March 10

Balthazar Hubmaer was born in Bavaria in 1480. He studied the doctrines of the Protestants, embracing the views of Luther, pastoring a Lutheran church and becoming a good friend and associate of Ulrich Zwingli. However he expected the Reformation to return to Biblical...

March 3

On this day (March 3) in 1876, Florida became the 27th State in the Union. Three months prior to that date, H.Z. Ardis became one of the first Baptist pastors in the state, taking the reigns of God’s assembly in Madison, a community in the Panhandle. Ardis was born on...

February 24

On this day (February 24) in 1876, George Grenfell and his wife sailed from England to begin missionary work in the Cameroons, Africa. George was raised in the Church of England, but he became attracted to the Sunday School of the Heneage Street Baptist Church in...

January 17

This little note may not be as serious as most, but it is interesting. On this day in 1801, Thomas Jefferson was elected as the third president of the United States by the House of Representatives. Elder John Leland who had been a neighbor of both Congressman James...

February 10

John Meglamare was born in 1730. His parents were Presbyterians, and through them John grew up very concerned about his soul. But concern is not enough. Prior to his conversion he moved to North Carolina where he began to hear the gospel preaching of several Baptists....

February 3

Henry Toler, was born into a humble but respectable family in King and Queen County, Virginia. You’d think that after the War of Independence the people of that place would have changed the name, but these were not English monarchs. And you might also think that once...

January 27

On this day in 1682, under William Penn, a decree of religious freedom was granted to the people of Pennsylvania. Penn, as you may know, was a Quaker. The first Baptist pastor to take advantage of the liberty in that colony was Thomas Dungan. To escape the persecution...

January 20

Henry Sharp was a deacon in the First Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia. He was also a slave owner – as were most of his neighbors. When he recognized that the Lord had saved one of his slaves, George Leile, and that the Holy Spirit had given him gifts fit for the...

January 13

J.N. Hall was ordained to the gospel ministry on this day in 1872. Hall had a keen mind and eloquent manner of speech, enabling him to be greatly used of the Lord. While editing different Baptist journals throughout his life, he preached an average of a sermon a day....

January 6

Mihaly (Michael) Kornya was born in 1844 in a Hungarian community whose name I cannot pronounce. He was granted a limited education because he was the son of a farmer. Eventually he became a share-copper and at the age of 22 married an 18 year old girl named Maria....

December 30

Zacharius Morrell is our subject for today. J.M Carroll declared that to Morrell “is due as much, or more, than to any other man, the right beginning and right foundations of organized Baptist work in Texas.” Zacharius Morrell was born in South Carolina in...

December 23

Joost Joosten had a beautiful singing voice, and for that reason he was a part of the choir at the Roman Catholic church in his Netherlands hometown of Goes. When King Philip II visited the community, he heard the tenor voice of the boy and desired to take him from...

December 16

This little historical note only touches on the edge of Baptist history, but it is still pertinent. During the 18th century the British were ruling the American colonies with an iron hand. They passed and enforced laws upon the colonies which adversely affected them....

December 9

Noah Alden was a great-grandson of John Alden, one of the men who signed the Mayflower Compact. Noah was born into a Congregational home on May 30, 1725. While many of his peers trusted in their infant “baptism” for favor with God, at the age of sixteen,...

December 2

Billington Sanders was born on this day in 1789. By the age of 9 he had lost both his parents, but he was then raised in another godly home in Appling Georgia, where he attended the Kiokee Baptist Church. After the Lord saved him, he was baptized by Abraham Marshall...