Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand, France. A scientific genius and mathematician of the highest order, he underwent a stirring conversion to Christianity and wrote the famed Christian apology, the Pensees, and a defense of Jansenism (which was also an attack on Jesuit systems of thought).
Charles Spurgeon, famed Baptist preacher, was born in Essex, England. At twenty he was preaching. By thirty preached to such large crowds in London that a special tabernacle had to be built for him.
Birth of Henry Adeney Redpath, English Old Testament scholar. His greatest work, co-edited with Edwin Hatch, was an exhaustive list of words used in the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint. Published in three volumes from 1892-1906, this monumental work bore the full title A Concordance to the Septuagint and other Greek Versions of the Old Testament (Including the Apocryphal Books). It is still in print and stands as a classic in textual scholarship, unequaled by any project similarly produced by computer.
George Clinton Reed was born at Weeping Water, Nebraska. He was the first Gospel Missionary Union missionary to enter Morocco, and served sixteen years without furlough, years which were characterized by adventure and hardships, seeking to preach the Gospel and establish a Christian testimony in a land of religious fanaticism and lawlessness. Some portions of the Bible were translated into colloquial Arabic during the time, and Mr. Reed returned to the States in 1913 to have these printed.