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March 27, 1549
Elizabeth Dirks Drowned as Anabaptist

Elizabeth Dirks was a trailblazer and a woman of great courage. Raised in a nunnery in East Friesland, she learned to read Latin and read the Bible through and through. She became certain that monasticism was not the way taught in Scripture. With the help of milkmaids she escaped and became a follower of peaceful Menno Simons. She was one of the first Reformation women ministers, probably a deaconess.
In 1549, Catholic authorities arrested her. When they found her Bible they knew they had the person they were looking for. Mistakenly, they thought she was the wife of Menno Simons. When they tried to get her to take an oath at her interrogation, she refused, saying Christ had taught that our yes should mean yes and our no mean no.
The record of her inquisition shows that the examiners asked her to inform on those whom she had taught. Knowing that this would lead to their arrest, she refused.
"No, my Lords, do not press me on this point. Ask me about my faith and I will answer you gladly."
"We will make it so tough that you will tell us," they threatened.
When she would not reveal who had baptized her or whom she had taught, they questioned her beliefs. She insisted that church buildings were not the house of God, for our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. She denied that the New Testament spoke of the bread and wine as a sacrament but rather as the Lord's Supper. Asked if she were saved by baptism, she replied, "No, my Lords. All the water in the sea cannot save me. All my salvation is in Christ, who has commanded me love the Lord, my God, and my neighbor as myself." She denied that priests have authority to forgive sins--only Christ.
Still refusing to reveal who had baptized her, she was taken to the torture chamber and said, "So far we have treated you gently. Since you won't confess, we will put you to the torture."
A man named Mr. Hans applied screws to a thumb and fingers until blood spurted from under her fingernails. Still she wouldn't give away her friends, but her agony was so great that she cried aloud to Christ and received relief. So they lifted her skirt to apply torture to her shins. She pleaded that she had never allowed anyone to touch her body and they promised to respect her.
Then they crushed her leg bones with screws until she fainted. The men thought she was dead, but she came to and assured them she was not. Realizing that they could get nothing out of her, the authorities condemned her to die. Rather than burn her, as was customary, they tied her in a bag and drowned her on this day, March 27, 1549.
Bibliography:
1. Bainton, Roland H. Women of the Reformation in Germany and Italy. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Augsburg, 1971.
2. Williams, George Huntston. The Radical Reformation. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1962.

March 28, 1911
Off the Cuff Decision Sparked Boreham Series

When two such notable evangelistic workers as Billy Graham and Ravi Zecharias commend the writings of a man, he must have had things to say that were truly worthwhile. That man was F. W. Boreham, a Baptist pastor who once held the record as Australia's most prolific author. Many of Boreham's essays take small things as their starting point to display the goodness of God.

Boreham was born in England in 1871, on the day that the Franco-Prussian war ended. His Christian family reared him in the knowledge of God and he was blessed to sit under many of the notable evangelistic preachers of his day, among whom were Charles Haddon Spurgeon, A. T. Pierson, and Dwight L. Moody. He learned the art of speaking well.

As a young minister-in-training, Boreham was sent to fill a pulpit in the village of Theydon Bois. There he met Stella. Finding that she was without an escort to the village one day, he asked permission to accompany her. Her hat blew off several times in the heavy wind and he suggested he tie it on her with his handkerchief. She agreed. "We saved the hat, but we lost our hearts," he wrote in his autobiography. Stella became his wife after he wrote to her from a pastorate he had accepted in New Zealand.

After many years in Mosgiel, New Zealand, Boreham transferred to a church in Tasmania. He began to publish his sermons as essays: The Luggage of Life, Mountains in the Mist, and about ninety other titles. These books brought him an international reputation. On this day, March 28, 1911, while pastoring in Tasmania, he began preaching a series of sermons that won more souls to Christ than any of his other themes.

The idea was completely spontaneous. He was beginning another Sunday evening series to run on alternate weeks. He saw that he needed something to draw the people in the intervals. He had read a biography of Luther that week and was impressed that the Reformation sprang from a single text taken from the Bible book of Romans.

As the final hymn came to a close on the morning of March 21, 1911, Boreham rose and surprised himself by saying that the next week he would commence a second series titled Texts that Made History. " 'Next Sunday evening,' I added with the air of a man who had laid his plans weeks beforehand, 'I shall deal with Martin Luther's Text!'"

Boreham was as good as his word, searching out the scripture texts that had inspired the lives of great men such as Luther, Cromwell, Hannington and over 120 others (not to mention fictional characters such as Robinson Crusoe). This wonderful series was printed under various titles but Kregel has now gathered them into several volumes under the title Life Verses.

Boreham, who had lost his right foot under a train, often fell and broke bones. To read his cheery books, you'd never realize how much pain he endured. In addition to his religious work, he wrote regularly for two secular papers, The Hobart Mercury and The Melbourne Age.

Bibliography:

1.Boreham, F. W. A Pathway of Roses; an autobiography. 1940.
2.---------------- Mountains in the Mist; Luggage of Life; The Golden Milestone; Cliffs of Opal; The Whisper of God; Dreams at Sunset; Life Verses; A Late Lark Singing; etc.
3.Manley, K. R. "Boreham, Frank William," in Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals; editor, Timothy Larsen. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2003.
4.Pound, Geoff. "F. W. Boreham: The Public Theologian." http://www.bwa-baptist-heritage.org/sl-borhm.htm
5.Townsend, James. "F. W. Boreham; Essayist Extraordinaire." http://www.faithalone.org/journal/2001i/townsend.html.

March 29, 1602
John Lightfoot Theologian and Hebrew Scholar

Imagine becoming the best Hebrew scholar in your nation without once speaking to a Jew. That is what John Lightfoot did. He may never even have seen a Jew, for they were barred from England until late in his life.

John Lightfoot was born on this day, March 29, 1602 in an England which was only just regaining the knowledge of Hebrew. Four hundred years before, King Edward I had kicked the Jews out of his nation. Many left manuscripts behind, which allowed scholars such as Roger Bacon to understand the ancient tongue. However, Hebrew studies were frowned upon by the church. Bacon himself was accused of using Hebrew to communicate with the devil.

Even as a youngster, John proved to be a natural-born scholar, especially good with Greek and Latin. However, he had only the minimum acquaintance with Hebrew. That changed after the twenty-year-old became a Church of England curate (a minister in charge of a parish) in Shropshire, England.

One man who came every week to hear him preach was Sir Rowland Cotton. It happened that Sir Rowland had a good knowledge of Hebrew. He challenged John to learn it, saying that he could not really understand the Old Testament without understanding the language that it was written in. John felt embarrassed that a layman had more Bible knowledge than himself, a minister.

Helped by Sir Rowland, he quickly mastered the basics of Hebrew. Through incessant, diligent study, he surpassed his teacher and eventually became the greatest Hebrew scholar in all of England.

Studying Jewish writings, he showed from rabbinic teachings that Jesus was clearly identifiable as the Messiah. "Even the Lord's prayer is derived from expressions that had long been familiar in the schools and synagogues of Judea." His book Horae Hebraicae explained the New testament in light of knowledge he had gleaned from the writings of rabbis. Many later commentators consulted it. John was also prominent in the formulation of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

John never forgot the debt he owed Sir Rowland. "He laid such doubled and redoubled obligations upon me by the tender affection, respect and favor, that he showed towards me, as have left so indelible an impression on my heart, of honor to his name and observance to his house of Bellaport, that length of time may not wear it out nor distance of place ever cause me to forget it."

He died in 1675, leaving behind a body of work which filled nineteen volumes.

Bibliography:

1."John Lightfoot." Meet the Puritans. http://www.sdgbooks.com/sdgbooks/hall7_lightfoot.html
2.Welton, Daniel D. John Lightfoot, the English Hebraist. Oxford, 1880.

March 30, 1533
Cranmer Got the Top Job but Didn't Want it!

When Thomas Cranmer learned he had been named Archbishop of Canterbury by King Henry VIII, he balked. Visiting Germany at the time to promote the King's interest in a divorce, he dawdled seven weeks getting back to England. Although the King's word was law, Cranmer hesitated to accept the position.

The English church was in a turmoil over the question of Henry's desired divorce from Catherine. Having presented him with no male heir, the queen, once so charming to Henry, was now repugnant. Yet he could not get the Pope to agree to an annulment.

Cranmer had come to the King's attention when, in conversation with two of Henry's men, he had suggested that the universities could just as well settle the question as the Pope. Henry swore Cranmer had "the right sow by the ear." He earmarked the priest to become Archbishop of Canterbury, England's highest religious post. Cranmer was consecrated on this date, March 30, 1533.

Believing himself subject to the King, Cranmer promptly granted Henry the annulment. Throughout his tenure as archbishop, he would do pretty much whatever the King commanded. Henry's continual shifts of policy often made Cranmer appear wishy-washy. For example, he ruled Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleve lawful and six months later annulled it as unlawful.

Already leaning toward Protestantism, Cranmer became the chief architect of the English Reformation. He urged the King to place Bibles in England's churches and it was done. He wrote the first Book of Common Prayer. In only a few things did he resist Henry. At some jeopardy to himself, he pleaded for the lives of Thomas More and Bishop Fisher and testified for three days against Henry's Six Articles which went back to Roman Catholic forms. However, he sat with the persecutors of John Frith and Joan of Kent, both of whom were executed by fire.

By his twisting and turning, Cranmer escaped execution under Henry. Henry trusted him above all his other prelates and on his deathbed clung to Cranmer's hand. Under Edward, Cranmer advanced Protestantism, helping draft doctrines which became the basis for the Church of England's Thirty Nine Articles.

Under pressure, Cranmer supported Lady Jane Gray to succeed Edward. It was not to be. Mary took the throne and charged him with treason and heresy. In face of death he recanted his Protestant opinions. When he learned he was to die anyway, he publicly renounced his recantation. "As for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ's enemy and Antichrist, with all his false doctrine." When the fire was lit, he held the hand that had signed the recantation into the flame, burning it off before the fire touched his body, saying, "This unworthy right hand." As death approached he repeated several times, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."

Bibliography:

1."Cranmer, Thomas." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
2.Foxe, John. Book of Martyrs.
3.Hook, Walter Farquhar, 1798-1875. Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury. London, R. Bentley, 1865-1884.
4.McKilliam, Annie E. A Chronicle of the Archbishops of Canterbury. London: J. Clarke, 1913.
5.Pollard, Albert Frederick. Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation. London: Putnam's, 1905.
6."Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation." Christian History & Biography # 48.

March 31, 1492
Ferdinand and Isabella's Edict Against Jews

The year 1492 is most often associated with Columbus and his discovery of America. But another event of tragic proportions developed that year. It gave the world the Sephardic Jews (so called because Sepharadh was a region of Spain where many Jews had settled).

By 1492, Spain, under Ferdinand and Isabella had just emerged as a defender of the Roman Catholic faith. The marriage of the two rulers eventually united Aragon and Castile, although while she lived, Isabella did not yield her authority to her husband. In Granada, the pair defeated the Islamic Moors, who had long controlled Spain. Spurred on by the cruel Grand Inquisitor Torquemada, Ferdinand and Isabella felt they must remove all heretics and non-Christians from their land in order to purge it of pagan influences and firmly establish the Christian faith.

The fires of the Inquisition had already roared in Spain for twelve long years. The Inquisition's primary purpose was not to deal with Jews and Muslims. Any person who professed Christianity and then returned to his or her ancestral faith was tried and punished. In eight years, the tribunal of Seville alone put 700 persons to death and condemned 5,000 others to life in prison.

But what about those Jews who never adopted Christianity? Their majesties had a plan for them, too. On this day, March 31, 1492, in the city of Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella signed an edict banishing from the Kingdoms of Aragon and Castile all Jews unwilling to receive baptism.

"You know well or ought to know, that whereas we have been informed that in these our kingdoms there were some wicked Christians who Judaized and apostatized from our holy Catholic faith, the great cause of which was interaction between the Jews and these Christians...we ordered the separation of the said Jews in all the cities, towns and villages of our kingdoms and lordships and [commanded] that they be given Jewish quarters and separate places where they should live, hoping that by their separation the situation would remedy itself."
Separation not having worked, the monarchs gave the Jews until July 31st to sell their goods and leave the country. They were forbidden to carry gold or silver out of the kingdom. Worse, although signed in March, the edict was not publicly announced until the end of April, so the Jews actually had only three months to convert their property to trade goods.

"Christians" took advantage of the situation and paid ridiculously low prices for Jewish possessions -- a donkey bought a house; a piece of cloth or linen purchased an entire vineyard.

In July 1492, the exodus began. When Columbus left on his famous voyage in August, he could not use the port of Cadiz because of the large numbers of Jews waiting to board ships in the harbor. Many Jews of Castile went to Portugal, where they were forced to pay a ransom to remain. Others went to Italy or the northern coast of Africa. Wherever they went, they were robbed.

Spain's economy paid for its mistreatment of the Jews: many had been skilled craftsmen. Sultan Bajazet of Turkey warmly welcomed those who escaped to his country. "How can you call Ferdinand of Aragon a wise king--the same Ferdinand who impoverished his own land and enriched ours?" he asked. He employed the Jew in making weapons to fight against Europe.

Bibliography:

1.Adapted from an earlier Christian History Institute story by Diane Severance, Ph.D.
2."Ferdinand V, King of Castile." Encyclopedia Americana. Chicago: Americana Corp., 1956.
3."Jewish History Sourcebook: The Expulsion from Spain, 1492 CE." The Medieval Sourcebook.
4."Spanish Expulsion, 1492." http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ jsource/Judaism/expulsion.html

April 1, 1868
"Hand, Head and Heart" at Hampton Institute

What was the son of a Hawaiian missionary doing in Virginia anyhow? Samuel Chapman Armstrong was there to study. But he soon found himself learning more out of the classroom than in it, for the Civil War took him from his books to become Lieutenant-Colonel of the Ninth United States Colored Troops Regiment in the Union army. That is where his life's work began.

It was impossible for him to labor beside his dark-skinned companions without stirrings of conscience. Their need for education was immense. If Christ's call to do for our brothers what we would have done for ourselves meant anything, he must do something!

