Anecdotes from Church History: Part 5 -
Baxter and Success
by R.A. Miller
Published May 2, 2023.
Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter was a preacher in Kidderminster. The people of the town were ignorant and wicked upon his arrival, but Baxter worked tirelessly to change that. In addition to preaching, he also invested countless hours in personally talking with his congregation. 15 or 16 families were visited weekly for an hour, as he and an assistant annually met with all 800 homes of the parish. The congregants were taught things like the Lord’s Prayer and the Shorter Catechism.
The majority of the 2,000 adults in the town were eventually converted under Baxter’s ministry. When his success was brought up by a friend, Baxter remarked, “I was but a pen in God’s hands, and what praise is due to a pen?”