The World and Everything in It: December 15, 2025

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today we kick off the December Giving Drive—and the great news is, we’re not starting at zero. Thanks to some longtime donor friends, we begin with a twenty-thousand-dollar challenge gift already on the table.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Ha! There’s no penalty for jumping the gun in this race. So we get a strong running start—and a tangible reminder that supporting WORLD is a team effort. We run together. Nobody gives alone.

EICHER: And we’re off and running. If you’re ready, make your gift early to WORLD’s December Giving Drive. Just go to wng.org/donate.

REICHARD: Good morning!

Political Super PACs spend without limits. Political parties do not. Congress caps what they can spend on their candidates—and that difference is now before the Supreme Court.

FRANCISCO: The last people who should be saying what should be spent in elections are the people who are holding power today.

EICHER: That’s ahead on Legal Docket.

Also today, the Monday Moneybeat: Economist David Bahnsen is standing by.

And later, the WORLD History Book. Today, the story of the “Millionaire Missionary.”

BELMONTE: He would say in his diary, are you willing to be made willing? Are you willing to be used of the Lord?

REICHARD: It’s Monday, December 15th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Brown University shooting » Police in Rhode Island say they have a person of interest in custody after a shooting at Brown University killed at least two students.

The person in custody is reportedly a 24-year-old man from Wisconsin. Police tracked him to a hotel in Coventry Sunday and found two firearms in his room. But as of last night, he had not been charged

Province Rhode Island Mayor Brett Smiley said Sunday that nine others were wounded in the attack:

SMILEY:  There remains seven individuals in stable condition. One in critical but stable condition, and one has been discharged.

Saturday's attack set off hours of chaos across the Ivy League campus as hundreds of officers searched for the shooter and urged students and staff to shelter in place.

Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island:

REED:  This has been a horrible, terrible moment. But in moments like this, we see the best of Rhode Island, the firefighters, the policemen, the civic leaders, neighbors who come together.

Community members held a vigil Sunday evening to honor the victims as the investigation continues. 

Brown University canceled remaining finals and is offering support services to students and staff. 

Trump reaction to Australia shooting » Meantime, in Australia, authorities say a father and son opened fire Sunday during a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens more. The shooting happened as families gathered for a public holiday event near the shore.

President Trump reacted to that attack …

TRUMP:  That was an antisemitic attack, obviously, and it, uh, I just want to pay my respects to everybody.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese thanked Trump and other world leaders who voiced support … and condemned the attack.

ALBENESE:  This was an attack deliberately targeted at the Jewish community on the first day of Hanukah, which of course should be a joyous celebration and the Jewish community are hurting today.

Police say officers shot and killed the older gunman, a 50-year-old man, at the scene. Authorities wounded his 24-year-old son and took him into custody.

Victims ranged in age from children to elderly adults.

The attack is still under investigation.

Trump says U.S. will respond to Syria attack on U.S. troops » President Trump also commented Sunday on an attack in Syria that killed two American troops and a civilian interpreter. He said the US will retaliate … but not against the Syrian government.

TRUMP:  An attack in Syria and we had, uh, three great patriots terminated by bad people and not the Syrian government. It was ISIS. Syrian government fought by our side. The new president fought by our side.

The attack happened near the city of Palmyra and also wounded three other U.S. service members.

The attacker was killed during the assault.

American forces remain in Syria to counter ISIS and support local partners.

Probes into follow-up strike on cartel boat survivors » Both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have launched probes … into a follow-up military strike in waters near Venezuela … that killed two survivors of the initial strike. The operation targeted a boat identified as a cartel drug-running vessel.

GOP Congressman Mike Turner serves on the House committee, and he told ABC’s This Week: 

TURNER:  This oversight investigation is gonna proceed, and as such, we're gonna certainly get to the bottom of both what occurred, what acts did occur, and as that investigation goes forward, you know, Congress will have more information to be able to understand what occurred and how do we proceed next.

