling 1996

A Journey in the Company of God 1987

Operation Desert Light: Standing Up for Those Caught in the Middle East Crossfire

A Time for Heroes 1988

Fearless by Faith: How to Fight Today's Spiritual Battles

2023

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Praying: Changing God's Mind Through Prayer 1998

Is Life So Dear? When Being Wrong Is Right 1985

Secret Believers Signed Stock 2007

Red Star Over Cuba 1971

Photo Credit: julieroys.com/open-doors-founder-famed-bible-smuggler-brother-andrew-has-died/

ABOUT BROWNLOW NORTH 

Brownlow North (17 July 1741 – 12 July 1820) was a bishop of the Church of England. Brownlow was born on 17 July 1741 in Chelsea, Middlesex, Great Britain, the only son of Francis North, 1st Earl of Guilford and his second wife Elizabeth (then styled as the dowager Viscountess Lewisham as the widow of her first husband George Legge, Viscount Lewisham), only child and sole heir of Arthur Kaye, 3rd Baronet. His half-siblings through their mother included Anne Brudenell (who married James Brudenell, 5th Earl of Cardigan) and William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth;[1] his half-siblings through their father included Frederick North, Lord North and his only full siblings was Louisa Peyto-Verney (who married John Peyto-Verney, 14th Baron Willoughby de Broke).

He was educated at Eton College (1752–1759) and Trinity College, Oxford (where he matriculated on 10 January 1760 as a fellow-commoner), graduating as a Bachelor of Arts in 1762. He became a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford in 1763, gaining his Master of Arts (Oxon) on 4 July 1766 and Doctor of Civil Law in 1770.

Church Career

Memorial to North within Winchester Cathedral.

North was ordained a deacon at Christ Church by John Hume, Bishop of Oxford, on 27 October 1765 and priest at Grosvenor Chapel, Westminster by Frederick Cornwallis, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry on 12 April 1767. Supremely well-connected — his father was an influential courtier and his half-brother Frederick was to become Prime Minister of Great Britain — North enjoyed substantial, rapid and early career advances. His brother-in-law Willoughby de Broke presented him to the rectory of Lighthorne, then the crown presented him to the 4th prebend at Christ Church on 28 April 1768. 

He remained a canon of Oxford until he was installed as Dean of Canterbury on 6 October 1770;[6] while there he obtained the lucrative livings of Lydd and Bexley, both of which he retained while at Lichfield. North left Canterbury for Lichfield in 1771, when his half-brother the Prime Minister's recommendation saw him elected Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. His election to that see having been confirmed on 26 August 1771, he was consecrated a bishop by Frederick Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury (with Richard Terrick, Bishop of London; Zachary Pearce, Bishop of Rochester; and William Markham Bishop of Chester) on 8 September 1771 at Lambeth Palace chapel 

North was Bishop of Lichfield for three years before his election as Bishop of Worcester was confirmed on 27 December 1774; he then remained in Worcester for six and a half years until his election to the See of Winchester was confirmed on 5 June 1781. Throughout the period of his appointments to these two Sees his half-brother remained Prime Minister.

North was enthroned (by proxy) at Winchester Cathedral on 25 June 1781[11] and continued as Bishop of Winchester until his death, following a long illness, at Winchester House, Chelsea on 12 July 1820. He was then buried at his cathedral on 21 August 1820.

Marriage and Family

Mrs. Brownlow North with her son Charles Augustus North (1785-1825) (Richard Cosway, 1791)

On 17 January 1771, North married Henrietta Maria Bannister, who died on 17 November 1796. His eldest son Francis North, 6th Earl of Guilford and his youngest Charles Augustus North both became Anglican priests; of his four daughters, one (Henrietta) married a priest and another (Elizabeth) married Thomas de Grey, 4th Baron Walsingham. The 19th century evangelist, also named Brownlow North was his grandson (Charles' son.)

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownlow_North

QUOTES BY BROWNLOW NORTH 

BROWNLOW NORTH BOOKS AND SERMONS

Brownlow North Sermons - Collection 

Brownlow North Sermons - Christian Articles 

Photo Credit: banneroftruth.org/us/about/banner-authors/brownlow-north/

ABOUT C. S. LEWIS

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) was a brilliant scholar, acclaimed writer, literary critic, and Christian apologist. He is particularly honored for his contributions in literary criticism, apologetics, and children’s and fantasy literature.

Of his over thirty books and numerous essays (the majority of which have remained in print since his death), the most renowned are The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, and The Screwtape Letters. The Chronicles of Narnia series is especially popular and has been adapted into several plays, radio productions, and feature films.

Most recently Time magazine listed the first book in that series, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, as one of the top 100 English language novels written between 1923 and 2005. Lewis’ works have been translated into over thirty languages and many millions of copies have been sold worldwide.

C.S. Lewis was born November 29, 1898, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His only sibling was his older brother, Warren Hamilton Lewis (1895–1973, author of The Splendid Century), with whom he would remain very close throughout his life. Their mother died of cancer when Lewis was nine years old.

After receiving a scholarship to University College, Oxford University, England in 1916, Lewis soon suspended his studies in 1917 to enlist in the British Infantry during World War I. Wounded during the Battle of Arras, he was discharged at the end of 1919.

Education

Soon after, Lewis resumed his studies in Oxford, later to become a Fellow and Tutor of English Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford. He served there from 1925 until 1954, when he was appointed Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Conversion

In 1930, Lewis and his brother, Warren, moved into what became Lewis’s lifelong home, “The Kilns,” located just outside Oxford. In 1931, influenced by the writings of G.K. Chesterton and George MacDonald, along with his close friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien, Lewis abandoned atheism and embraced Christianity, becoming a member of the Church of England. His conversion transformed his work and writings.

During WWII, his BBC wartime radio broadcasts on Christianity explained the faith to many thousands and ultimately brought Lewis worldwide acclaim. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential Christian writers of the 20th century. Throughout his years in Oxford, Lewis and a small company of friends and fellow writers, including Tolkien and Charles Williams, met frequently to share their creative works-in-progress. Members of this now famous writers group, the “Inklings,” came to produce some of the most beloved works of fiction and prose of the 20th century.

