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The famous Russian novelist and Christian, Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born on this day, November 11, 1821. From earliest childhood Dostoyevsky knew the gospels and learned Bible stories from the deacon at the hospital where his father was a doctor. As he looked back in later years, he rejoiced that as a child he was brought up in a home that knew Christ, and that his mother and father had given him something holy and precious to carry him through the rest of his life. As a young man, Dostoyevsky was an activist promoting the social ideals of his day. In 1849, at age 26, he was charged with conspiracy against Tsar Nicholas' government and sentenced to death. Standing before a firing squad, he was reprieved at the last moment (the dramatic moment turned out to be an act staged as a terrifying warning), and sent to prison in Siberia for four years. On his way, a group of women gave him a New Testament which he treasured the rest of his life. The underlining in his New Testament shows that...

When the apostle Paul escaped Damascus by being lowered over the wall in a basket it was not the last time a Christian evangelist would dramatically flee from persecution. On this day, November 2, in 1533, John Calvin made a similar thrilling escape from Paris. A devout Catholic, Calvin studied law at the Universities of Orleans and Paris. He was a brilliant student, and with the Protestant Reformation in the air, he began reading Martin Luther and became a leader of the Reformation in France, at the risk of arrest, imprisonment, or even death. In 1532 Calvin wrote that "Only one ...salvation is left open for our souls, and that is the mercy of God in Christ. We are saved by grace... not by our works." Calvin became a leader of the evangelical party in Paris, often encouraging his followers with the words of Paul: "If God is for us, who can be against us?" In 1533 the newly elected head of Paris University, Nicholas Cop apparently asked Calvin to collaborate on an i...

Never mind that father had forbidden it. Father was far away. Nine year old Titus was going sledding with a friend on a frozen pond. Out onto the ice he whizzed. It broke. Titus could not find the bottom and rose to the surface, screaming for help. His friend was too frightened to attempt a rescue. Every time Titus grabbed the edge of ice, another piece broke under his weight. It seemed he must die. But at last he found a sturdy patch and his partner crept close enough to give him a hand. Thousands, including Titus himself, would have perished eternally if he had drowned that day. Eighteen years after his ice accident, Titus was converted in the religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening. A few years later, he sailed to Hawaii as a missionary, carrying the revival spirit with him. As soon as his tongue commanded the language, he declared his intention to visit every one of the 16,000 people on Hilo Island. Determined to conduct sound follow-up work and to pray intelligently...

Dwight L. Moody didn't attend school beyond the fifth grade; he couldn't spell, and his grammar was awful. His manners were often brash and crude, and he never became an ordained minister. Once, before his conversion, he so outraged an Italian shoe salesmen with a prank, that the man chased him with a sharp knife, clearly intending to kill him. Yet, Dwight L. Moody was used by God to lead thousands of people to Christ. Moody's life of Christian service began with his conversion on this day, April 21, 1855. Dwight came to Boston as a teenager from Northfield, Massachusetts, and he felt all alone in the big city. The boy was desperate for work. An uncle took him on as a shoe salesman--on condition that he be obedient and that he attend Mt. Vernon Congregational Church. The young man had been raised in a Unitarian church which denied the full divinity of Christ and did not emphasize human need for salvation from sins. Now Dwight heard about those things. But he decided that he...

November 18, 1827 Henry Alford - Author of Thanksgiving Hymn "Come Ye Thankful People Come" Dan Graves, MSL Email thisPrint thisDiscuss thisShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on DeliciousShare on DiggmoreOn November 18, 1827, sixteen-year-old Henry Alford wrote in his Bible: "I do this day, as in the presence of God and my own soul, renew my covenant with God, and solemnly determine henceforth to become His, and to do His work as far as in me lies." The rest of his life, this serious and holy young man showed that he meant what he said. At college, he chummed with the noblest men of his day, among them Alfred Lord Tennyson. One of the deans said, "I really think he was morally the bravest man I ever knew. His perfect purity of mind and singleness of purpose, seemed to give him a confidence and unobtrusive self-respect which never failed him." Rejecting participation in the sins that were so common among young men at Cambridge, he became an outstanding ...

When Alexander Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970, the Soviet government would not allow him to accept the prize. He was famed as the author of a realistic tale of prison existence, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, published in 1962. This was based upon his experiences in Stalin's prison camps. When One Day was accepted for publication, Solzhenitsyn offered up this prayer: How easy it is for me to live with you, Lord! How easy for me to believe in you, When my spirit is lost, perplexed and cast down, When the sharpest can see no further than the night, And know not what on the morrow they must do You give me a sure certainty That you exist, that you are watching over me And will not permit the ways of righteousness to be closed to me. Here on the summit of earthly glory I look back astonished On the road which through depths of despair has led me here. To this point from which I can also reflect to men your radiance And all that I can still refle...