This Day in Baptist History
September 22 The One-Legged Preacher Who Walked on Ice Scripture: Philippians 4:12-13 Fredrick Ludwig Rymker, the man who became known as the pioneer of the Baptist work in Norway, was born in Stige, Denmark, on September 22, 1819. Having been born to poor parents, the young man’s education was meager, and he learned the trade of a shoemaker. However, at age twenty he went to sea. Rymker sailed to New York and resided in a sailor’s lodging house. While there he was invited by a believer to visit the Mariner’s Temple, and he soon...
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September 21 Should Baptists Support All Faiths? Scripture: Psalm 37:16 The ecclesiastical tax that Baptists were forced to pay for the support of the state church was ever a thorn to men of the Baptist persuasion. The town of Ashfield, Mass. was settled by Baptists. In 1770, a few Congregationalists built a meeting house, called a minister, and taxed the Baptists for his support. The greater part of his salary…came from Baptists. Because they refused to pay this burdensome tax, 398 acres of their land were seized, together with their homes,...
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September 20 Were They Baptist Dissenters or Sowers of Sedition? Scripture: I Kings 22:1-40 The citizens of the plantations and settlements of Virginia were not always the most genteel kind of people. Most of them attended the established Church of England because it was mandated by law. Among the tax-supported clergy, there were those who had lost the respect of the people because of their licentious conduct, and the citizenry itself had fallen into spiritual malaise. When men like Nathaniel Saunders began to preach the necessity of the new...
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September 19 “I will Preach Publickly and from House to House” Scripture: Acts 20: 17-24 Mr. Hanserd Knollys was born in 1598 at Chalkwell in Lincolnshire, England. He descended from religious parents who took care to have him tutored in good literature and religious principles. He then was sent to Cambridge University, from which he graduated. While at the university, he lived a very pious life, daily spent time in the study of God’s Word, fasted, prayed, and maintained a strict examination of himself for sins with the purpose...
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September 18 A Businessman Who Put God First Scripture: Matthew 7:7-12 William Quarrier was born on September 29, 1829, in Scotland. When the lad was less than five years of age, his father died of cholera at sea, and his mother moved the family of three children to Glasgow. There were no child labor laws, and the little fellow was sent off to work in a shoe manufacturing shop for a shilling a week. At seven years of age, William was apprenticed to a shoemaker so that he might learn the trade during his youth. As a youngster, little...
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