After the war, he served on the government's Freedman's Bureau. It seemed too little. An entire race needed practical training. Armstrong made it his business to see they were helped. He proposed the creation of a vocational school. Obtaining financial backing from the American Mission Society, he founded the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, in Washington DC. On this day, April 1, 1868, the institute opened to begin its task of training freed slaves "hand, head, and heart" (that is, vocation, academics, and faith.)

In Hampton's highly structured program, the morning was devoted to religious exercises and academic classes, the afternoon to vocational trades and work. Armstrong insisted that students learn by doing. The skills Hampton taught included blacksmithing, carpentry, cooking, dressmaking, farming, laundering, sewing, and shoemaking. The students themselves helped build and maintain their campus.

As befitted a school sponsored by a Christian mission, faith experiences were part of the Hampton routine. Church services and devotions were mandatory. Chapel time each morning consisted of Bible reading and hymn singing.

Ten years after Hampton's founding, it branched out and took Native Americans in. Armstrong was the only educator who would agree to train Indian prisoners of war. All Armstrong's efforts were spurred on by a simple creed. "Simply to Thy cross I cling is enough for me," he said.

Hampton Institute lives as testimony to Armstrong's faith. Its ideas served as a model for Booker T. Washington when he undertook the educational program at Tuskegee. Like Armstrong, Washington put his primary emphasis on vocational training.

Bibliography:

1.Abbott, Lyman. Silhouettes of my Contemporaries. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1921.
2."Armstrong, Samuel Chapman." Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Scribner, 1958 - 1964.
3.Engs, Robert Francis. Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited: Samuel Chapman Armstrong and Hampton Institute, 1839 - 1893. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999.
4."Hampton's Heritage." (www.hamptonu.edu/about/heritage.htm).
5.Peabody, Francis Greenwood. Reminiscences of Present-Day Saints.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin company, 1927.
6."Samuel Chapman Armstrong." http://www.famousamericans.net/samuelchapmanarmstrong/
7.Various encyclopedia and internet articles.

April 2, 1877
Mordecai Ham, Outspoken Evangelist

Imagine the honor of leading a notable evangelist like Billy Graham to Christ. Mordecai Ham did just that. However, he was in a position to do so only after he had wrestled with his own preferences and yielded to God.

Born on this day, April 2, 1877, in Allen County, Kentucky, he resisted God's call to become an evangelist because he wanted to be a salesman. His grandfather and father, both preachers, had lived in poverty and Ham did not want that. But eventually the Lord prevailed. Six months after Ham married Bessie Simmons, he quit his business to enter the ministry as a fundamentalist Baptist.

Early in his ministry, he claimed to have had an encounter with the Holy Spirit so intense that he pleaded for the Lord to back off or he felt he would die. Thereafter, he evidenced spiritual power throughout his life, continually confronting sin and sinners. In one notable early instance, he confronted an infidel who was hiding in a cornfield to avoid the preacher.

"What are you going to do?" asked this opponent of the gospel.

"Ask God to kill you," replied Ham. The infidel protested. Ham said that since the man claimed to believe there was no God, such a prayer shouldn't bother him in the least. Nonetheless the unbeliever begged Ham not to pray for his death, so Ham agreed to pray for his salvation instead, and the man was converted on the spot.

Ham would write that there are three reasons men run from Christ: love of gain, love of sins that make them shun the light, and fear of what others will say. "The best way on earth to study human nature is to hold up Christ to your crowd and note how He affects them. Each man or woman can be judged by his or her attitude toward Christ. If their deeds are evil, they will shun His light."

In 1905, four years after Ham entered the ministry, Bessie died suddenly of cerebral meningitis. At first Ham thought he would remain single like the apostle Paul. However, a couple years later, he fell in love with a fourteen-year-old girl. They were wed the following year and had a happy marriage that lasted for over fifty years and produced three daughters. Ham considered Annie Laurie the greatest of God's blessings to him.

Ham continued to win souls. In over thirty years of preaching, he won at least 300,000 converts (his estimate was close to 1,000,000). Billy Graham, perhaps the most notable of those converts, made his declaration of faith at a 1934 Ham meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Ham was a fierce opponent of alcohol and many other social evils. He blasted whatever he considered to be wrong and his preaching helped create the climate for prohibition. Today, memory of him is largely swept under the carpet as an embarrassment because he was also virulently anti-semetic and anti-catholic. The outspoken evangelist ran a radio program for many years. He died in 1961. His life's motto had been "Love all men, fear no man."

Bibliography:

1.Baker, James T. "Ham, Mordecai Fowler, jr." Encyclopedia of Religion in the South. Edited by Samuel S. Hill. Macon, Georgia: Mercer, 1984.
2.Borland, James A. "Mordecai Ham, a Thorn in the Devil's Side." Fundamentalist Journal 3 (February, 1984) 44-46.
3.Brackney, William H. Historical Dictionary of the Baptists. Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press, 1999.
4.Clutter, R. T. "Ham, Mordecai Fowler." Dictionary of Baptists in America. Editor, Bill J. Leonard. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1994.
5.Coppenger, Mark. "What I Learned from Mordecai Ham." Leadership IX: No. 4 (Fall 1988) pp. 32-33.
6.Ham, Mordecai. "Why Men Will Not Come to Christ." Fundamentalist Journal 3 (February, 1984) 44-46.
7."Milestones." Time 78. (November 10, 1961): 78.
8.Mordecai Ham 1878 - 1959 [sic]. n.d. 2006. http://www.cantonbaptist.org/halloffame/ham.htm
9.Mordecai Ham 1877 - 1961. n.d. 2006. http://www.swordofthelord.com/biographies/ HamMordecai.htm
10."Rev. Mordecai Ham Dies at 84; Evangelist Converted a Million." New York Times (November 2, 1961): 37.
11.Smithers, David. "Mordecai Ham; Prayer Makes History." 2002. 2006. http://www.watchword.org/smithers/ww47a.htm
12."What Do You Offer God?" 1999. 2006. http://www.baptistfire.com/gospel/ham.shtml

April 3, 1528
Adolf Clarenbach Arrested

When Luther sparked church reformation in Germany, there was bound to be a backlash. In those intolerant days, when church and state acted together, there was no choice in matters of faith. Someone had to be the first to die for the new ideas. One of the first two martyrs was Adolf Clarenbach.

Around 1520, Adolf Clarenbach became a teacher in a cathedral Latin school. Evidently he was a better than ordinary teacher, for in 1523 he was made principle of the city school in Wesel. But storm clouds loomed. Through reading Erasmus and Martin Luther and studying the Bible, he became a follower of the Reformation.

When his views became known, he was forced to leave Wesel. Adolf then preached in Cologne and the Rhine country, forming communities of evangelical believers.

Returning home in 1528, Adolf returned to his death. At the urging of Catholic leaders, he was arrested at Cologne on this day, April 3, 1528. He was charged with teaching Protestant ideas. Also arrested was Adolf's friend John Klopreis. About that same time authorities arrested yet another Reformation preacher, Peter Fliesteden. Klopreis managed to escape, but Adolf and Peter remained in custody.

The two were held in prison for several months and tortured. When questioned, Adolf insisted that "there is no satisfaction for sin except the death of Christ alone." However, good works witness that we have the faith we claim.

On September 28, 1529, Adolf and Peter were handed over to secular authorities at the gates of Cologne to be burned to death. The long delay between Clarenbach's arrest and death is owing to the fact that three jurisdictions had a stake in his trial. Furthermore, the local citizens were upset with the sentence and had to be pacified. When plague visited the city, the superstitious people took it as a sign that they were being too kind to the heretics and public opinion swung against the prisoners.

Adolf and Peter have been called the first martyrs of the Reformation. However, it is not clear if they were Lutherans or not. But three hundred years after their deaths, Lutheran Germans of the lower Rhine honored them with a special celebration and erected a monument in their honor.

Bibliography:

1.Clarenbach, Adolf. Kirchenlexikon. http://www.kirchen-lexikon.de
2.Schaff, Phillip. New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1951.
3.Various other internet articles.

April 4, 397
Death of Stalwart Bishop Ambrose

Milan's bishop was dying. Whether consciously or unconsciously, he extended his arms like Christ on the cross. Christ Jesus appeared to him in a vision. People were awed.

Popular singers today have a tremendous influence on our culture. Presidents cultivate their friendships, postage stamps honor their talents, and fans worship their every move. However, when Ambrose of Milan died on this date, April 4, 397, his popularity and influence were as great as anything we see today. The day was a Good Friday. His death made such an impression on the public that five bishops could hardly cope with all the people who requested to be baptized the next day.

Ambrose had been a governor of Northern Italy back in the day when the barbarians were invading the Roman Empire. At that time it was still the custom for the people to elect their bishops, and in 374 the people of Milan could not agree who their new bishop should be. Some wanted an Arian to lead them. Arians denied the full divinity of Christ. Others wanted a bishop who would teach that Christ was the son of God.

When it appeared that a riot was about to break out over the election, governor Ambrose stepped forward and encouraged the people to conduct themselves in an orderly and Christian manner. A child cried out, "Let Ambrose be bishop!" The crowd took up the cry and elected him.

Ambrose tried to duck his new responsibility. He had been a ho-hum Christian up to this point and was not even baptized yet. However, he could not escape his obligation. And so he dedicated himself fully to Christ and His Church. He gave all of his money to the poor and strongly defended Christian truth.

Justina, mother of the Roman Emperor, was an Arian. She demanded Ambrose give up a church for her followers. Despite intense pressure, Ambrose refused. The empress sent soldiers to take Ambrose's own church. Ambrose and his supporters recognized a spiritual battle when they saw one. They chose to fight with spiritual weapons, not swords, rocks and sticks, entering the building and praying. With imperial soldiers surrounding the church, the people stayed inside for several days, praying, singing psalms, and listening to Ambrose preach. During this time Ambrose developed a form of congregational singing in which two groups of the congregation sang alternately.

Fortified by message and song, the people held out against the soldiers. Finally, Justina recalled her troops. Ambrose and his people had won the spiritual battle using spiritual weapons, especially Christian hymns. In his life, he wrote many other hymns. The type of congregational singing Ambrose began in Milan became popular and was used in the church for centuries.

Bibliography:

1.Adapted from an earlier Christian History Institute story.
2."Ambrose of Milan." http://www.cyberhymnal.org
3.McGuire, M. R. P. "Ambrose, St." New Catholic Encyclopedia. 1967.
4.Greenslade, S. L. Early Latin Theology. (Westminster Press, 1956).

April 5, 1796
Suddenly Hauge Found Living Faith

Don't you sometimes feel there could be a lot more to your Christian life? When Hans Nielsen Hauge was nearing twenty-five, he felt that way. The young carpenter had done a lot of religious reading. He was afraid of hell and longed to be established on "the spiritual rock, Jesus Christ." He even fell to his knees in his father's fields praying for this.

Suddenly, on this day, April 5, 1796, while singing "Jesus, I Long for Thy Blessed Communion," he was filled with divine joy. "...my mind became so exalted that I was not myself aware of, nor can I express, what took place in my soul. For I was beside myself. As soon as I came to my senses, I was filled with regret that I had not served this loving transcendentally good God. Now it seemed to me that nothing in this world was worthy of any regard. That my soul possessed something supernatural, divine, and blessed; that there was a glory that no tongue can utter..." Not only did he know for certain that he was saved from eternal damnation, but he felt a "living faith" spring up in him.

Enraptured, Hauge asked the Lord what He wanted him to do. The answer that came to his mind was, "You shall confess My name before the people; exhort them to repent and seek Me while I may be found and call upon Me while I am near; and touch their hearts that they may turn from darkness to light." Hauge was obedient.

He left his parent's home to spread the gospel through Norway. This task was made harder by the fact that the established church was afraid of enthusiasts and had forbidden all religious services (under the Conventicle Act) except those under the supervision of regularly posted clergymen. Consequently, Hauge spent much time in jail. Some of his incarceratations lasted several months. But although men sought to thwart him, God so endorsed Hauge's preaching with the power of the Holy Spirit that spiritual renewal followed wherever he went. Often this was accompanied by economic renewal, for Hans was gifted with many skills and strong business-sense and helped Norway's peasants develop industries.

Eventually he won the support of several bishops. However, he was once held in prison from 1804-1814 although all charges against him fell through. His enemies (among them certain godless bishops) called for his death.

He traveled 10,000 miles in Norway with the gospel and is regarded as the founder of Norwegian Pietism. Norwegians immigrating into the United States brought Hauge's teachings with them, influencing Lutheranism in the New World. A group also sailed settled in the Natal, South Africa, carrying Pietist ideas there.

Hauge's first wife and three of his four children died before him. Worn out, bleeding from the lungs. and otherwise broken in health, he himself died in 1824 at the relatively young age of 53. His last words, spoken with a face that shone with light, were, "O Thou eternal, loving God!"

Bibliography:

1.Arden, Gothard Everett. Four Northern Lights; men who shaped Scandinavian churches. Illus. by Jordan Lang. Minneapolis, Augsburg Pub. House, 1964.
2.Barrows, John Henry, ed. The World's Parliament of Religions. Chicago: Parliament Publishing co., 1893. Source of the image.
3.Gordon, Ernest. Book of Protestant Saints. Chicago: Moody, 1946.
4.Hallqvist, Brit. G. "A word from one of the authors of Captive and Free." Augsburg Now. Fall 1997, Vol. 60, No. 1 http://www.augsburg.edu/now/archives/fall97/word.html.
5.Hauge, Hans Nielsen. Encyclopedia Britannica. Britannica Corp., 1911.
6.Kiefer, James E. "Hans Nielsen Hauge, Renewer of the Church." http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/122.html.
7.Various internet articles.

April 6, 1924
Death of Ivan Prokhanov, One of the Milk People

The Molokans were a Russian sect dating from the late 18th century. Molokans believed the Bible was the soul's guide for salvation and rejected the rituals, icons, fasts, ornate churches, and worship of relics that were common in the Orthodox Church. They were called Molokans or "milk people" because they drank milk during Orthodox fasts. The government sent many Molokans to the Caucasus. One such family was the Prokhanovs. In 1869, Ivan Prokhanov was born into this heritage.

