Archive for the 'History' Category

Leonardo the Florentine: A Novel and a Great Read!

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

Everyone thinks they know about Leonardo da Vinci. We hear all sorts of things about him – from the specious Da Vinci Code to descriptions of him as the perfect Renaissance man, but most of us have a very vague picture of who he really is. Catherine McGrew Jaime opens a window into the early life…
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“You Gave John To God, Not To China”

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

John and Betty Stam were young American missionaries to China when Communist forces took over their town.  Tim Challies re-tells  the gripping story of what happened to John, Betty, and their infant daughter Helen, the testimony they bore, and the impact it had on the Chinese and Christians around the world.  The title above was…
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From Slaver To Pastor

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

John Newton, the converted former slave trader who became pastor to English abolitionist William Wilberforce, has a supporting role in the film Amazing Grace — besides, obviously, writing the theme song (in a sense).  His own story is just as fascinating, and even more dramatic, than Wilberforce’s. I just finished re-reading Newton’s autobiography, reprinted as Out…
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Thankful for our Forefather’s Foresight

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

Yesterday while I was writing about our Thanksgiving traditions for this blog, I looked up George Washington’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation in preparation for suggesting you share it with your family. As I read it, I felt increasingly sad. George Washington thanked God “for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed.” I thought…
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Our Thanksgiving Traditions

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

We just love Thanksgiving! What a wonderful holiday! Leading up to the day, we teach our children great hymns of Thanksgiving, such as “We Gather Together,”  “Come Ye Thankful People, Come,”  “Count Your Blessings,” and “Now Thank We All Our God.” We particularly love “We Gather Together,” because it was a Dutch song of the proper…
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One Of Our Favorite Veterans

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

We’ve got a lot of veterans in our family, myself included, so we like to recognize them on Veterans’ Day.  Someone asked a question recently about this particular veteran, so I thought I’d share the story today in honor of intrepid young men doing their duty all over the world! We talk about Admiral David Farragut…
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The Eve of All Saints

Friday, October 29th, 2010

Halloween is an English contraction of “All Hallow’s Eve”, or properly, the Eve of the Feast of All Saints … which is, after all, November 1.  In our house, it’s not a day of jack-o-lanterns and goblins, but a day to remember true heroism — a man who faced death and thereby opened the door…
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Waiting for the Weekend?

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

Ah, the weekend’s finally here.  Looking forward to the weekend is such an institution, even officially-atheist nations like China shut down for Sunday.  Here in America, Saturday’s time to catch up on some yardwork, maybe wash the car, but then it’s time to play.  Sometimes it seems like the weekend is our goal line for all the…
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Review: Ned, Barnardo Boy

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

There are only a select subset of books that I reread. Most are barely worth the time to finish them, but there are a few that bear rereading again and again. Dorothy Sayers is like that. Although she writes mysteries, her prose is so enjoyable that you don’t even care that you know “who dunnit.”…
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The Podcast: George Rogers Clark and the Conquest of the Northwest

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

This week’s episode from Hero Tales is the remarkable story of how George Rogers Clark and a few dozen backwoodsmen captured the Northwest Territory from the British during the Revolutionary War.  Theodore Roosevelt relates how Clark led his men through the icy floodwaters of the Wabash River to surprise the British outpost of Vincennes, among…
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