The Trump administration identified the people aboard the boat as members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua drug cartel … which the president designated a foreign terrorist group.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers have had different reactions to the strikes. Some Democrats are accusing the Trump administration of committing a possible war crime. But House Speaker Mike Johnson said the strikes were "entirely appropriate."

Washington state flooding » Washington state is still dealing with historic flooding, even as some rivers slowly begin to recede. Days of heavy rain forced thousands of people to evacuate, flooded homes and farmland, and triggered dozens of water rescues.

Gov. Bob Ferguson said over the weekend …

FERGUSON:  This is something that the people of the state of Washington have not faced before this level of flooding. Uh, and so we encourage, of course, individuals to follow the orders, uh, from their local officials.

In places like Monroe, about 30 miles northeast of Seattle and along the Snoqualmie River … neighborhoods turned into lakes almost overnight.

Emergency officials warn the danger is not over. More rain and strong winds are expected, raising concerns about mudslides, falling trees, and possible levee failures as the ground remains saturated.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: a Supreme Court case that challenges federal limits on the amount of money political parties can spend. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat with David Bahnsen and the WORLD History Book.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 15th day of December, 2025. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Before we get going today, just a quick word about the December Giving Drive—and the work of journalism. Every interview we do, every trip we take, every draft we write—

REICHARD: —and rewrite…

EICHER: Yeah—and rewrite again. The point is this: all that work assumes an audience—listeners, viewers, readers of all of WORLD’s products. But without an audience, there’s no story to write. No point in the effort.

But we do have one. The story is for you. You depend on us—and we depend on you.

REICHARD: And when you give to WORLD, your support is what powers the story. By giving, you’re stepping into the story and keeping the work moving forward.

EICHER: It’s our December Giving Drive. Visit wng.org/donate.

REICHARD: It’s time for Legal Docket.

Today, two cases, both about speech; one about political influence and money, the other about a street preacher.

We start with the case with the big name: National Republican Senatorial Committee v Federal Election Commission.

If you’re frustrated or exasperated by the state of our politics today … you’re in pretty good company. Even some of our Supreme Court justices can get incredulous!

ALITO: I mean, are you serious? Are you serious? Anyway, my time is up.

MARTINEZ: I’m serious, Your Honor, I’m serious that the same rules have to apply to all plaintiffs.

EICHER: …and that wasn’t even about the merits of the case.

The real issue is this: whether it’s constitutional for Congress to cap the amount of money political parties can spend on their candidates.

The aim was to fight corruption—by preventing coordinated party spending from becoming a backdoor for unlimited financial support.

Lots of interested parties in this one: the committees House and Senate Republicans built to get reelected, a former member of Congress, even Vice President JD Vance, who when he got involved was in the Senate.

They say what Congress did is unconstitutional: the spending caps restrict speech, they’re outdated, and they don’t even work to prevent corruption.

REICHARD: The lawyer for Senate Republicans is Noel Francisco.

FRANCISCO: The base limits here show almost to a metaphyslical certitude that the coordinated spending limits have nothing to do with quid pro quo bribery. The base limits are the same everywhere for every race: $3500 for individuals, $500 for the party committees. That shows that Congress thinks the risk of bribery is the same everywhere… Yet the coordinated spending limits range from $60,000 to $4 million depending on the race and location. That makes no sense if what you're concerned about is bribery. Even a Senate candidate in California could be bribed for $4 million. But it makes perfect sense if what you're trying to do is limit the overall amount of money in politics. That, however, is what this Court has repeatedly said is verboten under the First Amendment. The last people who should be saying what should be spent in elections are the people who are holding power today.

More than half the states do permit unlimited coordination between party and candidate. And supporters of the campaign spending caps didn’t show even a single example of a donor laundering a bribe through a political party.

EICHER: But the Democrats in support of the caps argue that if a political party pays for something in coordination with a candidate, that counts as though the party directly cut the candidate a check. That’s just a disguised contribution, and Congress can restrict it. Court precedent says so.