When he was about ten years old, Ivan fainted and lay lifeless. A doctor pronounced him dead, and he was placed in a coffin. But as the elders read the Bible over him, preparing to bury him, Ivan opened his eyes and began to cry. In later life, he thought: "Surely the power of the Omnipotent appointed me to live and to solve a special problem set by Him for my life; another power, the power of death, wanted to cut my life short in its very beginning, but the power of the Omnipotent overcame . . . and I was left to be on earth." Remembrance of this helped him in times of depression.

Reading Voltaire and Rousseau, Ivan grew confused about the purpose of life. In 1886, he took up a New Testament and saw Christ's claim, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no man comes to the Father but by me," (John 14:6). He read Paul's words, "For me to live is Christ, to die is gain," (Philippains 1:21). He sought forgiveness for his unbelief and thanked God for salvation. After that, he anchored his thinking in the optimistic belief that Christ has overcome the world, despite our daily problems.

Ivan wanted to be useful to the Russian people. Like the Apostle Paul, he resolved to provide for his own needs while engaging in Christian work. And so he studied mechanical engineering at the Institute of Technology in St. Petersburg. At the same time, he taught children and preached. His meetings had to be kept secret, because religious gatherings were illegal outside the Orthodox Church. As evangelical Christianity spread, Orthodox priests used their political clout to repress it.

Ivan was convinced that the Russian people needed spiritual reform more than anything else. He wrote, "No social or political reforms could prove successful unless a moral and spiritual reform in the people themselves was first realized." He produced an illegal Christian magazine. At one point, he had to flee to the West. When he returned, he served as an engineer for Westinghouse Electric Company by day and as an evangelist and hymn writer by night. He established a Bible school and organized youth groups. Often he did not get to bed until 2 A.M. Twice he was imprisoned for his faith.

Beginning in 1905, Russia enjoyed several years of religious freedom. Ivan served as president of the All Russian Evangelical Christian Union.

Two years before his death he wrote, "As I look back, analyzing the events of the past fifteen years, I cannot but see that every incident, every hindrance, even persecution and imprisonments, served definitely and positively for the growth of the Evangelical Christian Movement in Russia...." He died in exile on this day, April 6, 1924, in Berlin.

Bibliography:

1.Bernbaum, Dr. John A. "Ivan Prokhanov and His Dream." Russian-American Christian University. http://www.racu.org/context/reflect_feb1996.html.
2.Brandenburg, Hans. The Meek and the Mighty. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
3.Prokhanoff, I.S. In the Cauldron of Russia. New York: All-Russian Evangelical Christian Union, 1933.
4.Rohrer, Norman B. and Deyneka, Peter. Peter Dynamite, Twice-Born Russian. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1975, especially pp 72-82.
5.Various missions and evangelical encyclopedias and short internet articles.

April 7, 1824
Premiere of Beethoven's

My chief aim when I was composing this grand Mass was to awaken and permanently instill religious feelings not only into the singers but also into the listeners," wrote Ludwig von Beethoven.

The Missa Solemnis (Solemn Mass) premiered on this day, April 7, 1824* in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is one of the greatest pieces of religious music ever written.

Beethoven wrote it with his usual attention to detail. Originally he planned it to celebrate the consecration of his favorite pupil who had been named archbishop of Olmutz (a city now in Czechoslovakia). This was Rudolph, Archduke of Austria, who studied with Beethoven for fifteen years. Beethoven wrote to Rudolph, "The day on which a High Mass composed by me will be performed during the ceremonies solemnized for Your Imperial Highness, will be the most glorious day of my life; and God will enlighten me so that my poor talents may contribute to the glorification of that solemn day."

Unfortunately, the mass was far from done on Rudolph's consecration day. It would take Beethoven another two years to complete the work.

Meanwhile, he engaged in sly dealings to raise money. He took a sizable advance for the mass from one music publisher. Shortly afterward, he entered negotiations with other publishers for more money. At the same time, he offered manuscript copies to European courts, again for considerable sums of money.

He owed Prince Nikolai Galitzin several string quartets. But Beethoven put them on hold while he labored on the mass. He did eventually compose the quartets for Galitzin, but in the meantime, he sent him a copy of the mass. Galitzin was delighted with the work.

"It was with inexpressible joy, dear sir, that I received the Mass that you recently composed...I am trying to get the work performed in a manner worthy of its creator..." He arranged its performance as soon as he could, and that is why the work premiered in St. Petersburg.

It was the only full performance in Beethoven's lifetime (bits of it were played in other concerts). Had he been able to attend, he could not have enjoyed it, for only the loudest noises penetrated his deaf ears.

Although a Catholic in name, Beethoven seems to have really believed instead in the distant God of the Deists. His favorite religious quote, posted under glass at his work table, was taken from the temple of an Egyptian goddess, and sounds pantheistic, as if God were indistinguishable from his creation: "I am that which is. I am everything that is, that was, and that will be. No mortal man has raised my veil. He is of himself alone, and it is to this aloneness that all things owe their being." Nonetheless, the Solemn Mass captured the moods of faith as few other works ever have, especially in its lovely "Sanctus."

---
*Russia had not yet changed its calendar to agree with the rest of Europe, so the Russian date was in March.

Bibliography:

1.Beethoven, Ludwig von. Missa Solemnis. Various recordings.
2.Cooper, Barry. Beethoven Compendium. Thames and Hudson, 1991.
3.Drabkin, William. Beethoven: Missa Solemnis. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1991.
4.Schindler, Anton Felix. Beethoven as I Knew Him. University of North Carolina Press, 1966.

April 8, 1901
Chalmers and Co. Clubbed to Death on the Fly

In 1900, after the death of his second wife, James Chalmers was urged to return from Papua to England for a rest. "I cannot rest and so many thousands of savages without a knowledge of Christ near us," he replied. On April 4, 1901, the veteran missionary sailed to Goaribari Island in a steam launch. With him was a newcomer, Oliver Tompkins. The two British men and native evangelists who accompanied them were never seen alive by their fellow workers again.

Chalmers first vowed to become a missionary in 1856 when he was fifteen. This was a boyish impulse after hearing his pastor read a letter from Fiji. At the time, although a bold lad, Chalmers had not given his heart to God. He was the kind of boy who is more comfortable with action than books. To save a friend from drowning or risk his life in a makeshift boat were fun. He became the ringleader of a group of rowdies, and was in the thick of every fight with neighboring villages. Chalmers' gang determined to break up an evangelistic meeting. A friend pleaded with him to attend the meeting in a right spirit instead, and Chalmers did. He became convinced that he needed to follow Christ. Once he made that decision, the eighteen-year old immediately started preaching to others.

He remembered his vow to become a missionary and strove to obtain the education he needed. Somehow he muddled through his courses, but fellow students remembered him better for terrifying them with pranks than for feats of scholarship. Once he frightened everyone by appearing in the dining hall dressed in a bear skin!

Eventually Chalmers made it to the South Seas with his wife Jane. On their way to Rarotonga, they were shipwrecked and completed the journey aboard a pirate vessel. Bully Hayes was so impressed with Chalmers, he allowed him to hold religious services and even told his men to attend! The islanders could not pronounce his name and called him Tamate. Tamate would prove bold to the point of audacity wherever he went--and stubborn, too.

After his transfer to Papua, Chalmers needed all the boldness he could muster. Conditions were horrifying. Cruelty, continual warfare, and cannibalism were the norm. Chalmers ducked death time after time as he took the gospel along the steamy coasts of the large island, he literally plucked clubs and swords out of enemy hands to save his life and the lives in his party. In one region, he so influenced the natives that peace prevailed and cannibalism ceased within five years of his coming.

Author Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island) spent several weeks aboard ship with Chalmers. "He took me fairly by storm for the most attractive, simple, brave and interesting man in the whole Pacific," he wrote. Had he known the missionary earlier, it would have redirected his own life, he thought. Later he wrote in a letter, "I hope I shall meet Tamate once more before he disappears up the Fly River, perhaps to be one of 'the unreturning brave.'"

Chalmers was one of the unreturning brave. On this day, April 8, 1901, Tamate, Tompkins and several native evangelists were surrounded by armed savages. Promised a banquet, the men (who always traveled unarmed) were clubbed from behind and killed. Their bodies were cooked with sago and served as the main course of the promised feast.

Bibliography:

1.Chalmers, James. Pioneering in New Guinea, 1877-1894. New York, Revell, 1895.
2."Chalmers, James." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
3.Harrison, Eugene Myers. "James Chalmers 1841 - 1901; The Greatheart of New Guinea." Giants of the Missionary Trail. http://www.wholesomewords.org/missions/giants/biochalmers.html
4.Langmore, Diane. Tamate, a king : James Chalmers in New Guinea, 1877-1901. Carleton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1974.
5.Lovett, Richard. James Chalmers ; his autobiography and letters. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1903.
6.Various articles in mission encyclopedias and on the internet.

April 9, 1816
Separate but Equal for Richard Allen

To one accomplishes anything worthwhile without overcoming difficulties. In becoming America's first black bishop, Richard Allen faced formidable obstacles. He was born a slave. This meant he had to fight racism and inequity every step of his way. He did not automatically receive an education. Whatever he undertook required his master's permission. Slavery's cruelties touched his life. To pay debts, Richard's master sold off Richard's mother and three of her children. Richard never heard from them again.

At age seventeen, Allen met Christ. "I was awakened and brought to see myself, poor, wretched and undone, and without the mercy of God must be lost. Shortly after, I obtained mercy through the blood of Christ. . .I was brought under doubts, and was tempted to believe I was deceived, and was constrained to seek the Lord afresh. . .I was tempted to believe there was no mercy for me. I cried to the Lord day and night. . .all of a sudden my dungeon shook, and glory to God, I cried. My soul was filled. I cried, enough for me--the Savior died." He saw himself as a human being loved by God and it transformed his outlook. He became a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. To prove the merits of Christianity to his master he worked doubly hard. His master came under conviction. Indebtedness did not allow him to free Allen outright; however he offered to let him buy his freedom. Working evening and weekend jobs, Allen saved up his liberation money. An inward urge propelled him to educate himself. By 1782 he had become licensed to preach. Four years later he bought his freedom.

From Delaware, where he had been a slave, he moved to Philadelphia. There he preached to blacks in an established Methodist church. But when the church engaged in outrageous discrimination, he determined to form an independent Methodist body. The result was the Bethel Church, founded in 1787 in Philadelphia. Francis Asbury dedicated its structure a few years later and ordained Richard a deacon. Later Allen became America's first black Methodist bishop. Black churches across the Eastern United States organized on this day, April 9, 1816 into a new denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and elected Richard Allen Bishop of that organization.

Humble before Christ, Allen was charitable even to the whites who oppressed him. He was a driving force in founding America's first black convention and was active in the underground railroad. His story is one of great adversities boldly overcome in the strength of Christ.

Bibliography:

1."Allen, Richard." Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals. Timothy Larsen, editor. Downers-Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2003.
2.George, Carol V. R. Segregated Sabbaths; Richard Allen and the emergence of independent Black churches 1760 - 1840. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
3.Mathews, Marcia M. Richard Allen. Baltimore: Helicon, 1963.
4.Various encyclopedia and internet articles such as (www.earlyamerica.com/review/spring97/allen.html)

April 10, 428
The Nestorian Controversy

Nestorius was consecrated bishop of Constantinople on this date April 10th, 428. His elevation to this influential position had profound repercussions for the church. A firm opponent of the Arian heresy, he was accused of falling into a contrary error.

Arians taught that Christ was a created being. To refute this and other points, Nestorius argued that the Godhead joined with the human rather as if a man entered a tent or put on clothes. Instead of depicting Christ as one unified person, Nestorius saw him as a conjunction of two natures so distinct as to be different persons who had merged.

Nestorius refused to call Mary the "Mother of God." Her baby was very human, he said. Jesus' human acts and sufferings were of his human nature, not his Godhead. To say Mary was Mother of God was to say God had once been a few hours old. "God is not a baby two or three months old," he argued.

He never denied that Christ was divine. On the contrary, it was to protect Christ's divinity that he argued as he did, lest it be lost in worship of the human child. The divine nature could not be born of a woman. Nestorius' refusal to use the term "theotokus," Mother of God, led to a big argument. He pointed out that the apostles and early church fathers never employed the word. But he could not resolve the issue so as to bring into focus the Jesus we know from scripture who is completely and truly both God and man.

Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria, condemned Nestorius' works by issuing twelve anathemas against him. Nestorius responded in kind. The two men were harsh individuals and fierce antagonists. There was no chance of reconciliation. Emperor Theodosius II called a council at Ephesus to settle the question. Working quickly, Cyril and his allies deposed Nestorius before his Syrian supporters could reach the council site. Rome backed Cyril's move and Nestorius was stripped of his position and exiled. Theologians who study Nestorius' writings today say that his opinions were misrepresented and probably were not heretical.

Nestorius' followers did not go down without a fight. In regions controlled by Persia they formed their own church. At the beginning, it was a strong body which evangelized as far East as China. Nestorian churches appeared in Arabia, India, Tibet, Malabar, Turkostan and Cyprus. Many exist to this day, especially in Iraq, although the level of spirituality is often low. Some units reunited with the Roman Catholic church around the sixteenth century.

In part because of the Nestorian controversy, the church created a formula to describe Christ's person at the Council of Chalcedon in 433. The assembled bishops declared Christ was two natures in one person. "We all with one voice confess our Lord Jesus Christ one and the same Son, at once complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, of one substance with us as regards his manhood, like us in all things, apart from sin..."

Bibliography:

1.Aland, Kurt. Saints and Sinners; men and ideas in the early church. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970.
2.Bray, Gerald. Creeds, Councils & Christ. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1984.
3.Chapman, John. "Nestorius and Nestorianism" and "Cyril of Alexandria, St." The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.
4.Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria. "Anathamas" and "Exposition." Documents of the Christian Church. Selected and Edited by Henry Bettenson. London: Oxford University Press, 1967, 1963.
5.Eerdman's Handbook to the History of Christianity. Editor Tim Dowley. Berkhamsted, Herts, England: Lion Publishing, 1977.
6."Nestorius." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
7.Prestige, G. L. Fathers and Heretics: six studies in dogmatic faith with prologue and epilogue. London: S.P.C.K., 1958.