Marriage

Late in his life, in 1956, Lewis married Joy Davidman Gresham, an American writer. After a four year fight with bone cancer, she died in 1960, after which Lewis continued to care for her two sons, Douglas and David Gresham. In his book, A Grief Observed, Lewis expressed his deep anguish over his wife’s death.  The book, which would later inspire the award winning stage play and feature film, Shadowlands, has been a source of comfort to many experiencing grief.

Death

One week before his 65th birthday, on Friday, November 22, 1963, Lewis died at The Kilns—the same day that President Kennedy was assassinated and Aldous Huxley died. He is buried a short walk from his beloved home in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry, Oxford.

Source: cslewiscollege.org/c-s-lewis/

QUOTES BY C. S. LEWIS

A MAN'S LACK OF DISCIPLINE IN HIS LIFE

"A man's lack of discipline in his own life is his own punishment." 

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar 

GOD SHOUTS TO US IN OUR PAIN 

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar

WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE OF JESUS CHRIST

"What are we to make of Jesus Christ?  The real question is not what are we to make of Christ, but what is He to make of us?"

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar 

GOD'S PURPOSE AND OUR PRAYERS

"Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men?  For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it.  But neither does God need any of those things that are done by finite agents, whether living or inanimate.  He could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers, and butchers, or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries.  Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to cooperate in the execution of His will...  It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so.  They have not advised or changed God' s mind-- that is, His overall purpose.  But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His creatures."

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar

SIN AND THE ILLUSION OF TIME

"We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin." 

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar

IN WORSHIP GOD COMMUNICATES HIS PRESENCE  

"It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to men."   

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar

NOTHING IN THIS WORLD CAN SATISFY

"If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy, also we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world."  

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar

WE WERE CREATED FOR ANOTHER WORLD 

"If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy, also we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world." 

 - C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar 

WE WRITE IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND  

“First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.”   

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar

THE FUTURE IS SOMETHING WHICH EVERYONE

"The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is."

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer a Scholar

IMAGINE YOURSELF AS A LIVING HOUSE

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar

GOD MADE US: INVENTED US AS A MAN INVENTS AN EGINE  

"God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there."  

-  C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar

THE CHRISTIAN DOES NOT THINK GOD WILL LOVE US 

“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.” 

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar 

WE DELIGHT TO PRAISE WHAT WE ENJOY

"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation."

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar 

A CREATURE REVOLTING AGAINST A CREATOR  

“A creature revolting against a creator is revolting against the source of his own powers–including even his power to revolt. It is like the scent of a flower trying to destroy the flower.”    

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar

SOME PEOPLE FEEL GUILTY ABOUT THEIR ANXIETIES 

"Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith but they are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the passion of Christ."

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar

IF YOU READ HISTORY YOU WILL FIND 

"If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next."  

- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar 

WE ARE ETERNAL IN GOD'S EYES   

"Though we cannot experience our life as an endless present, we are eternal in God's eyes; that is, in our deepest reality."  

-  C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish Writer and Scholar

C. S. LEWIS BOOKS AND SERMONS

Mere Christianity 1952 

The Abolition of Man 1945

Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

In Search of C.S. Lewis (Bridge 1983)

Selected Literary Essays - 1969, Cambridge University Press

An Experiment in Criticism, 1961  

The Great Divorce - by C. S. Lewis 

Letters to an American Lady (Eerdmans). 1967

Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (Harcourt Brace) 1966

The Lion, The Witch and the Warddrobe

The Screwtape Letters

The Magician's Nephew

Jesus as Boy: Children in the Bible

The Chronicles of Narnia

A Grief Observed

The Horse and His Boy

The Four Loves

Out of the Silent Planet

The Problem of Pain

The Abolition of Man

The Silver Chair

Miracles: A Preliminary Study

The Joyful Christian

The Pilgrims Regress

Inspirational Writings of C. S. Lewis

George MacDonald by C. S. Lewis

Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis

The Case For Christianity

The Collected Works of C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis on Faith

The Quotable Lewis

Timeless Writings of C. S. Lewis

Photo Credit: catholiceducation.org/en/marriage-and-family/sexuality/c-s-lewis-on-pornography-and-masturbation.html

ABOUT CATHERINE BOOTH

Catherine was raised in the pious and sheltered world of small-town Victorian England, and her mother was a model of Methodist piety. In her teenage years, Catherine suffered from a spinal curvature and was forced to lay in bed months at a time. She read voraciously, especially the writings of Charles Finney and John Wesley, and she not only became assured of her own salvation but also gained a glimmer of her own calling to public ministry.

When people suggested that a woman's place was in the home, she wondered if the Christian church, which preached a liberating gospel to both men and women, could keep women from expressing their manifold ministry gifts. She eventually concluded that a false interpretation of Paul's comment about women keeping silent in church had resulted in "loss to the church, evil to the world, and dishonor to God."

In the early 1850s, she met and married William Booth, a young preacher who was making a name for himself. When she shared her emerging convictions with her new husband, he said, "I would not stop a woman preaching on any account." But he added that neither would he "encourage one to begin."

Her book, Female Ministry, soon followed, a short, powerful defense of American Phoebe Palmer's holiness ministry. It was not a plea based on natural rights or other feminist themes of the day. Instead, she founded her argument on the absolute equality of men and women before God. She acknowledged that the Fall had put women into subjection, as a consequence of sin, but to leave them there, she said, was to reject the good news of the gospel, which proclaimed that the grace of Christ had restored what sin had taken away. Now all men and women were one in Christ.

In responding to her critics, she asked, "If the Word of God forbids female ministry, we would ask how it happens that so many of the most devoted handmaidens of the Lord have felt constrained by the Holy Ghost to exercise it? … The Word and the Spirit cannot contradict each other."

Catherine herself, however, had yet to venture to preach or teach publicly. That occasion finally came in 1860, when she first preached during an evening Army service. Her abilities were soon apparent, and her reputation spread.

Her hearers were taken with her gentle manner as well as her powerful appeal. One of her sons later remarked, "She reminded me again and again of counsel pleading with judge and jury for the life of the prisoner. The fixed attention of the court, the mastery of facts, the absolute self-forgetfulness of the advocate, the ebb and flow of feeling, the hush during the vital passages—all were there."

