Time spent at Yale exposed him to the works of Newton and other prominent scientists of the day. Their discoveries fascinated Edwards, for he saw in natural laws the wisdom and character of God. He authored papers on natural philosophy, light, and optics. He explored works of philosophy. By all accounts, Edwards made full use of his education for the purpose it was intended: preparation for a successful life. He did take leave of his education for a time to serve in ministry to congregations in New York and Connecticut, but returned to Yale and received a Masters of Arts degree at age 21 (1724).

At the age of 22, Edwards took the pastorate of his grandfather’s church in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was here that he would see the first waves of the Great Awakening. During a six-month period in 1733-1734, nearly three hundred people joined the church at Northampton. The revival continued to grow and spread, and Edwards published several works to help other ministers prepare their churches and convey the Gospel message.

The revival was arrested by an epidemic of depression and suicidal thoughts among parishoners. Some even acted on these impulses, including Edwards’ own uncle. Edwards himself had never focused on the emotional aspects of revival, being more comfortable with rational argument. He could not stim the tide of emotion against the revival any more than he had encouraged it at the start — which is to say, not at all. The Great Awakening returned to slumber.

Biographers note that Edwards’ education played strongly into his style of address and form of argument. The majority of his sermons were not emotional or dramatic. His most famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” (1741) is in fact an exceptional example designed to spur action in a lethargic congregation. In fact, this “fire and brimstone” sermon was written during the second wave of revival, which began with George Whitefield’s revival tour of 1739-1740.

In Jonathan Edwards’ life, we see the value of preparation and the danger of only preparing for logical argument. We see the power of God at work in a man who appreciated the expression of God’s grace and power from the shape of a raindrop to the motion of the stars. May his life inspire you to continue learning and preparing yourself — perhaps your world needs an Awakening.

Clarissa Harlowe Barton was born on Christmas Day, 1821, in Oxford, Massachusetts. She was the youngest of five children. When Clara was eleven, her brother David became her first patient after he fell from the roof of the family barn. Clara stayed by his side for two years and learned to administer all his medicine, including leeches. She continued to develop an interest in nursing, drawing inspiration from stories of her great aunt, Martha Ballard, who served as a doctor and midwife in Maine for over thirty years.

When Clara was sixteen, she started teaching school. She taught in her home town for ten years, at which point she was offered a position at a private school in New Jersey. After learning more about the educational opportunities in the area, she moved to New Jersey to set up one of the first free public schools in the state amidst strong opposition. In 1854, she moved to Washington DC, where she became the very first woman to work at the Patent Office. When the first Civil War troops came into the city in 1861, she realized an immediate need for personal assistance for the soldiers, some of whom were wounded, many hungry, some without any bedding or clothing except what they had on their back. She began by taking supplies to the Sixth Massachusetts Infantry who had been attacked in nearby Baltimore and were housed in an unfinished building. She fought to provide “her boys”, some of whom were her former students, with clothing, food, and supplies to the sick and wounded without being affiliated with any agency or group. She read to them, she wrote letters for them, listened to them, and she prayed for them. She quickly realized that those with the greatest needs were on the battlefields. She plagued leaders of the government and army until she was given passes to volunteer on the battlefield. Following the battle of Cedar Mountain in 1862, she appeared at the field hospital at midnight with a wagon-load of supplies. The surgeon on duty later wrote, “I thought that if heaven itself ever sent out an angel, she must be one.” From that point on, she was known as the “Angel of the Battlefield”.

