Great cloud of witnesses

Tim talked this morning about the great cloud of witnesses from Heb. 11, except he talked about those we don't often think of from the conversions of Paul on to the 1700's. When do we ever hear about those? Where was the church in all those years--during the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Napoleonic period, the age of exploration?
Who were those people? He didn't give names, but he did strike a chord in my mind as he spoke of the faithfulness of God's people even after Paul and Peter and John died. It is like a dark abyss formed after the apostles died and that great hole was suddenly filled up by Alexander Campbell, Barton W. Stone and David Lipscomb in the early 1800's. I confess to being ignorant of church history--oh, yes, the Martin Luther film helped some, but really--how long have we thought that church history began with the Restoration Movement?

And we seldom talked about that Restoration history (except to praise Campbell) as I was growing up--thanks to Doug Foster, Richard Hughes, Leonard Allen and others, we are now aware of our Restoration Heritage in all its warts and glory. And of course as we talk about that church history, we seldom mention
Selina Holman whose questions and letters often frustrated David Lipscomb, Clara Hale Babcock and Sadie McCoy Crank who were ordained as official preachers in the Stone-Campbell movement in 1888 and 1892. But then, we seldom speak of Phoebe and Priscilla either.

I guess what I want to testify to is that the great cloud of witnesses also included many women whom our children and grandchildren need to hear about. End of sermon.