Or as another man put it, "If ever I am charged with a crime, don't bother to get any of the great lawyers to defend me; get that woman."

Though she cared for a household of six at the time (she eventually raised eight children), her preaching schedule increased. She soon felt the pressure: "I cannot give time to preparation unless I can afford to put my sewing out. It never seems to occur to anybody that I cannot do two things at once." On top of that, her husband began falling ill, so she added the administration of the Army to her duties—and thus she grew into her matriarchal role as "the Army Mother."

Small wonder, then, that hundreds of "Hallelujah lasses," as they made their way in the wretched streets and alleys of industrial England, saw the Army Mother as their mentor. And no wonder that the once-lukewarm William, in drafting his Orders and Regulations for the Army, incorporated statements like these: "Women shall have the right to an equal share with men in the work of publishing salvation."

Source: christianitytoday.com/history/people/activists/catherine-booth.html

End of Life

Illnesses she suffered for most of her life did little to slow Booth down. Early on, she was an advocate of homeopathy and alternative forms of medicine. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1888, she refused surgery. Although suffering in the final stages of cancer, she still managed to occasionally speak at Salvation Army meetings and to hold bedside visits with guests and family. Her heroic and exemplary manner during her illness served as an inspiration for Salvation Army members. Fittingly, she was photographed on her death bed under the Salvation Army banner bearing their slogan, "Blood and Fire." One of her last messages, displayed at the Annual Anniversary Meeting in July of 1890, the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Salvation Army, read:

My place is empty but my heart is with you. You are my joy and crown. Your battles, sufferings and victories have been the chief interest of my life for these twenty-five years…. I am dying under the Army flag and it is yours to live and fight under.

On October 4, 1890, Catherine Booth, age 61, passed away in William's arms with her family around her. She is interred with her husband in Abney Park Cemetery, London.

Source: newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Catherine_Booth

QUOTES BY CATHERINE BOOTH

DO NOT BE CONCERNED ABOUT DYING

"The waters are rising, but so am I. I am not going under, but over. Do not be concerned about dying; go on living well, the dying will be right.”

- Catherine Booth (1829-1890) Co-Founder of the Salvation Army

YOU ARE NOT HERE IN THE WORLD FOR YOURSELF

"You are not here in the world for yourself. You have been sent here for others. The world is waiting for you!"

Catherine Booth (1829-1890) Co-Founder Salvation Army

THE POPULAR GOSPEL OF THE THIS DAY

"The popular gospel of this day, is the laughing-stock of Hell; it dare neither damn the sinner, nor sanctify the saint."

-Catherine Booth (1829-1890) Co-Founder Salvation Army

SATAN HAS GOT MEN FAST ASLEEP IN SIN

"Many do not recognize the fact as they ought, that Satan has got men fast asleep in sin and that it is his great device to keep them so. He does not care what we do if he can do that. We may sing songs about the sweet by and by, preach sermons and say prayers until doomsday, and he will never concern himself about us, if we don't wake anybody up. But if we awake the sleeping sinner he will gnash on us with his teeth. This is our work - to wake people up." 

-C atherine Booth (1829-1890) Co-Founder Salvation Army

TIRED OF HEARING THE WORDS

"I am tired of hearing the words 'I can't'. Jeremiah said, 'I am a child'; but the Lord didn't pat him on the back and say, Jeremiah, that is very good, I like that in you; your humility is beautiful.' Oh no! God didn't want any such mock humility. He reproved and rebuked it. I do not like the humility that is too humble to do as it is bid. When my children are too humble to do as they are bid, I pretty soon find a way to make them. I say, 'Go and do it!' The Lord wants us to 'go and do it'."

- Catherine Booth (1829-1890) Co-Founder Salvation Army 

WHATEVER  YOUR PARTICULAR CALLING IS

"Whatever the particular call is, the particular sacrifice God asks you to make, the particular cross He wishes you to embrace, whatever the particular path He wants you to tread, will you rise up, and say in your heart, 'Yes, Lord, I accept it; I submit, I yield, I pledge myself to walk in that path, and to follow that Voice, and to trust Thee with the consequences"? Oh! but you say, 'I don't know what He will want next.' No, we none of us know that, but we know we shall be safe in His hands."

- Catherine Booth (1829-1890) Co-Founder Salvation Army 

LET US BE TRUE TO OUR EXALTED DESTINY

"We are made for larger ends than Earth can encompass. Oh, let us be true to our exalted destiny."

- Catherine Booth (1829-1890) Co-Founder Salvation Army

CATHERINE BOOTH BOOKS AND SERMONS

Catherine Booth Sermons - Sermon Index 

Booth, Catherine. Aggressive Christianity. Diggory Press, 2005. ISBN 1905363117

Booth-Tucker, Frederick St. George de Lautour. The Short Life of Catherine Booth, the Mother of the Salvation Army. Adamant Media Corporation, 2000. ISBN 1421266652

Booth, Catherine. Godliness. Kessinger Publishing, 2004. ISBN 1419122029

Hattersley, Roy. Blood and Fire: William and Catherine Booth and the Salvation Army. Little Brown, 1999. ISBN 0385494394

Photo Credit: findagrave.com/memorial/3733/catherine-booth

ABOUT CHARLES G. FINNEY

The 29-year-old lawyer Charles Grandison Finney had decided he must settle the question of his soul's salvation. So on October 10, 1821, he headed out into the woods near his Adams, New York, home to find God. "I will give my heart to God, or I never will come down from there," he said. After several hours, he returned to his office, where he experienced such forceful emotion that he questioned those who could not testify to a similar encounter.

"The Holy Spirit … seemed to go through me, body and soul," he later wrote. "I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through and through me. Indeed it seemed to come in waves of liquid love, for I could not express it in any other way."

The next morning, Finney returned to his law office to meet with a client whose case he was about to argue. "I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead his cause," he told the man, "and cannot plead yours."

And so began the new career of the man who would become the leading revivalist in the nineteenth century.

Inside the Burned-over District

Born in Connecticut, Finney was raised in Oneida County, New York. After a couple years teaching in New Jersey, he returned to New York to help his mother, who had become seriously ill. Meanwhile, he began studying law and became an apprentice to a judge in Adams.

