Who knows how the Lord will work to accomplish something good? Thomas Welch was an early convert to Methodism in England at age 19 and surrendered to the ministry in the 1840s. Soon after he had an issue with his voice that prevented him from being heard in the pulpit, so he took up dentistry and medicine. He then moved to New Jersey and then to Philadelphia. An alcoholic friend was burdened because he couldn’t take the communion wine and Thomas invented a pasteurized grape juice to help his buddy and that business became Welch’s Grape Juice. Thomas (who died on December 29, 1903) never made a dime on the business but his son Charles did quite well with it and ran the new company.