REICHARD: The issue of standing came up, with lawyer Roman Martinez arguing that JD Vance has no standing to sue because he’s not declared himself a candidate for 2028. So he’s got no injury, an element of standing. In fact, no plaintiff has standing here, he argues.

So the court ought to dismiss the case right now.

That was what got Justice Samuel Alito’s dander up:

ALITO: Isn’t that what every potential candidate always says…until the day when they make the announcement?

MARTINEZ: That’s what candidates say when they’re running. That’s also what candidates say when they’re not running.

EICHER: It’s worth noting that President Biden at first defended the caps. Then he decided not to—concluding the spending caps were no longer defensible under Supreme Court precedent.

So the court appointed Martinez to defend the caps in this case.

The Trump administration also saw the caps as indefensible and took the side of the Republicans, urging the high court to toss out a case called Colorado II.

But Justice Sonia Sotomayor contradicted the Republicans and said she found historical examples of why the rule was necessary in the first place.

SOTOMAYOR: You keep saying there's no evidence of this kind of coordination resulting in a quid pro quo or the appearance thereof, but the whole Campaign Finance…--law is based on just such an evidence. In the early 1970s, that's what led to all of this congressional action. The dairy industry channeled millions of dollars to President Nixon through the Republican party and its committees. The industry landed a hundred-million-dollar subsidy from President Nixon in return. Was there a quid pro quo? There certainly was an appearance of quid pro quo. That's what started the entire campaign finance reform legislation. The threat hasn't diminished.

REICHARD: Marc Elias argued for the Democratic campaign committees in favor of the spending caps:

ELIAS: Over the past 50 years, this Court has had opportunity to review many campaign finance laws, and it has appropriately treated many of them skeptically, but it has never wavered on one foundational pillar: Congress may limit contributions to candidates.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned the Supreme Court’s involvement with campaign finance at all. For example, letting super PACs spend unlimited sums, yet strictly limiting how much parties can coordinate with candidates:

KAVANAUGH: Should we be concerned about the overall architecture of our jurisprudence having weakened or disadvantaged political parties as compared to outside groups?

EICHER: Justice Department lawyer Sarah Harris said we should be very concerned. Court precedent simply cannot be squared with the First Amendment. The Democratic side took the opposite view, arguing that lifting the caps will ruin the only remaining rationale the Court still has to control political spending.

Justice Amy Coney Barret asked just one question, one that cut right through the political incentives:

BARRETT: Mr. Francisco said that the RNC and the DNC had long been aligned on this question. And, normally, regulated parties are happy to get rid of regulation. And, obviously, this ties the DNC's hands just as much as it ties the RNC's hands. So I guess my questions are two. One is, if the parties had long been aligned on this, why change the position? And, two, if there isn't an imbalance in who this benefits, why would the DNC be here? Like, why would your client be here if it didn't perceive this to be something that would benefit the RNC more than the DNC?

REICHARD: The Democratic side tried to reframe the motive from partisan advantage to protecting the parties.

But the government position appealed to constitutional first principles, not political winners and losers.

HARRIS: And the answer is to allow the First Amendment to do its work so that parties can engage in this coordination with candidates in heartland issues for campaigns and let the chips fall where they may…

I heard no clear majority one way or the other in all this. But the stakes are very high. If the caps fall, billionaire donors would get huge leverage over party strategy. If the caps stay, then Super PACS remain the dominant vehicles for big money.

Alright, our second case today—

OLIVIER: I love to go out and tell folks about Jesus. …

—the case of a street preacher. The audio is from CBN:

OLIVIER: … I hand out Gospel tracts to people and tell them about the message of Christ as they’re walking to the concert.

It’s Olivier v. City of Brandon, Mississippi, and the voice you heard is Gabriel Olivier.

The question seems so simple: If you’ve been convicted under a law you think is unconstitutional, can you still sue in federal court to prevent that law from being used against you in the future?