After his conversion, Finney prepared for ministry in the Presbyterian church and was ordained in 1824. Hired by the Female Missionary Society of the Western District, he began his missionary labors in the frontier communities of upper New York. A rigid Calvinism dominated the theological landscape, but Finney urged his listeners to accept Christ openly and publicly. His style differed too; his messages were more like a lawyer's argument than a pastor's sermon.

At Evans Mills, he was troubled that the congregations continuously said they were "pleased" with his sermons. He set about to make his message less pleasing and more productive. At the end of his sermon, which stressed the need for conversion, he took a bold step: "You who have made up your minds to become Christians, and will give your pledge to make your peace with God immediately, should rise up."

The entire congregation, having never heard such a challenge, remained in their seats.

"You have taken your stand," he said. "You have rejected Christ and his gospel." The congregation was dismissed, and many left angry.

The next evening, Finney preached on wickedness, his voice like "a fire … a hammer … [and] a sword." But he offered no chance to respond. The next night, the entire town turned out, including a man so angry with Finney that he brought a gun and intending to kill the evangelist. But that night, Finney again offered congregants a chance to publicly declare their faith. The church erupted—dozens stood up to give their pledge, while others fell down, groaned, and bellowed. The evangelist continued to speak for several nights, visiting the new converts at their homes and on the streets.

He rode from town to town over what was known as the "burned-over district," a reference to the fact that the area had experienced so much religious enthusiasm that it was thought to have burned out. Newspapers, revivalists, and clergy took notice of the increasingly rowdy meetings—meetings unlike those of reserved Calvinists.

Identifying Finney's revivals with those a few decades earlier in places like Cane Ridge, Kentucky, many were ecstatic about prospects for "awakening" in the northeast. But others were opposed to the "plain and pointed preacher." The Old School Presbyterians resented Finney's modifications to Calvinist theology. Traditional Calvinists taught that a person would only come to believe the gospel if God had elected them to salvation. Finney stated that unbelief was a "will not," instead of a "cannot," and could be remedied if a person willed to become a Christian.

Such rigid Calvinism, he said, "had not been born again, was insufficient, and altogether an abomination to God."

The revivalistic Congregationalists, led by Lyman Beecher, feared that Finney was opening the door to fanaticism by allowing too much expression of human emotion. Unitarians opposed Finney for using scare tactics to gain converts. Across the board, many thought that his habitual use of the words you and hell "let down the dignity of the pulpit."

"New Measures"

During this time, Finney developed what came to be known as "New Measures." He allowed women to pray in mixed public meetings. He adopted the Methodists' "anxious bench": he put a pew at the front of the church, where those who felt a special urgency about their salvation could sit. He prayed in colloquial, common, and "vulgar" language. Most of these New Measures were actually many decades old, but Finney popularized them and was attacked for doing so.

In July 1827, the New Lebanon Convention was held to examine these practices, as well as some false reports of excesses. Vote after vote ended in stalemate. When a last attempt was made at a resolution condemning questionable revivalistic practices, Finney countered by proposing a condemnation to "lukewarmness in religion." Neither proposal passed.

The zenith of Finney's evangelistic career was reached at Rochester, New York, where he preached 98 sermons between September 10, 1830, and March 6, 1831. Shopkeepers closed their businesses, posting notices urging people to attend Finney's meetings. Reportedly, the population of the town increased by two-thirds during the revival, but crime dropped by two-thirds over the same period.

From Rochester, he began an almost continuous revival in New York City as minister of the Second Free Presbyterian Church. He soon became disenchanted with Presbyterianism, however (due largely to his growing belief that people could, with God, perfect themselves). In 1834, he moved into the huge Broadway Tabernacle his followers had built for him.

He stayed there for only a year, leaving to pastor Oberlin Congregation Church and teach theology at Oberlin College. In 1851, he was appointed president, which gave him a new forum to advocate social reforms he championed, especially abolition of slavery.

Finney produced a variety of books and articles. His Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1835), a manual on how to lead revivals, inspired thousands of preachers to more consciously manage (critics said "manipulate") their revival meetings. His Lectures on Systematic Theology (1846) teach his special brand of "arminianized Calvinism."

Finney is called the "father of modern revivalism" by some historians, and he paved the way for later mass-evangelists like Dwight L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and Billy Graham.

-SOURCE: christianitytoday.com/history/people/evangelistsandapologists/charles-finney.html

QUOTES BY CHARLES G. FINNEY

THERE CAN BE NO HIGHER ENJOYMENT OF LIFE

"There can be no higher enjoyment found in this world that is found in pulling souls out of the fire and bringing them to Christ."

- Charles Finney (1792-1875) Minister, Evangelist

IT IS THE GREAT BUSINESS OF EVERY CHRISTIAN

"It is the great business of every Christian to save souls. People complain that they do not know how to take hold of this matter. Why, the reason is plain enough; they have never studied it. They have never taken the proper pains to qualify themselves for the work. If you do not make it a matter of study, how you may successfully act in building up the kingdom of Christ, you are acting a very wicked and absurd part as a Christian."

- Charles Finney (1792-1875) Minister, Evangelist

THE HEARTS OF CHRISTIANS PRAYING TOGETHER

"Nothing tends more to cement the hearts of Christians than praying together. Never do they love one another so well as when they witness the outpouring of each other's hearts in prayer."

- Charles Finney (1792-1875) Minister, Evangelist

I HAVE A RETAINER FROM TTHE LORD JESUS CHRIST

"I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead his cause, and cannot plead yours." 

 - Charles Finney (1792-1875) Minister, Evangelist 

SIN IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE THING IN THE UNIVERSE

"Sin is the most expensive thing in the universe. Nothing else can cost so much."

