Sermon Central
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One Child Can Change The World
Contributed by Matt Neace on Jun 21, 2018 (message contributor)
When we think of children we don't always think that there may be a person who is going to change the course of history. We don't see their potential or we brush it off as he or she is just a child. But every person who has had an impact on the world started as a child.
Jared A. Brock wrote a book entitled The Road to Dawn: Josiah Henson and the Story That Sparked the Civil War (https://www.amazon.com/Road-Dawn-Josiah-Henson-Sparked/dp/1541773926/)
Josiah Henson's impact on the world was immeasurable. He was born into slavery. After the suffering of horrific abuse from the hands of slave masters, he took his family and escaped to Canada and freedom. Since Josiah grew up as a slave, he could barely read and couldn't write even his alphabet, but he became one of the most powerful speakers, ministers, and businessmen of his day.
Josiah founded a community of Africans in Canada that provided homes and livelihoods for thousands of former slaves. Not being able to read or write, education was very important to him. He wanted others to have the opportunity that he missed out on. He helped establish a school that educated generations. He made two fund-raising campaigns to Great Britain, where he was invited to a personal audience with Queen Victoria. He preached for the Prince of Preachers, Charles H. Spurgeon, while in England. He even was able to personally meet the President Rutherford Hayes as well. Not bad for a former slave.
Perhaps the most notable thing was that he served as the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe's book Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel which unmasked the horrors of slavery in the Old South and played a decisive role in the Civil War.
Here is the kicker, no one who met Josiah Henson as a child could have imagined the eternal impact this child would make on the world.
Adapted from Jim Denison, "My Response to President Trump's Executive Order on Immigrant Families," The Daily Article, June 21, 2018.
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