Today's article reminds of the book "Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follet. It's an excellent book and I have read it three times! I heard they were going to make a television series out of it, which I have long thought would make an excellent mini-series myself. I haven't seen it though. I wonder if it can be ordered to own? I'd love to see what they did with this story.

April 11, 1506
St. Peters' New Foundation

The walls of the old church were veined with cracks. Might it not collapse and kill the worshippers within? Nicholas V thought so. He summoned two famous architects with orders to strengthen the historic building. Alberti and Rossellino looked it over and came up with a plan for new walls.

St. Peter's basilica, first constructed by Constantine the Great, was to be shored up. It sat on the site where tradition says Peter was buried when executed in 67 A. D. As early as 90 A. D. an oratory had memorialize the spot. The work was just begun when Nicholas died. Succeeding popes let the project lapse.

Not until Julius II became pope was the project revived. Julius threw out halfway measures, determined to replace the basilica completely. As architect, he appointed Bramante. Bramante drew up huge plans and outraged traditionalists by rudely ripping down the old building. He should at least have disassembled the old columns, they sputtered, to be reused. Bramante went ahead with excavation.

On this date April 11, 1506, Pope Julius laid the foundation stone. The elderly vicar descended deep into the earth on a wobbly rope ladder to perform the honor. Lack of funds slowed construction. Leo X replaced Julius in 1513 and after Bramante's death in 1514 made Raphael the chief architect.

Work progressed slowly, due to lack of funds. Raphael never completed the project. Sangello, Verone, Sangallo and Peruzzi also served as architects at one time or another. Eventually Michelangelo was put in charge. He was then in his seventies, but redrew the plans. By the time he died in 1564, the shell of the dome was complete.

The great cathedral was not finished until 1626, 120 years after Julius laid the first stone. Then Carlo Maderna completed the facade. Men in those times projected their schemes across centuries. It is one of the most admirable characteristics of the church which confidently expected the body of Christ to survive all ups and downs. Neither Bramante's plans nor Michelangelo's were adhered to. Consequently the finished building was a series of compromises. Despite this it came forth with grandeur, its vast interior gloriously decorated. It covers four acres. St. Peter, who admired Herod's great temple in Jerusalem and preached and healed in it, might have been astonished at this triumph of religious architecture.

It was to pay for Raphael's efforts, by the way, that Leo X authorized the indulgence which led to Luther's 95 theses. Unfortunately, the edifice which sums up Catholic tradition and its patronage of the arts became a cause of the second greatest division in Christendom (the first being the East-West split in 1054) when Luther insisted indulgences were not necessary for Christians who can go directly to their Savior for forgiveness.

Bibliography:

1.Bainton, Roland H. Here I Stand. New York: Mentor, 1950.
2.Begni, Ernesto. Vatican; Its history--its treasures. New York: Letters and Arts, 1914.
3.Brusher, J. Popes Through the Ages. Princeton, New Jersey: Van Nostrand, 1964.
4.Durant, Will. The Renaissance, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953; pp. 450 - 451.
5."Indulgences." New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1954.
6."Indulgences." The Oxford encyclopedia of the Reformation. Editor in chief Hans J. Hillerbrand. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
7.Kent, W. H. "Indugences." The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.
8."Julius II." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
9.Maus, Cynthia Pearl. Christ and the Fine Arts. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959, 1938.
10.Montor, Artaud de. The Lives and Times of the Popes. New York: The Catholic publication society of America, 1910 - 11.
11.Ott, Michael. "Julius II." The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.
12.Various encyclopedia articles.

April 12, 1638
Final Assault on Japan's Rebel Fortress

Would you revolt over eggplant? In November 1637, Japanese peasants of the Shimabara peninsula and the Amakusa islands revolted. Afterwards, a commission looked into the events and concluded that the rebellion occurred because the Prince of Karatsu was more tyrannical than most. In addition to the usual taxes, he added surcharges on the poor farmers which included the best tobacco leaves and numbers of eggplant. To this unbearable tax burden, he added cruelty and torture, especially of Christians and their leaders and evangelists.

Because of the isolated situation of the peninsula and the Amakusa islands, Christianity made greater headway there than in the rest of Japan. The new Christians, with more zeal than understanding, were filled with Messianic hope. Many joined the rebellion. It proved costly to the future of Christian faith in the islands of the rising sun.

The lords of Nagasaki, who had recently departed for Edo (Tokyo) rushed back to defend the city. In December, a force of 3,000 men stormed Amakusa; all but 200 died in the offensive. During the fight, Christians waved banners and shouted the names of Jesus and Mary. Afterwards, they tore down Japanese religious symbols and raised Christian ones in their place. The invocation of Jesus and Mary did not bring victory in the next battle, however.

A thousand Amakusa survivors fled to join 35,000 rebels in Shimabara. The rebels assaulted the principle government fortress and almost captured it. Having failed, they holed up in the Hara fortress where they were led by Masuda Shiro, a brilliant young strategist whose age is variously estimated between fifteen and nineteen, and who went by the Christian name Jerome (sometimes given as Jeronimo). Aided by severe cold, they inflicted major defeats on the government forces. In one night sally alone, they killed 2,000 of the government's 100,000 troops. Despite its cannon, the government could not dislodge the rebels and lost over 8,000 men in January and February while the rebels lost hardly a soul. Japan asked a Dutch ship to shell the Hara Fortress, which it did, but with little effect, except to lose two of their own men to rebel sharpshooters.

But the end was inevitable. Having held out for four months, the rebels ran low on food. Deserters reported this to the government. Encouraged by the news, government forces began an all-out assault on the fortress on this day, April 12, 1638. It took them three days to overcome the desperate peasants and their Christian allies. Afterward, Christianity was strictly banned from Japan as a troublesome religion.

Bibliography:

1.Breen, John and Williams, Mark. Japan and Christianity; Impacts and Responses. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England: Macmillan, 1996, pp. 54-60.
2.Brinkley, F. History of the Japanese People from the earliest times to the end of the Meiji Era. Britannica, 1915.
3.Gunn, Geoffrey C. "The Duarte Correa Manuscript and the Shimabara Rebellion." http://www.uwosh.edu/home_pages/faculty_staff/earns/correa.html.
4.Kitagawa, Joseph Mitsuo. Religion in Japanese History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1966.
5.Mullins, Mark. Christianity Made in Japan : a study of indigenous movements. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, c1998.
6.Northrop, Henry Davenport. Flowery Kingdom and the Land of the Mikado or China, Japan and Corea. J. R. Jones, 1894.
7.Paske-Smith. Japanese Traditions of Christianity. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and co., 1979. pp. 49-100.
8.Turnbull, Stephen R. The Kakure Kirigotcha2an of Japan: a study of their development, beliefs and rituals to the present day. Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 1998.
9.Various internet articles on Shimabara and on Masuda Shiro.

April 12, 1972
20th Prison Anniversary for Watchman Nee

Among China's millions of Christians, none has been as well known to the West as Watchman Nee. Many of his books, such as The Normal Christian Life and Sit, Walk, Stand, reached Western shores and were printed in English where they were well-received.

Communist China has been hostile to Christian believers. Efforts are made to herd all Christians into a few state-controlled churches. Watchman Nee's fearless witness angered the party, which denounced him and his church. He was accused of exercising "a dark, mysterious control" over 470 supposedly independent churches. Nee could see the writing on the wall.

Rather than bemoan the fate he saw approaching, he worked night and day to dictate to assistants all that Christ had taught him. For days on end, he went with only two hours of sleep. The words they wrote down described the glory of God, the power of Christ's resurrection, the proofs of God's existence, and Christ's righteousness for believers.

He was arrested in 1952. With fierce brainwashing and honeyed promises, the Communists tried to break his fidelity to Christ. His captors promised him that if he would lead the faithful into the Three Self Patriotic Movement (the Communist-controlled church) he would be freed. Nee refused.

For four years believers did not know where he was. Then in 1956 he was given a hearing in Shanghai and accused of numerous severe crimes. To each charge he was allowed to answer only Yes or No. He stood silent for all but two: sabotage and spying. Those he denied. The Court of Public Security recommended severity. A few days later he was publicly accused and "proofs" presented. Among the allegations was that, at a time when Mao was bringing in a bright new socialist future, Nee had demoralized people by preaching that mankind is in the last days.

At the end of the hearing, Nee was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment with reform by labor. He was placed in the First Municipal Prison, where he had to labor in a factory eight hours a day, attend re-education another eight, and was allowed to rest the final eight. Loud speakers blared continuous propaganda. The prisoners were fed so little, their ribs protruded. He was permitted to send only one heavily-censored letter a month. Later he was employed translating English articles into Chinese for the government. Released convicts reported that he refused to buckle to the Communists, but instead sang hymns in his cell. Apparently he also refused an opportunity to be ransomed to the West.

On this day, April 12, 1972 Nee completed twenty years in prison, five years more than his maximum sentence. Ten days later he wrote in good spirits to his sister, possibly from a country prison. Within weeks he was dead.

Bibliography:

1.Kinnear, Angus I. Against the Tide; the story of Watchman Nee. Fort Washington, Pennsylvania: Christian Literature Crusade, 1973.
2.Lyall, Leslie T. Three of China's Mighty Men. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980, 1973.
3.Nee, Watchman. A Better Covenant.
4.-----------------. The Normal Christian Life. Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale, 1956.
5.-----------------. Sit, Walk, Stand. (Fort Washington, Pennsylvania: Christian Literature Crusade, 1974, 1962).
6."Nee, To-Sheng." Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals. Edited by Timothy Larsen. Downers-Grove, Illinois: Intevarsity Press, 2003.

April 13, 1742
Hallelujah! Handel's Masterpiece

At twelve noon, on this date, April 13, 1742, the world first heard the lovely overture, memorable arias and majestic choruses of the most famous oratorio ever written. There has not been a year since then that George Frederick Handel's Messiah has not been performed in concert halls around the world. Usually it appears in numerous halls.

The performance took place in Dublin, in the Fishamble Street Musick Hall. Dubliners received it with enthusiasm. "...the best judges allowed it to be the most finished piece of music," wrote the Dublin Gazette. "Words are wanting to express the exquisite delight it afforded..." Two performances were given. Two years later, annual performances were established in Dublin. London did not receive the oratorio as readily. Criticized, it did not catch on there until 1749.

Handel had turned to oratorios, most of them on religious themes, after opera failed him. Messiah was special even within its genre. The composer deliberately wrote it so that it could be performed by as few as four singers with strings, continuo, two drums and two trumpets. The idea was to produce a work which could be staged anywhere. Handel was often near destitution, and a piece like Messiah, which could be performed by small ensembles, offered him opportunities to raise desperately needed cash.

The text, by Charles Jennens, pulled together fragments of scripture relating to Christ. The power of the scriptures came by laying them forth almost as translated (he used more than one translation where it suited his purpose) and joining them so that they built on and clarified one another without comment. Old and New Testament passages were placed beside each other where a relationship existed. Where Jennens modified passages, he did so to make them scan better and to keep the texts in the third tense throughout. Handel, although a rough-tongued man, claimed to know the Bible as well as any bishop and made a few alterations himself. Jennens, a devout Anglican, intended through his libretto to challenge the Deists who denied Christ's divinity: "And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

He succeeded in his intent, for Messiah portrays Christ as Son of God, the fulfillment of prophecy, Savior of the world, and coming King. John Newton, slaver turned clergyman, preached fifty sermons on the text. Although Newton preached his series as a rebuke to those who glorified the music above God's word, he said that it comprehended all the principle truths of the Gospel. That Jennens fused the words together without once backtracking or repeating a passage demonstrates the perfectionism which made him a fussy person.

Handel united the whole into a magnificent artwork, writing the work in twenty-three fervent days, despite having already suffered a stroke. The music often rises to great loveliness and power. Passion builds until the climactic Hallelujah chorus. Of this chorus, Handel said in his broken English, "I did think I did see all heaven before me and the great God himself!"

Bibliography:

1.Barne, Kitty. Introducing Handel. New York: Roy, 1960.
2.Flower, Newman. George Frederick Handel, his personality and his times. New York: Scribners, 1948.
3.Grout, Donald J. A History of Western Music. New York: W. W. Norton, 1960.
4.Grove, Sir George, ed. "Handel, George Frederick." New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. London: Macmillan Publishers; Washington, D.C.: Grove's Dictionaries of Music, 1985, 1980.
5."Handel, George Frederick." Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. London: Oxford University Press, 1921 - 1996.
6.Scholes, Percy Alfred. "Handel, George Frederick." In The Oxford Companion to Music. Editor John Owen Ward. London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.
7.Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (Great Britain). Portraits of Eminent Men, of Various Ages and Nations, with Memoirs. London: C. Knight, 1845.
8.Ruoff, Henry W. Masters of Achievement. Buffalo, New York: Frontier Press, 1911.
9.Zoff, Otto, Editor. Great Composers Through the Eyes of Their Contemporaries. New York: Dutton, 1951.
10.Various encyclopedia articles and books on music appreciation.

April 14, 1682
The Flame of Avvakum's Genius

Archpriest Avvakum was appalled. The Russian Orthodox church had an overbearing new Patriarch, Nikon. This zealot wanted to incorporate into the liturgy changes borrowed from the Roman church. As Avvakum and many others saw it, these changes threatened the purity of the old faith. Their protests were met with appalling cruelty. Tsarevna Sof'ya decreed that Old Believers were to be tortured. Any who remained "obstinate" were to be burnt to death.

Avvakum became spokesman for the Old Believers. Fortunately for Russia, he was not immediately sentenced to death, but instead chained, imprisoned, beaten, spat upon and exiled to Siberia. He and his family survived by eating offal that wolves had rejected. Two of his sons died under these wretched conditions. Forced to join an expedition to Amur under a brutal leader, Avvakum spoke out against the cruelty. For this, he was flogged and chained to a barge overnight in a cold, autumn downpour. Then the faithful witness was thrown naked into a cell, "but God kept me warm without clothes!" he reported.

What use was his protest against the liturgical changes? he wondered. The new formulas spread no matter what he said. He asked his wife if he should continue to speak or hold his peace. "You have tied me down," he said, thinking of her sufferings and those of his children.