- Charles Finney (1792-1875) Minister, Evangelist

CHARLES G. FINNEY BOOKS BAND SERMONS 

• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: The Character, Claims, and Practical Workings of Freemasonry (Cincinnati: Western Tract And Book Society, c1869)
  • multiple formats at Google
  • HTML at gospeltruth.net
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Finney's Systematic Theology (1878 edition), ed. by J. H. Fairchild (multiple formats at CCEL)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Guide to the Savior, or, Conditions of Attaining to and Abiding in Entire Holiness of Heart and Life (third edition, 1855) (HTML at gospeltruth.net)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Lectures on Revivals of Religion (New York et al.: Fleming Revell Co., c1868)
  • multiple formats at CCEL
  • multiple formats at archive.org
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Lectures on Revivals of Religion (new edition; Oberlin, OH: E. J. Goodrich, 1868) (page images at HathiTrust)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Lectures on Systematic Theology (London: William Tegg and Co., 1851), ed. by George Redford (HTML at gospeltruth.net)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Lectures to Professing Christians (text files at CCEL)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Memoirs of Rev. Charles G. Finney (HTML at gospeltruth.net)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875, contrib.: Minutes of the Christian Convention, Held at Aurora, Illinois, Oct. 31st and Nov. 1st, 1867; With the Addition of a Sermon on Freemasonry (second edition, revised; Chicago: E. A. Cook, 1868) (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Selected works and commentary (HTML at gospeltruth.net)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: A Sermon, Preached in the Presbyterian Church at Troy, March 4, 1827, bt the Rev. Charles G. Finney, From Amos III. 3: Can Two Walk Together Except They Be Agreed? (HTML at gospeltruth.net)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Sermons on Gospel Themes (multiple formats at CCEL)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Sermons on Important Subjects (1836) (HTML at gospeltruth.net)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Sermons on the Way of Salvation (as originally published in the Oberlin Evangelist) (HTML at gospeltruth.net)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Sermons on Various Subjects (1835) (HTML at gospeltruth.net)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Skeletons of a Course of Theological Lectures (first edition, 1840) (HTML at gospeltruth.net)
• Finney, Charles G., 1792-1875: Views of Santification (1840) (HTML at gospeltruth.net)

Source: onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Finney%2C%20Charles%20G%2E%2C%201792%2D1875

Photo Credit: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_G_Finney_-_Erweckungsprediger.jpg

ABOUT CHARLES HODGE

Hodge was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the 28th of December 1797. He graduated at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) in 1815, and in 1819 at the Princeton Theological seminary, where he became an instructor in 1820, and the first professor of Oriental and Biblical literature in 1822. Meanwhile, in 1821, he had been ordained as a Presbyterian minister. From 1826 to 1828 he studied under de Sacy in Paris, under Gesenius and Tholuck in Halle, and under Hengstenberg, Neander and Humboldt in Berlin. In 1840 he was transferred to the chair of exegetical and didactic theology, to which subjects that of polemic theology was added in 1854, and this office he held until his death.

In 1825 he established the quarterly Biblical Repertory, the title of which became the Princeton Review in 1877. He secured for it the position of theological organ of the Old School division of the Presbyterian Church, and continued its principal editor and contributor until 1868, when the Rev. Lyman H. Atwater became his colleague.

His more important essays were republished under the titles Essays and Reviews (1857), Princeton Theological Essays, and Discussions in Church Polity (1878). He was moderator of the General Assembly (O.S.) in 1846, a member of the committee to revise the Book of Discipline of the Presbyterian church in 1858, and president of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in 1868-1870. The 24th of April 1872, the fiftieth anniversary of his election to his professorship, was observed in Princeton as his jubilee by between 400 and 500 representatives of his 2700 pupils, and $50,000 was raised for the endowment of his chair. He died at Princeton on the 19th of June 1878.

Source: ccel.org/ccel/hodge

QUOTES BY CHARLES HODGE 

THE BEST EVIDENCE OF THE BIBLE BEING GOD'S WORD IS

"The best evidence of the Bible's being the word of God is to be found between its covers. It proves itself."

- Charles Hodge (1797-1878) Conservative American Biblical Scholar

TO BE IN CHRIST IS THE SOURCE OF THE CHRISTIAN'S LIFE

"To be in Christ is the source of the Christian's life; to be like Christ is the sum of His excellence; to be with Christ is the fullness of His joy."

- Charles Hodge (1797-1878) Conservative American Biblical Scholar

THE SCRIPTURES TEACH THAT THE HAPPINESS

"The Scriptures teach that the happiness or blessedness of believers in a future life will be greater or less in proportion to the service of Christ in this life. Those who love little, do little; and those who do little, enjoy less."

- Charles Hodge (1797-1878) Conservative American Biblical Scholar

THE CHURCH IS A LIVING BODY

"If the Church is a living body united to the same head, governed by the same laws, and pervaded by the same Spirit, it is impossible that one part should be independent of all the rest."

- Charles Hodge (1797-1878) Conservative American Biblical Scholar

THE CHURCH IS EVERYWHERE

"The Church is everywhere represented as one. It is one body, one family, one fold, one kingdom. It is one because pervaded by one Spirit. We are all baptized into one Spirit so as to become, says the apostle, on body."

- Charles Hodge (1797-1878) Conservative American Biblical Scholar

CHARLES HODGE BOOKS AND SERMONS

• Hodge, Charles, 1797-1878, contrib.: Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments: Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartwright on This Important Subject (Augusta, GA: Pritchard, Abbot and Loomis, 1860), ed. by E. N. Elliott, also contrib. by David Christy, Albert Taylor Bledsoe, Thornton Stringfellow, United States Supreme Court, James Henry Hammond, William Harper, and Samuel A. Cartwright
  • Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • multiple formats at Google
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Hodge, Charles, 1797-1878: A Solemn Question! Can the Protestants Conscientiously Build Up the Churches of the Pope? (Halifax: Nova Scotia Printing Co., 1873), also by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Hodge, Charles, 1797-1878: Systematic Theology
  • Volume I: multiple formats at CCEL
  • Volume II: multiple formats at CCEL
  • Volume III: multiple formats at CCEL
  • Index volume: multiple formats at CCEL
• Hodge, Charles, 1797-1878: What is Presbyterianism? (page images at MOA)

Source: onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Hodge%2C%20Charles%2C%201797%2D1878

Photo Credit: history.pcusa.org/blog/2018/04/charles-hodge-conservative-theologian-finds-his-way-emancipation

ABOUT CHARLES H. SPURGEON

Rev. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the most widely-known preacher of the age, was born at Kelvedon, County of Essex, England, June 19, 1834. At an early age he was removed to his grandfather's house at Stambourne, in the same county, and remained there several years. His grandfather, who was the pastor of the Independent church of that place, and a man of considerable note for his long-continued and useful labors, was soon impressed with the child's thoughtfulness and keen moral perceptions. Most of the pious people who were acquainted with the family seem to have anticipated a remarkable career for him, and the well-known Rev. Richard Knill, when visiting at Stambourne in 1844, was so struck with the boy's ability and character that he declared to the assembled family his "solemn presentiment that this child will preach the gospel to thousands, and God will bless him to many souls."