Clara Barton Homestead

She was never content to be with the medical units hours or even days away from a fight. At Antietam, she ordered the supply wagons to travel all night, pulling ahead of the military medical units. During the battle, she and her associates rushed about bringing hope to the field. She later wrote, “I always tried . . . to succor the wounded until medical aid and supplies could come up – I could run the risk; it made no difference to anyone if I were shot or taken prisoner.” Her interest in “her boys” gave her a wealth of information about the men and the regiments they belonged to. At the end of the war she wrote thousands of letters to families who were desperate for information regarding the men who were missing or killed. Together with her assistants, they answered over 63,000 letters and identified over 22,000 missing men. This led to the implementation of the Red Cross tracing services, one of the organization’s most valued services today. Her work identified 13,000 graves of the Union men who died at the notorious Andersonville Prison in Georgia, and she proposed memorializing 400 unidentifiable graves, which has come to be the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Finally seeking some well-deserved rest with a trip to Europe in 1869, she was introduced to the Red Cross Movement in Switzerland, which called for international agreements to protect the sick and wounded during wartime without respect to nationality, now known as the Geneva Convention. In 1870 she went to volunteer in the warzones of the Franco-Prussian War. To protect herself, she wore the newly accepted symbol of the Red Cross, the reverse of the Swiss national flag, which bears a white cross on a red field. After returning to the United States, she worked tirelessly to influence the United States government to sign the Geneva Convention. She took the treaty to three successive presidents until it was signed by Chester Arthur in 1882.

Clara Barton’s achievements with the Red Cross and on her own are too abundant to list. In addition to leading the Red Cross, she maintained interests in other fields, such as education, prison reform, women’s suffrage, civil rights, and religion. She was said to suffer from bouts of severe depression throughout her life, only recovering when a crisis required her attention. When her father was on his deathbed, he gave Clara advice she would often recollect. She said, “As a patriot, he had me serve my country with all I had, even with my life if need be, as the daughter of an accepted Mason, he had me seek and comfort the afflicted everywhere, and as a Christian he charged me to honor God and love mankind.” The many men and women whose lives were saved or memorialized by the work of Clara Barton testifies how one person doing the will of God can turn the world upside down.

William Wilberforce, the son of a rich merchant, was born in Hull in 1759. His father died when he was very young, after which he was raised by his aunt—a very heavy supporter of the Methodist movement. His mother did not support the movement nor accept what it stood for, so she brought him back to the family home.

At seventeen he enrolled at Saint John’s college, where he befriended William Pitt. After attending college for a while, Wilberforce decided to to enter the realm of politics in order to “achieve political success,” which he later found was not the right motive. Wilberforce and Pitt ended up becoming political celebrities because of their wit and charm.

It is amazing how God chooses us at such young ages and uses us in greater ways than we could imagine. I’m sure that at this point in his life, Wilberforce had no idea that God would use him in such a radical way.

In 1784 he decided to convert to Evangelical Christianity. After studying the practice for some time, he decided to write a book encouraging others to change their morality and regain true Christian values in their lives. William began to look at his political views with a Christian perspective—and change them. God was using this young man to accomplish His work.

Three years later, Wilberforce decided involve himself in one of the greatest political efforts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the abolition of slavery. In 1787 Wilberforce became the parliamentary leader of the abolitionist movement. It was a large task, considering that most of England’s wealth depended on the slave trade. People involved with it would not look fondly on his work. Despite what others thought and the vastness of this task, he continued the work God had set before him.

In 1788 William presented his Abolitionist Bill before the house for the first time; it would not be the last. In a moving three-hour-long speech, he spoke on the horrible facts of slavery. He ended with the words “having heard all of this you may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say that you did not know.” Newspaper writers praised this oration, saying it was “one of the most eloquent speeches ever read in the house.”

Wilberforce tried with all his might to get the bill passed, but it failed year after year. Finally, in 1807, the Abolition Bill was passed concerning all slave ships. This was a very emotional day for Wilberforce; after the bill passed he cried, because his dream had finally been met.

But that dream only stopped the ships: slavery was still together. After the victory of 1807, William turned all his resources to the emancipation of slaves. In 1823 he published the paper “Appeal on Behalf of the Negro Slaves”. This led to the Anti-Slavery Society, which eventually led to the emancipation campaign.

The emancipation bill slowly gained support and was approved July 26th 1833, about a year after he retired from Parliament. At the news, Wilberforce said “Thank God that I have lived to witness a day in which England is willing to give twenty million sterling for the abolition of slavery.”