"Lord have mercy, what are you saying Petrovich?" the good woman replied. "I and the children bless you: dare to preach God's word as heretofore and do not feel anxious about us; so long as God wills it, we shall live together, and if we are parted, remember us in your prayers. Christ will not abandon us!" Shaking off his temporary "blindness of discouragement," Avvakum renewed his preaching.

For all her faith, his wife could not help asking her husband once, "How long will this suffering last, Archpriest ?" Till death, he answered. Sighing she said, "So be it, Petrovich; let us trudge on."

Trudge on Avvakum did. Imprisoned, he wrote hundreds of pages of doctrine. He also produced an autobiography. Written in a zestful, contemporary Russian, it is considered a milestone of the language much as Pascal's Provincial Letters are for French and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales for English. Its concise immediacy was unsurpassed until Tolstoy. Friendly jailers winked as Avvakum's well-wishers smuggled out his tracts and the text of the autobiography.

Thousands of the Old Believers were executed. Avvakum's turn came on this day April 14, 1682. At Tsar Theodore's order, he and his fellow prisoners were locked in a log cabin and burned alive. Thus perished in flame a spiritual hero and literary genius whose remembrance endures to this day.

Bibliography:

1.Avvakum, Petrovich. The Life of the Archpriest Avvakum, by himself. Translated from the seventeenth century Russian by Jane Harrison and Hope Mirrlees with a preface by Prince D.S. Mirsky. London, Hogarth Press, 1963.
2.Dowley, Tim, ed. Eerdman's Handbook to the History of Christianity. Berkhamsted, Herts, England: Lion Publishing, 1977.
3.Various internet articles.

April 15, 1597
"Clearly Unworthy" Thought Gerard

"I have only one life," said John Gerard. "But if I had several I would sacrifice them to the same cause." He was very weak. All the day before, he had hung by his arms, stretched in a position which caused excruciating pain, passing out repeatedly, only to be revived and forced to endure more agony. Now, on this day, April 15th, 1597, he was hoisted into the torturous position again. ". . .if I had any spirit left in me it was given by God and given to me, although most unworthy, because I shared the fellowship of the Society."

Gerard's crime was to be a Jesuit in an England which had embraced the Reformation. As such he was suspected of complicity in various plots, imaginary or real. His torture was designed to force him to implicate an innocent Catholic priest, Father Garnet.

His torment was made worse by the words of the torturers. "You will be a cripple all your life if you live. And you are going to be tortured every day until you confess."

John Gerard prayed unceasingly. The pain was intense, especially in his hands. He placed himself in the keeping of the Lord Jesus and Mary. It was a long time before he fainted this day. Hot water was poured down his throat to revive him. The jailers had so much difficulty bringing him around that they thought he had died. He came to himself seated on a bench, and supported by a man on either side. "Submit to the Queen," they urged. Tell all you know. Why die miserably? "No I won't," he managed to reply. "And I won't as long as there is breath in my body."

He was hung up again, and was promised another hanging after dinner. Nonetheless he felt consoled in his soul. "Whether it arose from a true love of suffering with Christ or from a selfish longing to be with Christ, God knows best. But I thought then I was going to die. And my heart filled with great gladness as I abandoned myself to His will and keeping. . ."

The governor of the tower was the first to lose stomach for the fight. John was taken down and returned to his cell. His warden ". . .assured me that his wife, whom I had never seen, had wept and prayed for me the whole time." The governor resigned. He did not want to torture any more good men, he said. A new man took his place. Six months later, John escaped.

He was glad to have endured his torments without breaking, but deeply saddened for another cause. God must have seen weakness in him to have given him so short a fight, he wrote. "To others stronger than me, to Father Walpole, Father Southwell and others, He offered a hard fight that they might conquer. . .but I was clearly unworthy of their prize and was left to fulfill the length of my days. . ." Clearly the Reformation in England had martyrs, heroes and villains on both sides--Catholic and Protestant.

Bibliography:

1.Gerard, John. "A Jesuit is Tortured in the Tower, 14-15 April, 1597 John Gerard." In Eyewitness to History. Edited by John Carey. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1988.
2.Pollen, J. H. "John Gerard." The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.
3.Various internet articles such as the Wikipedia entry.

April 16, 1905
Russian Evangelicals Promised Tolerance

Near Easter in 1905, Christian leaders, who were in St. Petersburg for a conference, received an invitation to the palace of Princess Lievan. An announcement was to be made, they were told--an announcement that would bring them great joy. They were given no hint of its content.

"What are we here for? What is happening?" asked the small group of invited men who appeared at the palace early the next morning. No one knew. Which was just how Tsar Nicholas II wanted it. He wanted to spring a little surprise.

The surprise was a manifesto of religious tolerance. Jakob Kroeker, who was there on this day, April 16, 1905, left an account of the emotional scene. "When all the guests arrived, one of the big folding doors opened and our beloved princess came into the room, deeply moved, holding a copy of the Manifesto in her hand. She could hardly read the glad news for inner excitement and joy. When she had finished, those present joined in thanks and worship to the Lord. Not an eye remained dry and not a mouth dumb."

And little wonder. Evangelical Christians in the Russian empire had suffered cruelly for two hundred years. Despite this, their numbers had grown steadily. Tsars from Peter the Great onward had found it expedient to offer some concessions to the emerging religious force. But as is almost always the case when there is a state religion, the established church pressed hard to retain its monopoly and was often guilty of persecution.

Religious tolerance was also incorporated in the October Manifesto of 1905, which took its final shape under Finance Minister Sergei Yulievich Witte, an Orthodox Russian, who candidly acknowledged that he would have preferred to establish a military dictatorship.

As good as the news was, it soon soured. Nicholas II was a weak man who began to take back his concessions almost as soon as he made them. This was unfortunate and helped play into the hands of the revolutionaries who eventually toppled him, the last Tsar, from power.

Western evangelical ideas were not the only thoughts spreading through Russia in those days. Freethinking, agnosticism, rationalism and other God-hating ideologies flourished in the troubled land. Had the evangelical church been free to carry out its mission, with the social uplift that usually follows the Gospel, perhaps the Marxist regime that took power in 1917 would never have emerged to crush the Russian people (not to mention the rest of the world) under a heavy boot of oppression for seventy years.

Bibliography:

1.Brandenburg, Hans.The Meek and the Mighty. New York: Oxford University, 1977.
2.Various encyclopedia and internet articles on Nicholas II and Witte.

April 18, 246
Cyprian baptized in Carthage

I am a Christian and cannot sacrifice to the gods. I heartily thank Almighty God who is pleased to set me free from the chains of this body." With these bold words, spoken in front of hundreds of onlookers, Bishop Cyprian of Carthage faced death under Emperor Valerian. Many of the pagans standing by were deeply moved.

Cyprian was well-known to them. As Bishop of Carthage, he was an eminent figure in North Africa. But even before becoming a church leader he had been a notable man.

Born into wealth around 200, Cyprian inherited a large estate. He trained in rhetoric. Curiously it was this training which brought him to Christ. Genuinely gifted as a speaker, he opened his own school. As part of the course, he debated philosophers and Christians. Convinced by the arguments of a Christian elder, he became a convert when he was about 45 years old. "A second birth created me a new man by means of the Spirit breathed from heaven," he wrote. Immediately he applied for admission to the church. With zeal, he gave away his wealth and devoted himself to poverty, celibacy, and Bible studies.

In those days it was popular for Christians to receive baptism at Easter. This has led scholars to argue that Cyprian received baptism on this day, April 18, 246, the Eve of Easter.

Upon the death of Bishop Donatus in 248, less than two years after Cyprian's conversion, and over his protests, the people elected him Bishop of Carthage. Pontius, one of his clergy, wrote an admiring biography telling how Cyprian handled himself. His countenance was joyous, he wrote, and he was a man to be both revered and loved.

But well might Cyprian protest his election! His task was never easy. Many older men felt slighted by his swift ascendancy and envied him his office. Among the clergy were others who neglected their duties. Cyprian disciplined them, and this increased resentment against him. In 250, a persecution by Emperor Decian broke out. The pagans shouted, "Cyprian to the lions!" But the bishop escaped into hiding. His presence in Carthage would intensify persecution, he explained. Writing letters, he tried to hold the church together in his absence. This was not easy, for the Christians who stayed and endured suffering looked down on Cyprian. In 251 Gallus became emperor and Cyprian returned to his church.

Those who had stood firm under suffering called themselves "the confessors." They gained great prestige from this. Others had renounced their faith. These were called the "lapsed." The church split over how to allow the lapsed back in. Cyprian's disagreement with the Bishop of Rome over the issue of the lapsed caused him to write an influential book, Unity of the Church. In it he argued that the church is not the community of those who are already saved. Instead, it is an ark of salvation for all men, a school for sinners. Today many Protestants accept this teaching but refuse to accept Cyprian's other claim that the bishops of the church, as the heirs of the apostles, are the agents through whom God dispenses grace. "He who has not the church for his mother, has not God for his Father," Cyprian wrote. His view is also opposed to that which makes the pope pre-eminent. Protestants argue that where two or three are gathered in Christ's name, Christ is with them and quote Peter to show that every Christian is a priest (1 Peter 2:9).

When a fearsome plague erupted in Carthage in 252-254, the pagans abandoned the sick in the streets. People rushed about in terror. Cyprian told his Christians to care for the sick, including dying pagans. The people obeyed, despite the fact the pagans blamed them for the disease and persecuted them. Soon afterward, Bishop Cyprian was brought before the pro-consul Aspasius Paternus. Aspasius banished him to a town by the sea. When Aspasius died, Cyprian returned to Carthage. He was seized by the new governor and condemned to death. At the place of execution, he knelt in prayer and tied the bandage over his eyes with his own hand. To the executioner he gave a piece of gold. Thus he was beheaded on September 14, 258, retaining his bold confession to the end.

Bibliography:

1.Adapted from Christian History Institute's Glimpses #162.
2.Aland, Kurt. Saints and Sinners; men and ideas in the early church. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970.
3.Ante-Nicene fathers: translations of the writings of the fathers down to A.D. 325. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. American reprint of the Edinburgh edition. Revised and chronologically arranged, with brief prefaces and occasional notes, by A. Cleveland Coxe. New York: Scribner's, 1926.
4.Benson, Edward White. Cyprian: his life, his times, his work. London, New York, Macmillan, 1897.
5.Chapman, John. "St. Cyprian of Carthage." The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1908.
6."Cyprian, St." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
7.The Library of Christian Classics. Westminster Press, 1956.

April 19, 1529
Protestants 1st Called Protestants

When someone asks what religion you are, what do you answer? There are a lot of different labels to describe the varieties of Christian followers, and the word "Protestant" is one. It was on this day, April 19, 1529, that the designation "Protestant" might be said to have come into existence.

Martin Luther had been declared a heretic by both the pope and the emperor, but his followers continued to multiply rapidly. Emperor Charles V could not suppress the reformers as he wished, because the Turks were threatening his empire from the east, and the pope and he were quarreling with each other. In 1521, at Worms, Germany, Charles signed a document which outlawed Luther. Five years later at another imperial council, Charles agreed to postpone any settlement of religious issues. He agreed that until an official policy could be established, every State within his territories would be governed as the ruler thought most pleasing to God. In practice, this meant that throughout Germany's many independent cities, principalities and electorates, the religion of each prince or local ruler became the religion of his subjects.

In 1529 a Diet (Congress) met at Speyer, Germany to consider action against the Turks and attempt again to come to terms with the Reformation. The Diet forbade any extension of the Reformation until a German council could meet the following year. Charles V declared he would wipe out the Lutheran "heresy." Five reforming princes and fourteen cities drafted a protest, a formal legal appeal, for themselves, their subjects and all who then or in the future should believe in the Word of God. (It was not formally published until July.)

Eight years before, Martin Luther was a lone monk standing for the Word of God and liberty of conscience at the Diet of Worms. But by 1529, the world had changed: there was an organized party of government leaders with consciences bound by the Word of God against tyrannical authority. Not every protester was a Lutheran. The whole party of the reformers needed a name. From the protest and appeal at the Diet of Speyer, these breakaways from the Roman Church began to be called Protestants.

Today Protestants are one of three major branches of Christianity. While all three hold the same fundamental creed, other differences are many. Perhaps the key difference is that while the Eastern Orthodox and Roman traditions combine the Scripture with the authority of church tradition or of a pope, Protestants claim to find the sole authority for their faith in the Bible, the Word of God. Many can also be identified because they accept the priesthood of all believers and the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

Bibliography:

1.Adapted from an earlier Christian History Institute story.
2.Bezold, Friedrich von. Geschichte der Deutschen Reformation. Berlin: Derlagsbuchhandlung, 1890. Source of the image.
3."Protestantism" in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by F. L Cross and E. A. Livingstone.
4.Schaff, Phillip. The History of the Christian Church, Volume VII. Grand Rapids, Michigan: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1910.

April 20, 1999
Columbine Killers Targeted Christians, Too

Christian martyrs in 20th century America? It happened on this day, April 20, 1999. When Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold began shooting up their school, they did not fire randomly. In their twisted minds, Athletes, minorities and Christians were the enemy.

"Do you believe in God?" they asked Cassie Bernall. They knew full well she did. The girl who had once indulged in the occult (as the killers now did) had moved into a realm of peace when she learned to center her heart on Christ. She became a church-goer and a worker among those who needed Christ. Often she brought her Bible to school.

She was reading it in the library when the killer pointed his gun at her. Did she believe in God? "Yes, I believe in God," she replied.

"Why?" asked the boy in the dark trench coat. Without waiting for an answer, he pulled the trigger.

"My God, my granddaughter was a martyr," said Cassie's grandma when she heard the report.

And not the only one, either. Rachel Scott, a spiritually-minded seventeen-year-old whose ambition was to become a missionary to Africa, died, too. So did John Tomlin, a sixteen-year-old who had recently gone to Mexico to help with a church project for the poor.