Having received a liberal education at a private academy at Colchester, he engaged himself in his fifteenth year as assistant in a school at Newmarket conducted by a member of the Baptist denomination. This engagement led to his first associating himself with Baptists, his family and friends being all Independents. At this time, however, he had not found peace in Christ, although deeply convinced of sin. About the close of the year 1850 his distress of soul greatly increased, and he attended religious services in various places, seeking salvation in vain, until on December 15 he happened to go into a Primitive Methodist chapel in Colchester, and heard a sermon on the text, "Look unto me, and be ye saved." From that hour he rejoiced in salvation. He now felt it his duty to make a profession of his faith in Christ, and to unite himself with the Baptists. Although this step was not altogether pleasing to his family, his father and his grandfather being Pedobaptist ministers, they at length yielded to his wishes, and he was baptized May 3, 1851.

A year afterwards he removed to Cambridge, still continuing to teach as an usher, or assistant master. Having joined the old Baptist church in St. Andrew's Street, of which Robert Hall and Robert Robinson had been pastors, he soon found a congenial sphere of work in connection with "The Lay Preachers' Association." He became a welcome visitor at the thirteen village stations supplied by this body, and in 1852 he was invited by the little church at Waterbeach to assume the pastoral charge. His family and friends wished him to enter a theological seminary, and steps were taken to introduce him to Dr. Angus, the distinguished president of Regent's Park College. Through a misunderstanding the proposed meeting did not take place, and he continued at Waterbeach.

His ministry there was so eminently successful that in the autumn of 1853 the deacons of the ancient church in Southwark, London, the church of Benjamin Keach, Dr. Gill, and Dr. Rippon, were led to invite him to supply the pulpit. For some time the congregation there had been dwindling away, and at his first service there were only 200 attendants in a building capable of holding 1200. The result of the first sermon was a great increase in the evening attendance, and an invitation to come again as soon as possible. After three more Sundays he was asked to supply for six months with a view to a permanent settlement as pastor. He agreed to come for three months. Before the three months had passed away the small minority who had opposed the motion to call him to the pastorate were absorbed into the majority. and on April 28, 1854, he accepted their cordial and unanimous call.

His metropolitan ministry was a grand success from the start. All London was soon talking of the youthful Whitefield who had been discovered in a Cambridgeshire village. From London his fame spread throughout the land. Within a year the church edifice had to be enlarged. During the alterations Exeter Hall was hired, and over-flowing congregations in that spacious and central place attracted towards him the attention and criticism of the press. His "Exeter Hall Sermons" were published and had an extensive sale. Invitations to preach flowed in upon him from all quarters, to which he readily responded.

In 1856, the enlarged chapel having proved utterly inadequate to accommodate the crowds who flocked to hear him, he commenced preaching in the Music Hall of the Surrey Gardens, an immense building, which, although capable of seating 7000, was always densely crowded. Here notable persons of all sorts were frequently seen curiously studying this pulpit phenomenon. But, of course, the Music Hall could not be the home of a church, and in August, 1859, the foundation-stone of the Metropolitan Tabernacle was laid. The structure was completed in March, 1861, and at the conclusion of a series of opening services the entire cost, £31,000 ($150,000), was contributed. Subsequent improvements have enlarged the accommodations, and there are now seats for 5500 persons, and standing-room for 1000 more. It is well known that the congregations always fill the place on Sundays when Mr. Spurgeon preaches. When the church took possession of the Tabernacle there were 1178 members on the roll; there are now upwards of 5500.

Mr. Spurgeon's frequent attacks of illness, and the great increase of the membership, led the church, in 1868, to appoint his brother, the Rev. James Archer Spurgeon, as co-pastor, and this fellowship in service is still harmoniously and prosperously maintained. Besides his pulpit labors, Mr. Spurgeon's pen is ever busy. His contributions to the press and to theological literature rank him with the most eminent masters of style, and are scarcely less effective than his preaching. He is also among the most active leaders in philanthropic work, and princely in his gifts.

An orphanage for boys was commenced in 1867, and one for girls in 1880, at Stockwell, London. In these buildings 500 or 600 fatherless children are received, being admitted between the ages of six and ten years, and remaining until they are fourteen. The most needy applicants are generally preferred by the trustees, without regard to sectarian distinctions. Mr. Spurgeon's remarkable faculty of administration has made the Stockwell Orphanage famous among works of benevolence.

Early in his ministry he commenced at his own charge the enterprise which has developed into the Pastors' College, from which institution some hundreds of students have gone forth as preachers and missionaries. In 1865 he started a monthly magazine, the Sword and Trowel, purposing to make it the foster-parent of the college and orphanage, and the project has proved every way successful. A Colportage Association and Mrs. Spurgeon's Book Fund to provide free gifts of books for poor pastors, are valuable adjuncts to the colossal work of which the Tabernacle is the center. Week by week for upwards of twenty-five years a sermon by Mr. Spurgeon has been published, and not a few of them have had a remarkably large sale. They have been translated into several languages, and their entire circulation is probably unparalleled.

Mr. Spurgeon has two sons, twins. Both are preachers, and one is pastor of a Baptist church at Greenwich, near London.

From The Baptist Encyclopedia... edited by William Cathcart. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883.

Source: wholesomewords.org/biography/biospurgeon11.html

QUOTES BY CHARLES H. SPURGEON

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IS VERY MUCH LIKE

"The Christian life is very much like climbing a hill of ice. You cannot slide up. You have to cut every step with an ice axe. Only with incessant labor in cutting and chipping can you make any progress. If you want to know how to backslide, leave off going forward. Cease going upward and you will go downward of necessity. You can never stand still.."

- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Baptist Preacher 

HE WILL BE WITH THEM IN IT

"As sure as God puts His children in the furnace of affliction, He will be with them in it."

- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Baptist Preacher and Author

THE MORE YOU READ THE BIBLE       

"The more you read the Bible; and the more you meditate on it, the more you will be astonished with it."        

- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Baptist Preacher  

HIGHEST PROOF OF CHRIST'S POWER  

"I take it that the highest proof of Christ's power is not that He offers salvation, not that He bids you take it if you will, but that when you reject it, when you hate it, when you despise it, He has a power whereby he can change your mind, make you think differently from your former thoughts, and turn you from the error of your ways." 

 - Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Baptist Preacher 

A GOOD CHARACTER IS THE BEST TOMBSTONE 

"A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble."  

- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Baptist Preacher 

THE PRIVILEDGE OF PRAYING FOR PEOPLE  

"I always give all the glory to God, but I do not forget that He gave me the privilege of ministering from the first to a praying people. We had prayer meetings that moved our very souls, each one appeared determined to storm the Celestial City by the might of intercession."  

- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Baptist Preacher 

WE SUFFER TODAY, BUT WE SHALL REJOICE TOMORROW

"Our sorrows are all, like ourselves, mortal. There are no immortal sorrows for immortal souls. They come, but blessed be God, they also go. Like birds of the air, they fly over our heads. But they cannot make their abode in our souls. We suffer today, but we shall rejoice tomorrow."

- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Baptist Preacher and Author

HE WILL STAND AS THEIR ADVOCATE  

"God will not be absent when His people are on trial; he will stand in court as their advocate, to plead on their behalf." 

- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Baptist Preacher 

I ALWAYS GIVE ALL THE GLORY TO GOD

"I always give all the glory to God, but I do not forget that He gave me the privilege of ministering from the first to a praying people. We had prayer meetings that moved our very souls, each one appeared determined to storm the Celestial City by the might of intercession."

- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Baptist Preacher 

NO MAN CAN DO ME A TRUER KINDNESS  

"No man can do me a truer kindness in this world than to pray for me."    

- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Baptist Preacher 

MAN WHO MARCHES IN HIS OWN STRENGTH  

"God will not go forth with that man who marches in his own strength" 

- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Baptist Preacher 

THE PROMISE OF SCRIPTURE IS A WRITING OF GOD

“Every promise of Scripture is a writing of God, which may be pledged before Him with this reasonable request: Do as Thou hast said.” 

– Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Baptist Preacher 

ONE OF THE HARDEST STRUGGLE OF THE CHRISTAIN LIFE  

"It is, perhaps, one of the hardest struggles of the Christian life to learn this sentence - "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy name be glory."  

- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Baptist Preacher 

WHEN WE VENTURE INTO HIS PRESENCE  

"As for our great King, when we venture into His presence, let us have a purpose there. Let us beware of playing at praying; it is insolence toward God."   

- Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) English Pastor Clergyman

CHARLES H. SPURGEON BOOKS AND SERMONS

The C. H. Spurgeon Collection - Sermon List 

Charles Spurgeon Audio Message Archive 

• Spurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon), 1834-1892: Advice for Seekers (multiple formats at chapellibrary.org)
• Spurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon), 1834-1892: All of Grace (HTML at spurgeon.org)
• Spurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon), 1834-1892: The Autobiography of Charles H, Spurgeon, Compiled From His Diary, Letters, and Records (4 volumes; Chicago et al.: F. H. Revell Co., 1898-1900), ed. by Susannah Spurgeon and Joseph Harrald
  • Volume I (1834-1854): multiple formats at archive.org
  • Volume II (1854-1860): multiple formats at archive.org
  • Volume III (1856-1878): multiple formats at archive.org
  • Volume III (1878-1892): multiple formats at archive.org
• Spurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon), 1834-1892: Commenting and Commentaries (HTML at CCEL)
• Spurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon), 1834-1892: Evening by Evening: or, Readings at Eventide, For the Family or the Closet (New York: Sheldon and Co., 1869) (page images at HathiTrust)
• Spurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon), 1834-1892: Morning and Evening (multiple formats with commentary at CCEL)
• Spurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon), 1834-1892, ed.: Our Own Hymn-Book: A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Public, Social, and Private Worship (words only; London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1883) (page images at HathiTrust)
• Spurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon), 1834-1892: Till He Come: Communion Meditations and Addresses (multiple formats with commentary at CCEL)
• Spurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon), 1834-1892: The Treasury of David (HTML at crosswalk.com)

Source: onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book//lookupname?key=Spurgeon%2C%20C%2E%20H%2E%20%28Charles%20Haddon%29%2C%201834%2D1892

Photo Credit: christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-29/life-times-of-charles-h-spurgeon.html

ABOUT CHARLES WESLEY

He was said to have averaged 10 poetic lines a day for 50 years. He wrote 8,989 hymns, 10 times the volume composed by the only other candidate (Isaac Watts) who could conceivably claim to be the world's greatest hymn writer. He composed some of the most memorable and lasting hymns of the church: "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "And Can It Be," "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing," "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling," "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today," "Soldiers of Christ, Arise," and "Rejoice! the Lord Is King!"

And yet he is often referred to as the "forgotten Wesley."

His brother John is considered the organizational genius behind the founding of Methodism. But without the hymns of Charles, the Methodist movement may have gone nowhere. As one historian put it, "The early Methodists were taught and led as much through [Charles's] hymns as through sermons and [John] Wesley's pamphlets."

Language Scholar

Charles Wesley was the eighteenth of Samuel and Susannah Wesley's nineteen children (only 10 lived to maturity). He was born prematurely in December 1707 and appeared dead. He lay silent, wrapped in wool, for weeks.

When older, Charles joined his siblings as each day his mother, Susannah, who knew Greek, Latin, and French, methodically taught them for six hours. Charles then spent 13 years at Westminster School, where the only language allowed in public was Latin. He added nine years at Oxford, where he received his master's degree. It was said that he could reel off the Latin poet Virgil by the half hour.

It was off to Oxford University next, and to counteract the spiritual tepidity of the school, Charles formed the Holy Club, and with two or three others celebrated Communion weekly and observed a strict regimen of spiritual study. Because of the group's religious regimen, which later included early rising, Bible study, and prison ministry, members were called "Methodists."