EICHER: The case arises from Olivier’s arrest in Brandon, Mississippi four years ago.

Police ordered Olivier to move to a designated protest zone, 265 feet away from the city’s amphitheater. His wife Christina told First Liberty Institute:

CHRISTINA: Next thing I know, I'm looking over there, and Gabe was in handcuffs, and the police chief said, you know, unless y'all want to be arrested, you need to leave immediately as well.

A city ordinance bars demonstrators from getting too close to the concert venue or speaking from the public sidewalk next to it. The city says earlier demonstrations were disruptive … words like “nasty” and “Jezebel” shouted at people going to the concert, forcing attendees onto the street. Officers said the noise made it hard to hear their radio orders.

That’s why the city passed an ordinance: Demonstrators have to stay in that designated area 265 feet away.

REICHARD: But Olivier says he just wants to preach the Gospel, and nobody can hear him from that far away. He argues the city is targeting religious speech by isolating him to a speech zone. 

He’s not trying to undo his old conviction; but he does want to prevent it from happening again.

Here’s the legal wrinkle: A 1994 case called Heck v Humphrey says you cannot sue under the relevant law because that suggests the earlier conviction wasn’t valid.

EICHER: Justice Elena Kagan pressed Olivier’s lawyer Allyson Ho on that point:

KAGAN: …if we take Heck for all it's worth, I think …you can't win. I think that you have to be saying you just can't take that language to mean what it means.

HO: Respectfully, Justice Kagan, I -- I -- I don't -- I don't believe that's true…

….going on to distinguish that case from this one: the Heck decision bars claims that undermine the past. But her client is asking for protection going forward.

Not the same thing.

The city argued Olivier had plenty of other state laws he could’ve sued under, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor wasn’t impressed:

SOTOMAYOR: But what you’re telling me is…there is no remedy for him or her in order to secure their rights even 20 years from now. What you’re basically saying is simply because they’ve been previously convicted, they cannot seek prospective relief 20 years from now, unless they get an expungement. But if they’re barred for some procedural reason, they have no protection.

And then, a rare moment of agreement with her from Justice Alito:

ALITO: And doesn’t it seem a stretch of the underlying reasoning, the rationale of Heck to say, no you can’t ever do that, you’re forever barred from engaging in what you think is protected First Amendment activity because you were previously convicted under this statute and received more or less a slap on the wrist?

REICHARD: The “slap on the wrist” Justice Alito refers to is that Olivier paid a fine and received a suspended 10 day jail sentence.

The city of Brandon argues its regulation is “personal,” meaning another preacher without a conviction could bring a challenge under that provision of civil-rights law, known as Section 1983. That is the law people use to sue officials for civil rights violations.

That led to Justice Clarence Thomas pointing out the logical flaw in the city’s theory. The exchange is with Olivier’s lawyer.

THOMAS: Ms. Ho, would a victory by a third person who was never convicted under this ordinance in a 1983 action… would it impugn the reasoning underlying the conviction of Petitioner?

HO: Yes, absolutely your honor…

THOMAS: Would it impugn it any differently than if Petitioner brought the 1983 action?

HO: No, your honor.

THOMAS: Would it undo the conviction or the confinement of Petitioner?

HO: No. 

EICHER: …a devastating take-down for the city. Because Heck is about stopping people from using Section 1983 to overturn their past convictions. Olivier isn’t doing that, so the city’s reading of the Heck decision cannot be right.

REICHARD: But it’s that all-important limiting principle the justices are looking for. 

So, whether a person with a prior conviction can be protected in future speech, the justices will decide.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket!

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It, the Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s time now to talk business, markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen. David heads up the wealth management firm the Bahnsen Group, and he is here now. Good morning to you.

DAVID BAHNSEN: Good morning. Nick, good to be with you.