The Sunday before her death, Cassie wrote these words after church:

Now I have given up on everything else I have found it to be the only way
To really know Christ and to experience
The mighty power that brought Him back to life again, and to find
Out what it means to suffer and to
Die with him.
So, whatever it takes I will be one who lives in the fresh
Newness of life of those who are
Alive from the dead.
Bibliography:

1.Colson, Charles W. "Littleton's Martyrs." BreakPoint Commentary - April 26, 1999. (www.stormloader.com/omegakids/Casiemail.html). [Casie's poem is quoted from this source].
Nimmo, Beth and Darrell Scott with Steve Rabey. Rachel's Tears. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2000.
2.Rosenberg, Jennifer. "The Columbine Massacre." 20th Century History. http://history1900s.about.com/library/weekly/aa041303a.htm
3.Numerous other internet articles, including articles originally printed in the Boston Globe and Washington Post.

April 21, 1855
Dwight L. Moody Was Converted

Dwight L. Moody didn't attend school beyond the fifth grade; he couldn't spell, and his grammar was awful. His manners were often brash and crude, and he never became an ordained minister. Once, before his conversion, he so outraged an Italian shoe salesmen with a prank, that the man chased him with a sharp knife, clearly intending to kill him. Yet, Dwight L. Moody was used by God to lead thousands of people to Christ. Moody's life of Christian service began with his conversion on this day, April 21, 1855.

Dwight came to Boston as a teenager from Northfield, Massachusetts, and he felt all alone in the big city. The boy was desperate for work. An uncle took him on as a shoe salesman--on condition that he be obedient and that he attend Mt. Vernon Congregational Church. The young man had been raised in a Unitarian church which denied the full divinity of Christ and did not emphasize human need for salvation from sins. Now Dwight heard about those things. But he decided that he wanted to enjoy the pleasures of the world and wait to get saved until just before he died.

However, the kindness of his Sunday School teacher, Edward Kimball, turned young Moody into his life-long friend, and encouraged him to persist in his church attendance and regular Bible reading. Though Moody did try to read the Bible, he couldn't understand it. Kimball later said he had never seen anyone whose mind was as spiritually dark as Dwight's.

That changed on this day, April 21, 1855. Kimball came to the shoe store to ask Dwight to commit his life to Christ. Dwight listened closely and became a Christian that day. Immediately he began sharing his faith with others, including his own family. They wanted nothing to do with his faith. "I will always be a Unitarian," his mother said. (However, she converted shortly before her death.)

And at first Moody wasn't allowed to become a church member. Asked what Christ had done for him, the nervous boy replied that he wasn't aware of anything particular. Leaders felt that was an unacceptable answer.

When Moody later moved to Chicago he wandered the streets to find young boys to bring to his Sunday School class. He had a passion for saving souls and determined never to let a day pass without telling someone the gospel of Jesus Christ. Often he irritated strangers on the street by asking them if they were Christians -- but his pointed questioning stirred the consciences of many. God used the converted shoe salesman to become the leading evangelist of his day.

Estimates vary, but Dwight is thought to have led as many as a million people to confess faith in Christ. Among his many achievements on either side of the Atlantic was the founding of Moody Bible Institute.

Bibliography:

1.Adapted from an earlier Christian History Institute story.
2.Findlay, James F. "Moody, Dwight Lyman." Encyclopedia of American Biography, edited by John A. Garraty. Harper and Row, 1975.
3.Harvey, Bonnie C. D. L. Moody, the American Evangelist. Barbour Books, 1997.
4.Moody, William D. Life of D. L. Moody by His Son. Revell, 1900.

April 22, 254
Origen

Have you ever known a teenager who loved Christ so much that he was eager to die for him? A man so brilliant that he kept seven secretaries busy recording his torrent of thought? Somone so eager to walk close to the Lord that he fasted every Wednesday and Friday? Origen was such a person, a saintly man of rare brilliance, an author of thousands of works.

Born in Alexandria, Egypt about 185, Origen was reared in a Christian home. His father, Leonides, sent him to the best teachers in town and had his son memorize Scripture every day. When Leonides went to prison for his faith about 202, Origen encouraged him not to deny Christ. He planned to surrender himself to the authorities so that he could join his father in prison, but his mother hid his clothes. Leonides was martyred and his property confiscated, leaving the family destitute.

A wealthy woman assisted Origen; he was able to teach the Greek language and copy manuscripts for a living. When the young man was about 18, the Bishop of Alexandria made him head of a church school in Alexandria. Origen was responsible to instruct new converts. He soon found that he needed to answer the arguments of heretics, Jews and pagans. He studied with a leading philosopher in order to learn how to refute pagan arguments against the Christian faith.

To remove any hint of scandal as he taught young women their catechism, Origen castrated himself, literally following Matthew 19:12. He later realized that his action was ill-advised and not to be taken as an example. Origen also strictly followed Christ's words in Matthew 10:10--he had only one coat, no shoes, and took no thought for the next day. He refused gifts or pay from his pupils, ate no meat, drank no wine, and slept on the bare floor. Much of the night he spent in prayer and study. He helped friends and pupils when they went to prison for their faith.

During his early years at Alexandria, Origen wrote On First Principles, the first systematic theology ever produced. For 28 years he worked on another book, the Hexapla, a massive work of Old Testament textual analysis. He was one of the few churchmen before the Reformation who learned Hebrew to assist his study of the Old Testament. Origen's method of interpreting Scripture tremendously influenced the Middle Ages. He found three levels of meaning in it: the literal, the moral and the allegorical. He used allegory to reveal Christ in the Old Testament.

Paradoxically, Origen can be called both a father of orthodoxy and a heretic. He wrote at a time when the church was defining its basic doctrines. His contributions have helped theologians for centuries. But his active mind also led him into speculations that the Church rejected. In fact, church councils held in 231 and 232 enacted motions against Origen, and excommunicated him.

Origen found refuge in Palestine and Arabia. The faith was still dear to him. During a third century persecution, pagans threw him into prison. Tortured and condemned to die, only the death of Emperor Decian saved him from execution. But Origen's health was broken. He was close to 70 when he died in 253 or 254.

Though he made serious mistakes, Origen's contribution was inestimatable. One of his students, the church father Gregory of Nazianzus, aptly summed him up as "the stone that sharpens us all." Because no definite dates are associated with Origen's life, we have chosen this day, April 22, to recognize his contribution to the church.

Bibliography:

1.Adapted from Christian History Institute's Glimpses #54.
2.Aland, Kurt. Saints and Sinners; men and ideas in the early church. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970.
3.Ante-Nicene fathers: translations of the writings of the fathers down to A.D. 325. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. American reprint of the Edinburgh edition. Revised and chronologically arranged, with brief prefaces and occasional notes, by A. Cleveland Coxe. New York: Scribner's, 1926.
4.Crouzel, Henri. Origen. Translated by A.S. Worrall. San Francisco : Harper & Row, 1989.
5.Curtis, Ken, J. Stephen Lang and Randy Petersen. Dates with Destiny; the 100 most important events in church history. (Tarrytown, New York: Revell, 1991).
6."Origen." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.

April 23, 1616
William Shakespeare

"To be or not to be -- that is the question."

"My words go up, my thoughts remain below Words without thoughts ne'er to Heaven go."

uotes and phrases of William Shakespeare, the greatest of all English writers have become part and parcel of our culture and speech, but much about the man's life and beliefs remains mysterious. Even the date of his death is not certain, although it is generally thought that he died on this date, April 23, 1616. This would have been almost on Shakespeare's 52nd birthday (he was baptized the 26th of April, 1564 probably a few days after his birth).

Was Shakespeare a true Christian? Some of the anecdotes about his life make that doubtful. Nonetheless, a month before his death, he wrote his will, which he concluded by saying, "I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing through the only merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour to be made partaker of life everlasting."

He instructed that his tombstone to be inscribed:

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones."

Shakespeare also seems to have been a faithful member of the Church of England. Though he never wrote a play on a Biblical story, the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer were the most frequently quoted sources in his work. He quotes or alludes to passages from at least 42 books of the Bible; and phrases from the morning and evening prayers in the Book of Common Prayer are frequent. Of the books of the Bible, Shakespeare quoted from Matthew 151 times and from the Psalms 137 times.

Some have speculated that the King James Version of the Bible contains a cryptogram for Shakespeare. If you look at the 46th psalm in the King James translation, the 46th word from the beginning is "shake" and the 46th word from the end is "spear." Interestingly, Shakespeare was 46 when the translation was made in 1610! Did Shakespeare help with the translation work? There is no serious basis for such conjecture.

Indeed, there is serious scholarship that argues that Shakespeare did not even author the works attributed to him. One way or the other, Shakespeare took his secrets (spiritual and otherwise) to the grave with him when he died around this date almost 400 years ago.

Bibliography:

1.Adapted from an earlier Christian History Institute story.
2.Garrison, Webb. Strange Facts About the Bible. Nashville: Abington Press, 1968.
3.Michell, John. Who Wrote Shakespeare? London: Thames and Hudson, 1996.
4."Shakespeare, William." Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968.

April 24, 1514
Reuchlin Found Not Guilty

To Johann Reuchlin, Luther owed the Hebrew grammar for his Bible translation. A man of lowly birth, Reuchlin's talent for singing brought him to the attention of the Margrave of Baden who made him a companion of his son. In love with learning, the singer seized every opportunity his new position afforded to educate himself. Languages were his forte. He wrote the first Latin dictionary to be published in Germany and a Greek grammar. Hebrew was his dearest love. He ferreted out the rules of Israel's ancient language by study of Hebrew texts and converse with every rabbi who appeared within his range. His authority became widely recognized.

Reputation was nearly the cause of his ruin. A converted Jew and a Dominican inquisitor extracted from Emperor Maximilian an order to burn all Hebrew works except the Old Testament, charging they were full of errors and blasphemies. Before the edict could be carried out, the Emperor had second thoughts and consulted the greatest Hebrew scholar of the age: Reuchlin.

Reuchlin urged preservation of the Jewish books as aids to study, and as examples of errors against which champions of faith might joust. To destroy the books would give ammunition to the church's enemies, he said. The emperor revoked his order.

The Dominicans were furious. Selecting passages from Reuchlin's writings, they tried to prove him a heretic. Possibly he was. He seemed to expect salvation through cabalistic practices rather than relying totally on Christ's atoning blood. The inquisition summoned him and ordered his writings burnt. Sympathetic scholars appealed to Leo X. The Pope referred the matter to the Bishop of Spires, whose tribunal heard the issue. On this day, April 24, 1514, the tribunal declared Reuchlin not guilty. It was a great victory for freedom of learning.

The Dominicans were not so easily brushed off. They instigated the faculties at Cologne, Erfurt, Louvain, Mainz and Paris to condemn Reuchlin's writings. Thus armed, they approached Leo X. Leo dithered. Should he win applause from scholars by protecting the Jewish books, or placate the clerics? He appointed a commission. It backed Reuchlin. Still Leo hesitated. At last he decided to suspend judgment. This in itself was a victory for Reuchlin. The cause of the embattled scholar became the cause of the innovators. Reuchlin's nephew, Melanchthon, rejoiced. Erasmus praised him.

In 1517 Luther posted his 95 theses. "Thanks be to God," said the weary Reuchlin. "At last they have found a man who will give them so much to do that they will be compelled to let my old age end in peace." Thanks to Reuchlin, the Talmud and Kabbala were preserved. Although he died a broken man, freedom for academic production was strengthened because of his ordeal. Soon his studies formed the basis for better translations of the Old Testament. Furthermore, his influence assured Melanchthon a position among the learned and a place in the Reformation.

Bibliography:

1.Hirsch, Samuel A. Book of Essays. Macmillan, 1905.
2.Loeffler, Klemens. "Johannes Reuchlin." The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.
3.Manschreck, Clyde Leonard. Melanchthon, the Quiet Reformer. New York, Abingdon Press, 1958), especially 24, 25.
4.Mee, Charles L., jr. White Robe, Black Robe. New York: Putnam, 1972; p. 154ff.
5."Reuchlin, Johannes." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
6.Rummel, Erika. The Case against Johann Reuchlin: religious and social controversy in sixteenth-century Germany. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002.

April 26, 1806
Duff Defied Shipwrecks to Disciple India

On this day, April 26, 1806, Alexander Duff was born in Perthshire in Scotland. The boy, who would win such a name for patient and enthusiastic faith as a man, grew up on a small farm. His father farmed but also had a heart for the things of God. He was among those influenced by Charles Simeon, the evangelical chaplain of Cambridge. Through reading a poem about "Judgment Day," young Alexander Duff also saw his need for a Savior and learned to hope for salvation in Christ.

Duff got an inkling of his future when he nearly drowned in a creek that graced the landscape near his home. Afterwards he experienced a vision in which he understood his life was to be spent for Christ. A good student, he made preparations to become a missionary. With a new bride, he sailed from London for Calcutta on October 14, 1829. Alexander was twenty-three years old.

Their ship wrecked near Cape Town, South Africa. The two lost everything they owned, except the clothes on their back, their Bible and a psalm book. This included eight hundred books which Duff had planned to use in educational work. Undaunted, the two boarded another ship for India. It would be eight months and another shipwreck before they arrived at their oriental home, praising God all the more fervently for having been thwarted.

Duff had come planning to educate Indians, but had been instructed to do so somewhere other than in Calcutta. Calcutta had advantages, however--including a population of half a million people. Duff was convinced it should be the center of his work. Although he had no building, he opened school with five pupils under a Banyan tree. By week's end, he had three hundred applicants. Within two years, he had over a thousand students. He determined to teach every useful branch of knowledge and to saturate his instruction with Scripture. "Our maxim has been, is now and ever will be this: wherever, whenever and by whomsoever Christianity is sacrificed on the altar of worldly expediency, there and then must the supreme good of mankind lie bleeding at its base." To put all of his pupils on an equal footing--they represented several different languages--he made English the medium of instruction. His mighty vision compelled him to produce a series of text books.

When the Church of Scotland split, Duff sided with the more evangelical Free Church. The established church confiscated the buildings he had labored so long to erect, and he had to begin afresh. Despite such setbacks, Duff persisted. He took only three furloughs in thirty-five years, and those only because of ill health. In his last term as a missionary, he surprised his Hindu hosts by demonstrating that girls also were teachable.

Although his schools were widely imitated, conversions were hard to obtain. The Indians who did turn to Christ were mostly of the lowest castes and were held in contempt by other Indians.

