Birthdays on June 26

Philip Doddridge was born in London, England. Early in life he determined to become a nonconformist minister. His influence was immense because of the more than four hundred hymns he wrote, the efforts he expended to educate young ministers, and especially through his book The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul which converted many men, including William Wilberforce, the great abolitionist. Doddridge suffered weak health and died in 1751 in Portugal to which he had sailed in the hope of recovering his strength.