EICHER: David, let’s talk about the Fed. Its last interest-rate meeting of the year was last week. The Fed was very divided on making the cut, and of course Chairman Jay Powell was asked about that in his press availability at the conclusion of the meeting. He seemed pretty candid and revealing ... explaining that the division had to do with the dual nature of the Fed’s mandate and which economic risk was the bigger one, to hear him tell it. Some officials are more concerned about the labor market. Others think inflation is still the greater danger. Powell said it was as close you'll come to a coin flip.

Have a listen—

POWELL: I could make a case for either, for either side. I mean, I could make that case. It's a close call. You'll see that a very large number of participants agree that risks are to the upside for unemployment and to the upside for inflation. So what do you do? You've got one tool. You can't do two things at once.

But he also talked about where policy is currently set and made the point that the interest rate was a touch closer to neutral—but still in that zone of restrictive. But you'll also basically hear him saying, if I'm reading him right, that the Fed has done its part to tame inflation and what inflation there is is related to tariffs.

Here's one more clip.

POWELL: I'd call it in a broad range of plausible estimates of neutral. At the same time, policy is still in a place where it's not accommodative, and we feel like we feel like we have made progress this year in non tariff related inflation. But as I said, we're well placed to wait and see how that turns out.

All right, dive on in here, David. How do you see it?

BAHNSEN: Well, this was certainly the most Trump-friendly Powell press conference that he has had, I think, all year. Based on the way last month’s press conference went—October 29—where there was some surprise in the hawkish tone, the dovish tone of this one was even more of a surprise because it moved so much the other way.

You could talk about this divide between the inflation concern, the price-stability concern, and the labor-market health or economic-growth health as one person versus another person. But it also is true of those things being an internal tension just for one individual.

So it not only pits Person A on the FOMC who voted no against a rate cut against Person B on the FOMC who voted for it, but in theory it should be pitting people themselves in terms of an internal tension. That is the point of a dual mandate. Right now, more than at most points, they are wrestling with two competing economic issues that create tension.

If it creates a tension internally for a voter, it obviously is going to create tensions across the totality of the voters. In this case, it ended up being nine to three. I do not find that hyper-divisive. There were two no votes on a cut, and then the other no vote—Stephen Myron—was because he wanted to cut more. He wanted to cut 50 basis points.

So I thought that Jay Powell’s comments that we are near the neutral rate were actually dovish, because I would argue—or at least some could argue—that you are at the neutral rate. By saying we are near it, it implies we might even have further to go.

They give away the store a little bit. Their dot plots say we predict one rate cut next year, and the futures market says there is going to be at least two rate cuts next year, with a pretty decent chance—over 30 percent—of three rate cuts next year.

That is where I think things stand. It looks like you might get another cut before Powell leaves, and most people believe you are certainly going to get another cut or two after he leaves, when the president has his own person in. As we know, Jay Powell is leaving in May.

EICHER: David, let me stay with the Fed for a moment, because there’s also been a notable shift here since the last time we talked.

Just last week, we reported that the White House had canceled additional interviews for the Fed chair job, and the sense at the time was that Kevin Hassett was essentially a lock.

But now that’s changed. President Trump has told The Wall Street Journal he’s leaning toward either Kevin Hassett or Kevin Warsh—which puts us back where we were months ago, with two very different “Kevins” in the frame.

Kevin Warsh, of course, is a former Fed governor. He served during the financial crisis and was interviewed for the job the last time around. And at the same time, the president has been very clear about wanting much lower interest rates.

So what do you make of the back and forth here?

BAHNSEN: Well, I have two thoughts. I wish I knew the answer, Nick, because I do not know that anything has changed.

It is entirely possible that the White House is doing a diversion here, a kind of pump fake, to not make it appear that everything is already set as Kevin Hassett. By now opening the door to the trial balloon that Kevin Warsh is back in the running, they may be faking it. I hope that is not the case.

I would very much love to see Kevin Warsh selected, and it is possible that they have flipped a little bit. But no one really knows the internal imaginations.

You are exactly right that a week ago the White House was flat-out telegraphing that they had selected Hassett, and now, a week later, they are flat-out saying they have not, and that Warsh is back in the lead position, or at least near the lead.