In 1735 Charles joined his brother John (they were now both ordained), to become a missionary in the colony of Georgia—John as chaplain of the rough outpost and Charles as secretary to Governor Oglethorpe.

Shot at, slandered, suffering sickness, shunned even by Oglethorpe, Charles could have echoed brother John's sentiments as they dejectedly returned to England the following year: "I went to America to convert the Indians, but, oh, who will convert me?"

It turned out to be the Moravians. After returning to England, Charles taught English to Moravian Peter Böhler, who prompted Charles to look at the state of his soul more deeply. During May 1738, Charles began reading Martin Luther's volume on Galatians while ill. He wrote in his diary, "I labored, waited, and prayed to feel 'who loved me, and gave himself for me.'" He shortly found himself convinced, and journaled, "I now found myself at peace with God, and rejoice in hope of loving Christ." Two days later he began writing a hymn celebrating his conversion.

Evangelistic Preacher

At evangelist George Whitefield's instigation, John and Charles eventually submitted to "be more vile" and do the unthinkable: preach outside of church buildings. In his journal entries from 1739 to 1743, Charles computed the number of those to whom he had preached. Of only those crowds for whom he stated a figure, the total during these five years comes to 149,400.

From June 24 through July 8, 1738, Charles reported preaching twice to crowds of ten thousand at Moorfields, once called "that Coney Island of the eighteenth century." He preached to 20,000 at Kennington Common plus gave a sermon on justification before the University of Oxford.

On a trip to Wales in 1747, the adventurous evangelist, now 40 years old, met 20-year-old Sally Gwynne, whom he soon married. By all accounts, their marriage was a happy one.

Charles continued to travel and preach, sometimes creating tension with John, who complained that "I do not even know when and where you intend to go." His last nationwide trip was in 1756. After that, his health led him gradually to withdraw from itinerant ministry. He spent the remainder of his life in Bristol and London, preaching at Methodist chapels.

Magnificent obsession

Throughout his adult life, Charles wrote verse, predominantly hymns for use in Methodist meetings. He produced 56 volumes of hymns in 53 years, producing in his lyrics what brother John called a "distinct and full account of scriptural Christianity."

The Methodists became known (and sometimes mocked) for their exuberant singing of Charles's hymns. A contemporary observer recorded, "The song of the Methodists is the most beautiful I ever heard … They sing in a proper way, with devotion, serene mind and charm."

Charles Wesley quickly earned admiration for his ability to capture universal Christian experience in memorable verse. In the following century, Henry Ward Beecher declared, "I would rather have written that hymn of Wesley's, 'Jesus, Lover of My Soul,' than to have the fame of all the kings that ever sat on the earth." The compiler of the massive Dictionary of Hymnology, John Julian, concluded that "perhaps, taking quantity and quality into consideration, [Charles Wesley was] the greatest hymn-writer of all ages."

Source: christianitytoday.com/history/people/poets/charles-wesley.html

QUOTES BY CHARELS WESLEY

A CHARGE TO KEEP I HAVE

"A charge to keep I have, A God to glorify: A never-dying soul to save, And fit it for the sky."

- Charles Wesley (1707–1788) English Minister and Hymnwriter

IN FELLOWSHIP; ALONE WITH GOD

"In Fellowship; alone To God, with Faith, draw near, Approach His Courts, besiege His Throne With all the power of Prayer."

- Charles Wesley (1707–1788) English Minister and Hymnwriter 

DO ALL THE GOOD YOU CAN

"Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can."

- Charles Wesley (1707–1788) English Minister and Hymnwriter 

CHARLES WESLEY BOOKS AND SERMONS

Charles Wesley Sermons - Sermon Index 

• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: Hymns and Sacred Poems (fourth edition; Bristol, UK: Printed by F. Farley, 1743), also by John Wesley (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: The Journal of the Rev. Charles Wesley (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1849) (HTML at Vision of Britain)
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: The Bards of Epworth, or, Poetic gems by the Wesley family : being a companion volume to The Poetical works of the Revs. John & Charles Wesley. (London : Printed for the booksellers, and W. Bunny, Nottingham, 1876), also by Wesley family and John Wesley (page images at HathiTrust)
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: Charles Wesley seen in his finer and less familiar poems. (New York : John W. Lovell, [1866?]), also by Frederic Mayer Bird 
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: Charles Wesley seen in his finer and less familiar poems. (New York, Hurd and Houghton, 1867), ed. by Frederic Bird (page images at HathiTrust)
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: A collection of hymns for the use of the people called Methodists ... (London, Haddon, 1875), also by John Wesley and Wesleyan Methodist Church (page images at HathiTrust)
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: A collection of hymns for the use of the people called Methodists / (London : John Mason, 1831), also by John Wesley
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: A collection of hymns, for the use of the people called Methodists / (London : Wesleyan Conference Office, [between 1865 and 1875]), also by John Wesley (page images at HathiTrust)
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: A collection of hymns for the use of the people called Methodists / (London : John Mason, 1830), also by John Wesley
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: A Collection of hymns for the use of the people called Methodists [electronic resource] / (Toronto : Wesleyan Book Room, 1874), also by John Wesley (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: A collection of psalms and hymns. (Charles-Town [S.C.], : Printed by Lewis Timothy., 1737), also by John Wesley (HTML at Evans TCP)
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: A continuation of the Reverend Mr. Whitefield's journal during the time he was detained in England, by the embargo. Vol. II. (Philadelphia: : Printed and sold by B. Franklin, in Market-Street,, 1740), also by George Whitefield 
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: Diary of Mrs. Kitty Trevylyan : a story of the times of Whitefield and the Wesleys / (New York : M. W. Dodd, 1865), also by Elizabeth Rundle Charles, John Wesley, and George Whitefield (page images at HathiTrust)
• Wesley, Charles, 1707-1788: An epistle to the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield: written in the year MDCCLV. / By Charles Westley [sic], A.M. late student of Christ-Church, Oxford. ([Baltimore] : London: printed, Baltimore: re-printed and sold by Samuel and John Adams., MDCCXC. [1790]) (HTML at Evans TCP)

Source: onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Wesley%2C%20Charles%2C%201707%2D1788

Photo Credit: hymnologyarchive.com/biography-of-charles-wesley