Today is the birthday of the great American evangelist William (Billy) Sunday (born in 1862).  For a short time, 1883-1891, Sunday was a major league baseball player, but he began preaching in 1893.  It is estimated that he preached to over 100 million at his revivals before his death in 1935.

On this day in 1863, Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg address, which follows.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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Howard Thurman was born on this day in 1899.  Thurman was an author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader.  He also served as the Dean of Theology and the chapels at Howard and Boston universities for more than two decades, wrote 20 books, and in 1944 helped start the first racially integrated, multicultural church in the United States.  Some of my favorite Thurman quotes include:

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

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“When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among others, To make music in the heart.”

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“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.”

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“A man has to ask himself two questions– First. Where am I going?  Second. Who will go with me?  If you ever get the questions in the wrong order you are in big trouble”

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Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India for three terms from 1966 to 1977 and for a fourth term from 1980 until her assassination in 1984, was born today in 1917.  She was India’s first and, so far, only female Prime Minister.

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And though she is not in the same league as the other three folks in today’s post when it comes to accomplishments, Today is also Jodie Foster’s birthday.  Her best movie to date, in my opinion (one with which Jim agrees – will wonders never cease?) is “Contact.”