Look, the only person who I suspect actually knows is President Trump, with the possible exception of Secretary Bessent. I will stand by my prior claims that I think it is going to be one of the Kevins, and there is one of the Kevins I would rather see than the other.

EICHER: David, I want to shift gears a bit: There was a striking development this week involving a major climate-economics study—one that projected catastrophic long-term damage to global GDP and that had been widely cited by central banks, regulators, and policymakers. The paper has now been withdrawn after serious data errors were discovered, and once those errors were corrected, the projected economic damage dropped dramatically.

This was not a small tweak at the margins—it was a foundational error—and yet the study had already been absorbed into policy conversations.

When you look at something like that, what does it tell you about how economic models—especially in areas like the environment—can be shaped not just by uncertainty, but by bias and incentives, and then presented with far more confidence than they deserve?

BAHNSEN: First of all, we should be clear that this kind of thing happens all the time, and it is only not more scandalous more frequently because a lot of them do not see the light of day.

There is a human element where certain studies can indeed have mistakes, but there is also a sense in which oftentimes reports like this get adopted, circulated, distributed, and utilized for no other reason than that the people doing so want it to be true, and there is an inadequate amount of vetting.

The folks doing that are not neutral actors. They have an agenda. They have an ax to grind. If they get the semblance of an academic study that comes along to validate their priors, they have a real incentive to run with it.

Oftentimes these things are subpar. A lot of times they are subpar, but it never really gets discovered or outed. There is a subjectivity to some of what I am calling subpar, and this has been the case, by the way, with a lot of climate studies that have been accepted without adequate scrutiny.

That does not mean they are always wrong. It means there is more opinion than fact, and they have a way of being presented as objective when they are much more subjective.

This one had some pretty embarrassing errors in it, and they had to walk it back. That is in line, Nick, with a lot of other issues that have been going on with some of the climate studies.

You now have a pretty left-wing, climate-oriented, very high-profile person like Bill Gates who has recently come out and said, “Look, a lot of the assumptions we have had about where various concerns in climate are going were wrong,” and has made the case—I would not call it a mea culpa—but an admission that more prudence and a measured approach are needed.

There are trade-offs here. There is a timeline that is not going to allow people to make the improvements they want in carbon emissions without doing such significant economic damage that it becomes counterproductive.

A lot of us have been arguing something similar to that for a long time. There have been various actors in this debate over the last 10 and 20 years that have been much more reasonable, but it is interesting to see some of the gatekeepers coming along and saying the same thing.

EICHER: All right. David Bahnsen—founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group. He writes at DividendCafe.com and at WORLD Opinions. David, hope you have a great week.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Today the story of William Borden. A millionaire who gave it up and chose missionary service over a life of wealth.

EICHER: After years of training, it’s during this week in 1912 that Borden says goodbye to his family, boards an ocean liner, and heads East, never to return. Here’s WORLD correspondent Caleb Welde.

CALEB WELDE: The night before William Borden is to set sail, his mother is uneasy. She goes to bed—in her words—“worn, weary, and sad.” She’s asking herself over and over again… “Is it, after all, worthwhile?” Her son is twenty-five and a celebrity inside Christendom and outside it. American newspapers are filled with the news about the millionaire’s trip.

When the morning comes on December 17th, 1912 William Borden begins his day like he always does.

BELMONTE: He called his morning times with the Lord “his morning watch.” It’s a wonderful phrase, and it was the first thing he did.

Kevin Belmonte is author of the Borden biography, “Beacon-Light.”

BELMONTE: As soon as he was out of bed and dressed he was having a time of personal prayer. A time to go deep with the Lord. He would never miss it.

He prays and reads God’s words for at least an hour.

BELMONTE: Why is that significant? If you're at Princeton, for example, training in seminary, well, I'm studying Scripture all the time. You could say to yourself, I could, you know, miss a day or two. He never did.