Bibliography:

1."Duff, Alexander." Encyclopedia Britannica. Britannica, 1911.
2."Duff, Alexander." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
3.Hampton, Henry Verner. Biographical Studies in Modern Indian Education. Indian Branch, Oxford Univ. Press, 1947.
4.Holcomb, Helen Harriet Howe. Men of Might in India Missions; the leaders and their epochs. New York: Fleming H. Revell company, 1901.
5.Mackay, William M. "Alexander Duff and the Principles of Missionary Endeavour." http://www.pcea.asn.au/alexduff.html.
6.McLean, Archibald. Epoch Makers of Modern Missions. New York: Fleming H. Revell company, 1912.
7.Neill, Stephen. A History of Christian Missions. The Pelican History of the Church #6. Hammondsworth, Middlesex, England: Pelican Books, 1964.
8.Paton, William. Alexander Duff, Pioneer of Missionary Education. London: Student Christian Movement, 1923.

April 27, 1570
Pius V Excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I

During the Reformation, England broke away from the Roman Church. Mary Tudor briefly reestablished the connection, but when Elizabeth came to the throne, she saw that it was politically expedient (and perhaps morally preferable) to uphold the reformed church and did so. Like her father before her, she headed the English church through an act of Parliament, although her private chapel services remained more Catholic than Protestant.

On this day, April 27, 1570, Pope Pius V issued a bull against her. He claimed that there was no salvation outside the Roman Church and that the pope alone was successor to Peter and head of the earthly church. The ungodly had grown in power and "Elizabeth, the pretended queen of England and the servant of crime, has assisted in this."

The pope went on to excommunicate Elizabeth. "...we do out of the fullness of our apostolic power declare the foresaid Elizabeth to be a heretic and favorer of heretics, and her adherents in the matters aforesaid to have incurred the sentence of excommunication and to be cut off from the unity of the body of Christ."

In his fourth point, he said "And moreover (we declare) her to be deprived of her pretended title to the aforesaid crown and of all lordship, dignity and privilege whatsoever."

He forbade all nobles, subjects and people to obey Elizabeth on pain of excommunication. This, of course, placed England's Catholics in a trying position. While most were loyal to the throne, some used the papal statement as an excuse to plot against Elizabeth for the purpose of replacing her with a Catholic. Elizabeth cracked down on these opponents with vigor. Innocent Catholics suffered alongside the guilty.

The bull concluded with the words, "Given at St. Peter's at Rome, on 27 April 1570 of the Incarnation; in the fifth year of our pontificate.

Elizabeth survived this blast and maintained high popular approval during much of her reign. She is admired by historians as one of England's greatest monarchs, and according to Thomas Fuller, was also admired by Pope Sixtus the Fifth.

Bibliography:

1."Elizabeth I." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
2.Fuller, Thomas. "The Life of Queen Elizabeth." The Holy State and the Profane State, Volume II. New York: Columbia University Press, 1938; p. 312ff.
3.Lataste, T. "Pope St. Pius V." The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.
4.Neale, J. E. Queen Elizabeth I. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1957.
5."Pope Pius V's Bull Against Elizabeth (1570)." http://tudorhistory.org/primary/papalbull.html.
6.Various encyclopedia and internet articles on Elizabeth, Pius V and the excommunication.

April 28, 1948
Prisoner Number One: Richard Wurmbrandt

One beautiful Sunday morning--it was on this date, February 29, 1948--pastor Richard Wurmbrand of Rumania set out on foot for church. He never arrived. For eight and one half years his wife and son did not know where he was or even whether he was alive or dead. "Ex-prisoners" assured Sabrina Wurmbrand they had witnessed her husband's funeral in a Communist prison. Sabrina was heartbroken and yet she had her doubts. The men might be government stooges.

Wurmbrand's disappearance was expected. Anyone who acted contrary to the regime could expect imprisonment or death. At a "Congress of Cults" held by the Communist government, he had asked for it. Religious leaders stepped forward to swear loyalty to the new regime. Sabrina asked Richard to "wipe the shame from the face of Jesus." Richard replied that if he stepped forward, she would no longer have a husband. "I don't need a coward for a husband," she answered. And so Richard stepped forward and told the 4,000 delegates that their duty as Christians was to glorify God and Christ alone.

He returned home to pastor an underground church and promote the gospel among Rumania's Russian invaders. He smuggled Bibles into Russia, disguised as Communist propaganda. And then he disappeared.

What had actually happened? As Richard walked to Church, a van full of secret police stopped in front of him. Four men jumped out and hustled him inside. He was taken to their headquarters and later locked in a solitary cell where he was designated Prisoner Number 1.

His years of imprisonment consisted of a ceaseless round of torture and brainwashing. For seventeen hours a day, repetitious phrases were dinned into his ears: Communism is good. Christianity is stupid! Give up. Give up! Over the years, his body was carved in a dozen places and burned. "I prefer not to speak about those [tortures] through which I have passed. When I do, I cannot sleep at night. It is too painful." His jailers also broke many of his bones, including four vertebrae. Miraculously, he survived. Other martyrs did not.

Eight and one half years later, in 1956, Wurmbrand was released. Sabrina herself was brutalized for three years in prison. The Wurmbrand's nine- year-old son Mihai was orphaned during this time. Released, the Wurmbrands immediately recommenced secret church work. Wurmbrand was returned to prison, not released again until 1964.

In 1965, Western churches ransomed Wurmbrand from Rumania for $10,000. Richard and Sabrina immediately spoke out for those still suffering in Communist hands. Wurmbrand was asked to testify before the US Senate. He displayed eighteen holes cut in his body. Afterward, he was invited to speak before hundreds of groups. By 1967, "Prisoner Number 1" had incorporated the mission organization that is now known as Voice of the Martyrs, dedicated to assisting those who suffer for Christ throughout the world.

Richard and Sabina were able to survive their ordeal through the power of love. "If the heart is cleansed by the love of Jesus Christ," wrote Wurmbrand, "and if the heart loves him, you can resist all tortures. What would a loving bride not do for a loving bridegroom? What would a loving mother not do for her child? If you love Christ as Mary did, who had Christ as a baby in her arms, if you love Jesus as a bride loves her bridegroom, then you can resist such tortures. God will judge us not according to how much we endured, but how much we could love. I am a witness for the Christians in communist prisons that they could love. They could love God and men."

Bibliography:

1.Wurmbrand, Richard. Tortured for Christ. Middlebury, Indiana: Living Sacrifice Books, 1976.

April 29, 1607
Cape Henry, 1st Anglican Church in America

The English first attempted to settle the New World in Virginia. The first Anglican worship ceremony of the Jamestown party in the new world was held on this day, April 29, 1607. "The nine and twentieth day, we set up a Crosse at Chesupioc [Chesapeake] Bay, and named that place Cape Henry," wrote Captain John Smith. Reverend Robert Hunt led them in a service. The colonists would soon establish a place of worship.

If Christians erect a facility to worship in, what should it look like? The Virginia sanctuary was not a typical church building. It was a simple shrine in the forest covered with a tattered sailcloth. The altar was a plank nailed between two trees.

By the end of that summer, however, the colonists had built a wooden church inside the Jamestown fort. John Smith said it looked more like a barn than anything else. By January of the next year it had burned down.

The colonists built a new sanctuary to take its place. This is where Pocahontas and John Rolfe were married in 1614.

Three years later, yet another wooden church building was erected, this one outside the walls of the fort. Virginia's House of Burgesses, the first representative assembly in America, met in this church in 1619; obviously the much talked-about wall of separation between the church and state had not yet been erected!

Virginia itself was a parish of the Church of England, an overseas extension of the diocese of London. Robert Hunt was the first chaplain of the Jamestown settlement. His task was difficult, because most of the early colonists to Virginia were more interested in this world's riches than in spiritual treasures. Rev. Hunt held regular services in the Jamestown church while also working diligently for the physical well-being of the colony. It was he who built the first colonial grist mill. Much of his time, however, was spent caring for the many sick and dying in the colony and defusing quarrels among the settlers.

In 1639 the prospering colonists built a new brick church in Jamestown, and added a brick tower in the 1640s. The remains of this church tower can still be seen--one of the oldest English-built edifices standing in the United States today. The Anglican faith (now known as Episcopal) was in America to stay.

Bibliography:

1.Adapted from an earlier Christian History Institute story.

April 30, 1892
Warner Sallman's Famous Head of Christ

You may not recognize his name off the cuff, but you've probably seen his work. Warner Sallman was the best-known Christian artist of the early twentieth century. Almost everyone has seen a reproduction of his Head of Christ. The yellow-brown picture with long flowing hair was an icon of the forties and fifties.

Born on this day, April 30, 1892, Sallman showed early artistic talent. His Swedish-born parents did all they could to develop his abilities. Going to New York City to make his living, he was thwarted when his trunk came up missing. Without the portfolio samples in it, no studio would accept him. He prepared to leave New York, but made one last check at the railroad station, insisting on seeing the storage area. His trunk was discovered far from sight.

Sallman was a Christian who had been converted at sixteen during evangelistic services in Chicago. "My burden of sin and guilt was removed and I shall never forget the thrilling joy of that moment of experiencing God's redeeming grace. Since that time my life has been based on that experience, and has been directed toward serving God in every way." He married a Christian girl, too--Ruth Anderson--but a year later he was told that he had just three months to live. His wife's faith was equal to the test; she said, "Let us pray about it and let the Lord have His way in the matter." In time he fully recovered from tuberculosis.

Eventually he achieved success as a professional illustrator. One day Sallman urgently needed to get a cover done for the February, 1924 issue of the religious magazine Covenant Companion. He wanted to do a face of Christ, but wasn't satisfied with his ideas. Hovering in the back of his mind was a statement by E. O. Sellers, the night director of Moody Bible Institute, "...make Him a real man. Make Him rugged, not effeminate. Make Him strong and masculine, not weak, so people will see in his face He slept under the stars, drove the money changers out of the temple, and faced Calvary in triumph." No small task! Little wonder Sallman was unable to find precisely the right idea at first.

With his deadline looming, he saw a vision early one morning of the face he must draw. He went up to his studio and made a sketch. Years later he converted that sketch to a painting--the best-known representation of Christ done in the twentieth century.

Sallman would do much other religious art--he was the artist for New Tribes mission, for example. But it was the Head people wanted. He sketched it over and over--more than 500 times--in public talks. He would make the sketch and invite people to meet the Christ he tried to portray. He made many other paintings about Christ, including the well-known Jesus, Our Pilot and Christ Knocking at Heart's Door (in which the light radiates from Christ and reflects off the house so that it forms the image of a heart).

Highbrow critics scoffed at the works. To them it was mere kitsch. But when one looks at the paintings that they approved, one cannot help but feel that the sensibility of the masses, while not perfect, was more satisfactory than the verdict of the smug art world.
With changing times, Sallman's ideal of Christ fell into disfavor. Minorities reject it because it makes Jesus too white. From the perspective of the twenty-first century it is safe to say that what appeared masculine to his contemporaries seems effeminate today. One can also take exception with his Head of Christ on the grounds that it makes Jesus too beautiful. The Bible says there was nothing comely in his appearance to make him desirable.

Bibliography:

1.Lundboom, Jack R. Master Painter; Warner E. Sallman. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1999.
2.Morgan, David. Icons of American Protestantism; the art of Warner Sallman. New Haven: Yale University, 1996.

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May 1, 1939
Theodore Epp Aired 1st

In April 1939, a young preacher from Oklahoma approached the managers of two midwest radio stations. Theodore Epp later admitted he was quite afraid when he entered that Lincoln, Nebraska office. However, he boldly stated, "We note that you have everything in your broadcasts that people want except something from the heart." He asked for an opportunity to remedy that.

Naturally, the managers wondered how the program would be financed. Epp at the time had only $65. The pastor replied that the same Partner who had underwritten his ministry costs for the last 12 years would handle the broadcast expenses. That partner, of course, was God.

Epp had gone in expecting to buy a 30-minute daily slot. Instead, he was offered a daily 15 minutes at $4.50 a program. He accepted. On this day, May 1, 1939 Back to the Bible aired for the first time. It is one of Christian radio's venerable programs.

Epp's short devotionals attracted a wide audience as more and more stations signed on for them. In a typical lesson, Epp described how Jacob undermined his testimony with Esau by pretending he would meet him in Seir when he had no intention of doing so. Said Epp, "Words that are not supported by actions turn many people away from the Gospel. This is one reason the present-day church has lost rapport with the world. We are not direct in making our position with God known, and because of half-truths and timidity we are not winning people to the Lord as we should."

Many notable Christians have been associated with Back to the Bible, including Elisabeth Elliot and Warren Wiersbe.

Indeed, Warren Wiersbe became General Director after Epp's retirement, a position he held until 1990. Although generally in the mainstream of conservative and fundamentalist Christianity, Back to the Bible's adoption of new ministry methods in the last two decades has led to criticism that it has sold out to ecumenism and psychology. Conservatives have complained about changes in its theology and its use of modern translations.

Theodore Epp's vision lives on, however. As the 21st century began, Back to the Bible's broadcasts were heard in 22 languages around the world, and it continued to produce and distribute Christian material in many formats in its efforts to reach the world for Christ.

Bibliography:

1.Erickson, Hal. Religious Radio and Television in the United States. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, c1992.
2.Hill, George H. Airwaves to the soul : the influence and growth of religious broadcasting in America. Saratoga, California: R & E Publishers, 1983.
3."Our History." Back to the Bible. http://www.backtothebible.org/aboutus/history.htm.
4.Various internet articles.

May 2, 1740
Boudinot, Bible Society Founder

Do you know all of the presidents of the United States? Does Elias Boudinot ring a bell? He was chosen President of the United States "in Congress assembled" on November 4, 1782. It was in his capacity as president that he signed the peace treaty with England that brought an end to the Revolutionary War. But his importance to Christian history lies in another direction.

Elias Boudinot was born on this day, May 2, 1740 in Philadelphia. One of his ancestors was a French Protestant who had fled from France when King Louis XIV took protection away from these Huguenots.

Boudinot studied law and became a respected lawyer in New Jersey and made a fortune, much of which he gave away to charity. Because he was an energetic Patriot, his neighbors elected him as their delegate to the Continental Congress. After the Revolutionary war, they elected him as their representative to the new Federal Congress. He served three terms.

