John Murray was a Universalist who certainly took starting fresh to heart. Tragedy struck for Murray when his wife and young son died, and then he was put in jail because he was unable to pay his bills.

“A Dutch Ship Running on to a Rocky Coast” Matthieu van Plattenberg

In 1770 he felt able to make a totally fresh start, so he got on a ship and headed for the New World, North America. Unfortunately, the ship got stuck just off the shore of New Jersey, when they were trying to get to New York.

But Murray agreed to go on shore and try to find directions and supplies. He ended up on the doorstep of a man named Thomas Potter, who greeted him as the Universalist preacher that Potter had been waiting for!

Well, Murray didn’t have plans to be a Universalist preacher—that wasn’t the fresh start he had in mind. He wanted to go on to New York. But he agreed that if they didn’t get the wind the boat needed to sail on, that he would preach on Sunday about Universalism’s message of an absolutely loving God.

Well the wind didn’t pick up, and Murray did preach, and he ended up making a fresh start by marrying Potter’s daughter and becoming a traveling preacher, spreading the good news of God’s love all over New England.