People are curious why this young millionaire is giving up everything.

Borden grew up second-generation rich. His father made his fortune in Colorado, mining and in real estate. Borden desired closeness with God early on and was mentored in D.L. Moody’s Chicago church. One of his mentors helped lead Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission and Borden meets many missionaries.

BELMONTE: And Borden began to be deeply impressed with their sense of calling, their sense of mission and purpose. The way that they wanted to commend the faith…not only to the people in Asia, other places in the world. I personally think that’s what planted seed initially of him wanting to go to China eventually.

He entered Yale on fire for Christ. He organized prayer groups and Bible studies. He preached on street corners where he talked with homeless people. Moved by their needs, he bought a four-story building with his own fortune to house the local homeless, to feed them, and equip them.

BELMONTE: He had a very winsome personality. It was hard not to like him. He was also a very good listener. That was something that came through all the correspondence I read.

One of the men Borden helped was alcoholic Jack Clark.

BELMONTE: Borden came alongside him and said that God loved him.

Borden modeled God’s generosity by pointing people to his benefactor.

BELMONTE: And Jack Clark said, that's the way he used to talk “He who made the universe holds you in the hollow of his hand will help you.” Borden was present at Jack Clark's renewal of his marriage vows to the wife who was estranged from him and the children, and when he had a home and he had a whole new life, he said, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for William Borden. So that's one vignette, one story, that is representative of everything Borden became.

When he graduated from Yale, Borden felt the pull to the mission field, stronger than ever.

BELMONTE: He wanted to make sure that he was thoroughly trained.

He enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary.

BELMONTE: He thought, if you're going to do it, you have to prepare well. So that’s what he was really doing.

After three years at Princeton, Borden finally feels ready for the next step.

December 1912, he leaves for Cairo. The plan is to learn Arabic there for a year. Then on to London to study medicine while he learns Chinese on the side.

When he arrives in Egypt, he immediately links up with veteran missionaries Samuel and Amy Zwemer. He moves in with a Syrian family thinking, what better way to learn the language? He also begins working with a local seminary. Within weeks, he’s put together a plan to pass out Gospel tracts to every Muslim in Cairo.

BELMONTE: He loved to go out and mingle among the native peoples when they would gather for festivals, and that seems to be how it happened.

Just three months after arriving in Cairo, Borden contracts spinal meningitis. The virus kills most people in several days. As soon as his family gets word Borden’s mother and sister set sail for Egypt.

Boden dies four hours before they get to him.

BELMONTE: We don't know, because we can't see all things. Our perspective is limited. We're finite, and God is infinite. We can't know all ends. What I do know is that when Borden passed away, and his story went all over the world, was covered in all the major newspapers.

Memorial services are held around the world from Yale and Princeton, to South Africa, India, Japan, and Korea.

But for Borden’s mother, her thoughts return to that night in December when she struggled to fall asleep in New York. “Is it, after all, worthwhile?” She later writes this: “In the morning, as I awoke to consciousness, a still small voice was speaking in my heart, answering the question with these words: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…’”

BELMONTE: We won’t know on this side of eternity all the whys and wherefores…but as I say, out of that tragedy, so many ripple effects unfolded, so many streams of good.

The Hui Muslims remain largely unreached. Mission groups estimate of the fifteen million Hui currently living in China, less than two-thousand know Christ. There are currently about one hundred Christian workers in the region.

BELMONTE: He was willing to go and do and be for the Lord, for however long or short that time might have been. So all these years later, you know, one hundred and twelve years after his passing, there are parts of his legacy that still live on and I find that very moving.

William Borden once wrote: “If ten men are carrying a log — nine of them on the little end and one at the heavy end — and you want to help, which end will you lift on?”

For WORLD, I’m Caleb Welde.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: the escalating tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela. Also, so-called “bridge payments” for American farmers. And, Christmas tourism returns to Bethlehem. What’s it like for local Christians? That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’” —James 4:13-15

Go now in grace and peace.

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