Episodes by Circa

Rev. Barrows organized the 1893 Parliament of Religions to demonstrate Christian superiority, but accidentally created the framework for American religious pluralism.

In late Victorian Liverpool, a former Methodist solicitor named William Quilliam returned from North Africa with a new name-Abdullah

A gentle look at how Jane Addams transformed compassion into civic responsibility, revealing why her quiet vision still shapes the moral world we live in today.

Harmonia pauses our journey to reveal how 19th-century reformers—mostly women without authority—reshaped society through responsibility, preparing us to meet the remarkable figures who rewove the modern moral world.

Matilda Joslyn Gage puts the alliance of church and state on trial

Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross

A walk through the East End with the Booths, where compassion took organized form and unnecessary suffering became impossible to ignore.

A reflection on how Octavia Hill wove dignity into the spaces people lived, showing why environment, beauty, and stewardship still shape the moral world we inhabit today.

Enmegahbowh, the first Native American priest in the Episcopal Church

A look at Mother Mary’s quiet courage as she protected young factory workers and helped shape the early moral foundations of modern labor protections.

The story of Nhá Chica, the freed Brazilian slave who built a chapel over thirty years through pure faith and individual initiative.

The Vatican Observatory's centuries-long tradition of astronomical research reveals that wonder and service, science and faith, are expressions of the same love.

The story of Antoine Chevrier, who turned an abandoned Lyon ballroom into a shelter, seeing not charity but restitution owed to the poor.

How Henri Dunant’s compassion at Solferino sparked the Red Cross, the Geneva Conventions, and a new global understanding of mercy.

The story of Isaac Hecker, founder of the Paulists, and his insistence that spiritual and civic life are not separate --- and why that question now belongs to the whole world.

George MacDonald lost his pulpit and found something larger --- the ancient truth that story is how the largest truths have always traveled to the human heart.

A look at how Florence Nightingale helped medicine awaken, turning compassion into structure and revealing the deeper shift that made modern healthcare possible.

Harmonia traces Zoroastrianism from Zarathustra's radical vision of monotheism to Maneckji Hataria's 19th century mission to save a dying faith.

Antoinette Brown Blackwell

Harmonia remembers Tahirih (1814-1852), the Persian poet, theologian, and revolutionary who defied her world with words and unveiled her face at the Conference of Badasht.

How Dorothea Dix exposed hidden suffering and helped transform mental health care through steady, uncompromising compassion.

In a quiet classroom in 19th-century Karbala, Siyyid Kzim Rasht whispered of a sacred change drawing near.

Jarena Lee was born free in a land built on slavery. Denied a pulpit, denied authority, and denied permission, she preached anyway

How Elizabeth Fry transformed the brutal women’s ward of Newgate Prison through structure, dignity, and disciplined compassion—and reshaped society’s conscience.

Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsá'í spent his life preparing the ground for a new age he could sense but never see --- his story is the pre-dawn of the morning we inhabit.