It was 1774, and decades of expensive and ill-advised government ventures left the regime of Louis the XVI fiscally overstretched and teetering, once again, on the edge of bankruptcy. Thus was the situation when Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, the baron de l' Aulne, was appointed France's Minister of Finance. A.R.J. Turgot was born in Paris to a distinguished Norman family which had long served as important royal officials. He earned honors first at the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice, and then...

Son of an English self-made textile manufacturer, John Bright entered his father's business after leaving school. Upon the death of his wife in 1841, Bright and his colleague Richard Cobden began the Anti-Corn Law campaign (1838-1846) which ultimately succeeded in lowering import tariffs, producing freer trade. He became a Member of Parliament in 1843 and accepted appointment to the Board of Trade in Gladstone's administration in 1868. In contrast to Cobden, who favored the Southern free-traders, Bright supported the...

One of the most articulate defenders of orthodox Christian theology against the liberalizing and rationalizing trends of the early twentieth century was J. Gresham Machen. Influenced by his Reformed Protestant background, Machen was trained as a pastor at Princeton Seminary (once the center of conservative Calvinism), and authored numerous religious texts. Distressed by the forces of theological liberalism, Machen left his teaching post at Princeton to found the Westminster Theological Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination. Yet the radical...

Russell Kirk, father of the American conservative movement, died April 29th at the age of 75 in his home in Mecosta, Michigan. Best known for his book The Conservative Mind, published in 1953, Dr. Kirk's writings have influenced two generations of conservatives in the United States and abroad. He was a prolific writer and columnist, publishing over 30 books of fiction and non-fiction, as well as hundreds of essays and reviews. For 30 years, he edited The University Bookman,...

Born in the great northern seaport of Hull in 1759, William Wilberforce would one day lead the cause for the abolition of slavery in the United Kingdom. The early death of his father forced young William to live with his uncle and aunt who had been influenced by both George Whitefield, an early Evangelical revivalist, and John Newton, an ex-slave trader and Evangelical convert. Newton became a hero to Wilberforce and instilled in him a desire for Christ and...

One of the greatest Christian thinkers of the twentieth century, C.S. Lewis was a respected scholar and teacher at Oxford University for 29 years and then a professor of Medieval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge University to the end of his career. An atheist throughout his early life, he adopted theism in 1929 and converted to Christianity in 1931. Although a talented debater and writer-Lewis wrote many fictional, didactic, and devotional works in addition to his sizable academic production-he...

St. Bernardino of Siena, the “Apostle of Italy,” was a missionary, reformer, and scholastic economist. He was born of the noble family of Albizeschi in the Tuscan town of Massa Marittima. After taking care of the sick during a great plague in Siena in 1400, he entered the Franciscan order. He became a well-known and popular preacher, traveling throughout Italy on foot. He was offered bishoprics three times during his ministry, which he refused because he would have had...

Washington was in many ways a distinguished personality, provincially wise, astute, and certainly diplomatic. A tireless educator, masterful orator and advocate of black self-improvement, Booker T. Washington's ideas were as controversial in his day as they are in ours. Born into slavery, he was taken to West Virginia by his mother soon after emancipation . There he went to school at night while he worked in a salt furnace during the day. In May 1881, Washington became the principal...