A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe; His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,On earth is not his equal.D…
The Fundamental Orders
On this day in 1633, the little Puritan and Pilgrimcongregation at Newton, in the fledgling Massachusetts Bay Colony—since renamedCambridge—held a day of fasting and prayer at the end of which they choseThomas Hooker as their pastor. Hooker had onl…
St. Crispin’s Day
Two legendary battles, both immortalized in English literature, took place on this day, the Feast of St. Crispin. The first, in 1415, was the greatBattle of Agincourt. England’sKing Henry V and his long bow archers defeated the overw…
All Heaven and Earth
”When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humor and ships at sea by night—there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean.” C…
God’s Victory
Three days after French troops under the command of Jean Baptiste de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, and the Marquis de Lafayette helped George Washington’s ragged forcesdefeat the British Army, the men celebrated the formal surrender of LordCornwallis.&n…
Texas: A Whole Other Country
On this day in 1836, former Tennessee congressman, senator, and governor, Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first constitutionally elected president of the Republic of Texas.
Let There Be Light
On this day in 1878, ThomasA. Edison invented a practical incandescent lamp in his laboratory at MenloPark, New Jersey. “The longerit burned,” he said, “the more fascinated we were…there was no sleepfor any of us for forty hours.”
Johnson’s Latest
In 2003, when Paul Johnson published his massive and magisterial Art: A New History, he announced it would be his last book. Since then, he has published by my count, eleven new books. Thanks be to God. The new books have mostly been …
The Louisiana Treaty
The United States Senate ratified the Louisiana PurchaseTreaty by a vote of 24-7 on this day in 1803. The vastregion encompassed more than 800,000 square miles of territory and comprisedpresent-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota west of the …
From Depths of Woe
William Cowper (1731-1800), the pastoral English poet, collaborated with the curate John Newton in publishing the Olney Hymns—a classic collection of Evangelical and Reformed hymns. Cowper who generally wrote about simple pleasures of countryli…
Better to Be Underestimated
Known for his witty style, the amazingly prolific author G.K. Chesterton wrote in many genres, including fiction, biography, poetry,theology, history, as well as a myriad of essays. He was one of the most belovedwriters in England during the first part…
Oxford and Tolkien
Few provincial cities anywhere are more crowded withincident and achievement than the English University city of Oxford. In a shortstroll visitors may pass the house where Edmund Halley discovered his comet;the site of Britain’s oldest public museum, t…
Anacreon in Heaven
The War of 1812 had been fiercely raging for two years when Francis Scott Key,a Washington attorney was sent to the British naval command to secure therelease of a prisoner when the fleet began to bombard the placements of Americanfortifications in Bal…