Matteo Ricci was born near Florence, Italy. One of the great Jesuit evangelists of China, he led a mission to Peking which influenced the emperor. Ricci intrigued the Chinese with European clocks, scientific instruments, maps and other curiosities.
William B. Bradbury was born in York, Maine. After graduating from Boston Academy of Music, Bradbury published 59 collections of sacred and secular music. He served as an organist in New York churches, conducted singing schools in that city, and established (with his brother E. G. Bradbury) the Bradbury Piano company. It was Bradbury who gave Fanny Crosby her start as a writer of hymns. Among the beloved tunes he composed are those to which we sing "My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less than Jesus' Blood and Righteousness," "He Leadeth Me, O Blessed Thought," and "Sweet Hour of Prayer."
