Almost two centuries ago, men followed the events of Napoleon Bonaparte's march of conquest across Europe, waiting with bated breath for any news of the outcome of his various wars. All the while, babies were being born in their own homes. But who could think about babies? Everybody was thinking about battles!

However, in that one year, 1809, there came into the world several babies who were destined to become stars of the greatest magnitude--William Gladstone, considered by many as Britain's greatest statesman of the 19th century; Abraham Lincoln, one of America's most famous presidents; Alfred Lord Tennyson, the celebrated poet laureate of Britain; and the Frenchman Louis Braille, the blind inventor of the widely used Braille system of reading for the blind. While they were being born, no one thought of babies, just battles. Yet which of the battles of 1809 mattered more than the babies of 1809?

Some fancy that God can manage His world only with big battalions, when all the while He is doing it by babies. Whenever a wrong needs righting or a truth needs preaching, God sends a baby into the world to do it.