But Boudinot's real interests were not political as much as religious. An Episcopalian, he served on the board of directors of the College of New Jersey (Princeton). This school had been founded to train clergymen. Boudinot helped establish and pay for its Department of Natural Sciences, but he was even more concerned that the resurrection of Christ be taught.

Widely read in Bible literature and a lifelong student of the scriptures, Boudinot wrote a reply to Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. His response was called The Age of Revelation. He also wrote a life of William Tennent, the man who started a "log college" to train preachers.

Boudinot thought the American Indians were the ten lost tribes of Israel (DNA studies have since proven him wrong). He wrote a book about that, too, titled A Star in the West. His concern for the Indians (he is not to be confused with the Elias Boudinot who sold out the Cherokee Nation) led him to find ways to educate them.

Given his interests, it is hardly surprising that Boudinot was all for Bible societies, whose purpose was to get the Bible into the hands of as many people as possible. In 1816, he pushed others to join him in forming the American Bible Society. He served as its first president and gave it $10,000 in a day when an annual salary of $400 was considered good money.

We've pretty much forgotten Boudinot's service as president. But his work with the Bible Society will never die. The American Bible Society is still with us to this day, and sponsors the work of Bible translation and distribution around the world.

Bibliography:

1.Boudinot, Elias. A Star in the West, or, a humble attempt to discover the long lost ten tribes of Israel, preparatory to their return to their beloved city, Jerusalem. Trenton, New Jersey: Published by D. Fenton, S. Hutchinson and J. Dunham,1816.
2."Boudinot, Elias." Encyclopedia Americana. Chicago: Americana Corp, 1956.
3.Boyd, George Adams. Elias Boudinot, Patriot and Statesman, 1740-1821. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952.
4.Klos, Stanley L., editor "Elias Boudinot, 4th American President." Virtual American Biographies. http://www.famousamericans.net/eliasboudinot/

May 3, 1721
Hans Egede To Greenland

On the west coast of Greenland, in the tundra zone about one hundred and fifty miles south of the arctic circle, a new colony was being built. Europeans had established a presence in Greenland as early as 980 under Eric the Red. Severe winters and the problems of maintaining trade caused the colony to perish 400 years later. Now, in 1722, the Danes were reestablishing their presence. The leader of the expedition was not a Dane, however. He was a tough-skinned Norwegian. More to the point, he was a Christian missionary.

Protestantism was slow to develop a missionary consciousness and commitment. The little nation of Denmark was among the first Protestant countries which recognized the urgency of spreading the gospel. It's leaders founded a mission school in 1714. Among the missions-minded was their ruler, the good king Frederick IV. Having come under the influence of Pietism, he strongly supported Danish missions, including the Greenland project. On this day, May 3, 1721, Hans Egede sailed with his wife Gertrude for the inhospitable regions of the world's largest island.

Greenland is a harsh land. No settlement is possible except along the coasts, for the interior of the world's largest island is ice-covered year round. In spite of all its ice, Greenland's northern regions are more arid than the driest Sahara, receiving less than five inches of rain a year. The southern coasts receive 30 inches a year. There grasses grow and some trees: alder, birch and willow. Hans Egede found both winter and summer beautiful despite the low average temperatures and pale sun that never rises high in the sky.

In 1722 he founded a colony and named it Godthåb. Known as Nuuk today, it is capital of the nation. From this base he preached to the Eskimos, but saw few indications of success. Superstition ran deep in these hardy Indians and they could not be weaned from the words of their angakut (soothsayers). The problems of teaching Christianity were compounded by Egede's difficulties mastering the Eskimo language. It seemed to have few words with which to express Christian concepts. Despite this, he attempted to produce a translation of the New Testament. Adding to all these barriers was his own temperament, which tended to be harsh and overbearing. He dearly loved the people, but like many Christians, did not know how to express this in human terms.

That changed in 1733 when a smallpox epidemic swept the island. Hans and his wife poured themselves heart and soul into caring for dying Greenlanders. "You have been kinder to us than we have been to one another," exclaimed one. Gertrude so exhausted herself in the effort that she died a short time later. Hans returned to Denmark in 1736.

His son Paul, raised among the Eskimos, took over the work, mastered the language, completed the translation, and witnessed revival. His father rejoiced to see him reap where he had sown.

Bibliography:

1."Egede, Hans." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
2.Lives of missionaries, Greenland: Hans Egede; Matthew Stach and his associates. London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 186 -.
3.Neill, Stephen. A History of Christian Missions. The Pelican History of the Church #6. Hammondsworth, Middlesex, England: Pelican Books, 1964.
4.Fleisher, Eric W. & Jürgen Weibull. Viking Times to Modern; the story of Swedish exploring & settlement in America, and the development of trade & shipping from the Vikings to our time. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1954; p. 143.

May 4, 1873
Damien Joined the Outcasts

"I am ready to be buried alive with those poor wretches." The man who spoke was Father Damien. The wretches he spoke of were the outcasts of Molokai Island. The curse of the Hawaiian archipelago, so blessed in other ways, was leprosy. Individuals with leprosy were sent to a peninsula on Molokai. The disease, which caused damaged extremities to rot off the body, was so feared that the Hawaiian government had made it illegal for anyone landing on the peninsula to return to the other islands. Damien knew if he went he could not return. On this day May 4, 1873 he made an irrevocable decision. He would confront the gates of Hell.

Conditions on the island were bestial. Young girls in whom leprosy had just been discovered were raped by demon-faced men in final decay. The stronger victims threw the weaker out of huts to die. The island's huts were foul with disease and despair. Most of the sufferers reeked of decaying flesh.

Damien turned white as a sheet on the beach. Yet he prayed to be able to see Christ in the ghastly forms before him. Given one last chance to leave, he refused. He had volunteered for Hell and he intended to civilize it.

The son of a Flemish farmer, Damien had entered the priesthood with great ardor. His very presence in Hawaii was the result of incessant pleas. Once there he had proven himself a determined evangelist. But nothing he had done before could compare with the efforts he made now.

Although water was plentiful in the mountains, there was little in the settlement. Damien organized daily bucket brigades. Later he constructed a flume which diverted a stream of water to their doorsteps. He developed farms. The apathetic lepers had neglected even this rudimentary effort. He burned the worst houses and scoured out the rest. Saw and ax in hand, he built new houses. He laid out a cemetery. From now on, those who died would be properly buried. He prepared a dump and cleaned up the village and its environs. He shut down the production of alcohol stills.

And he evangelized. His cheerful conversation led dozens to Christ. The same men who had stolen from the dying or dumped them in ditches, now came to Damien for baptism.

Jealous Protestant authorities, who had done little for the lepers, spread scandalous stories about Damien. But he labored on. Twelve years after he came to the island, he discovered that his own feet were leprous. Four years later he was dead. His quiet heroism won worldwide renown. It brought new donations for the island and a staff of nurses and other helpers. By his own gruesome living death he assaulted the gates of Hell.

Bibliography:

1."Damien of Molokai." Anderson, Gerald H. Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. New York : Macmillan Reference USA; London : Simon & Schuster and Prentice Hall International, 1998.
2.Daniel-Rops, Henri. The Heroes of God. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1965, 1958.
3.Farrow, John. Damien the Leper. Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1954.
4.Stevenson, Robert Louis. In the South Seas. New York: Scribners, 1911.

May 6, 1867
Famed Southern Baptist, George W. Truett

George W. Truett was born on this day, May 6, 1867 on a farm in the mountains of North Carolina. He became one of the most popular boys in the county, equally handy on the farm, at his desk or sighting down a rifle barrel.

Several times as a child and then as a young man, George recognized his need for a savior from his sins. But he was nineteen before he went forward, "confessing Christ before all the people." That very night he began to urge his classmates to turn to Christ. Many did. He was baptized, joined the Baptist church and began to teach Sunday school. Not only that, but, to pay his way through college, the young man opened a school, which soon enrolled 300 students and employed three teachers! He preached. Those who heard him speak called him a second Spurgeon. He was offered a church, but turned it down. He had decided to move with his parents to Texas. And Texas is where he made his mark for Christ.

The local Baptist church at Whitewright Texas decided to ordain him. George protested, but "there I was against a whole church..." He was ordained, but as of yet held no church. Instead, the 23-year-old accepted the position as chief financial officer of Baylor University because, "people do what he asks them to do." The school was deeply in debt by the standards of the day. In 23 months, George eliminated the debt completely. Later he was offered the school's presidency, but he turned it down, preferring to pastor a church.

At 30, George became pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. He had wanted to turn it down, but felt God was saying, "take it." During his 47 years of leadership, the church grew from 715 members to over 7,000. Even after it was remodeled, a thousand people might be turned away from the doors on a given Sunday. It was the largest membership in the Southern Baptist denomination, the largest membership in the world (at that time) and highly influential. Other than his excellent speaking, another source of growth was his training program for Sunday school teachers.

People hung on George's words. In one sermon, he said "Our cities saved means the salvation of civilization. Our cities lost means the corruption and destruction of civilization." He then went on to show that the family is the key to the city. "As goes the home, so will go the city. And I pause to say that the home is in peril and endangered now as it has not been in modern times. ...If people trifle with the home they are undermining the foundation of an enduring and worthy civilization...Put crepe on the door of your heart if things are wrong in the family. Put crepe on the door." He always preached for a decision.

George almost left the pulpit once, however. He accidentally shot and killed one of his closest friends, the chief of police, in a hunting accident. Praying and crying, he could not bring himself to preach again, until in a vision he saw Christ saying "You are my man from now on." The night that he returned to the pulpit, other churches closed their doors so that their members could go hear him preach.

On his seventieth birthday he wrote his wife a letter in which he said, "I would this day rededicate my all to Christ..." Although greatly honored in his life, none of it went to his head. He died in 1944 after a painful illness.

Resources

1.Ezell, John S. "Truett, George Washington." Dictionary of American Biography.
2.Perez, Joan Jenkins. "Truett, George Washington." http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/ articles/view/TT/ftr16.html.
3.Reese, Ed. George Truett. Christian Hall of Fame Series, #10. Glenwood, Illinois: Christian Hall of Fame Series, 1975.
4.Truett, George Washington. "The Highest Welfare Of The Home." http://www.bibleteacher.org/gwt_4.htm.
5.Various other internet articles.

May 7, 1794
French Revolution Cult of Supreme Being

"Reason is God," said the leaders of the French Revolution. But people are so unreasonable that the revolutionary leader, Robespierre, soon realized that reason makes a weak God. He became afraid that without belief in some powerful being like the Judeo-Christian God, morals would collapse. Then where would the Republic be? Strong nations need strong virtues.

On this day, May 7, 1794, the Committee of Public Safety, which controlled France, decreed worship of a Supreme Being. This was not the God of the Bible, who enters into personal relationships with men, but a Deist god. Eighteenth-century Deism taught that God created the universe but did not interfere in its operation. According to the Deists, their god could be discovered through natural law and his existence was an inspiration to moral behavior.

That June, Robespierre organized a festival of the Supreme Being. At that festival it was proclaimed, "The day forever fortunate has arrived, which the French people have consecrated to the Supreme Being. Never has the world which he created offered to him a spectacle so worthy of his notice. He has seen reigning on the earth tyranny, crime, and imposture. He sees at this moment a whole nation, grappling with all the oppressions of the human race, suspend the course of its heroic labors to elevate its thoughts and vows toward the great Being who has given it the mission it has undertaken and the strength to accomplish it.

"Is it not he whose immortal hand, engraving on the heart of man the code of justice and equality, has written there the death sentence of tyrants? Is it not he who, from the beginning of time, decreed for all the ages and for all peoples liberty, good faith, and justice?" *

Fearful of further bouts of terror, the revolutionary Committee engineered Robespierre's downfall and execution. The blade of the guillotine was soon stained with his own blood.

* Note: while Christians recognize God as the Supreme Being (a term not used in the Scripture), they also know Him by the more humane name "Father."

Bibliography:

1.Aulard, François Victor Alphonse. Christianity and the French Revolution; Translated by Lady Frazer. New York: H. Fertig, 1966.
2.----------------------The French Revolution; a political history, 1789 - 1804; Translated from the French of the 3d ed., with a pref., notes, and historical summary, by Bernard Miall. New York: Russell & Russell, 1965.
3."French Revolution." Modern History Sourcebook. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook13.html
4."Maximillian Robespierre on the Festival of the Supreme Being." The History Place; Great Speeches Collection. http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/robespierre.htm

May 8, 1821
Auntie Charlotte Tucker Glowed

Charlotte Tucker was 54 years old when she went to India as a missionary. She did so at her own expense. Born on this day, May 8, 1821, she was daughter of Henry St. George Tucker, former director of the East India Company. Wealthy and gracious, she published many children's books under the name "A Lady of England." She had not been able to go to India earlier in her life because, for eighteen years, she had the care of her aging parents and of nephews and nieces whose father had been killed during a mutiny in India.

Her nephews and nieces said, "No one could play games like Aunt Char; she seemed younger than the youngest of us." She also liked to dance with them or read Shakespeare aloud while knitting. No one wanted to see her go.

Before leaving England, Charlotte studied Hindustani, afraid she would not be able to learn a new language at her age. As soon as she arrived in India, she put her limited knowledge of the language to work, stammering out words and phrases such as, "The Lord Jesus is here; He gives blessing." Consequently, she mastered Hindustani within a year. Her plan was to work in the Zanenas, the women's enclosures. And she did. By her death eighteen years later, she had access to 170 homes. She also assisted for many years at a boys' school.

In order to fit in with the Indians, she determined to "Orientalize" her mind. Thus at her first church service, she sat on the floor with the native Christians. That was always her way. She would even have adopted the sari as her dress if the other missionaries had not forbidden it.

So glowing was her testimony, especially when she played music and sang, that Indian Christians would walk for miles just to behold her shining face. Everyone called her "Auntie."

Every year she took a one month vacation. During it she would write a story or two--meditations on Christ's teachings--parables and allegories which proved particularly apt for Indian readers. Titles like Eight Pearls of Blessing or The Bag of Treasure enjoyed brisk sales which increased after her death in 1893.

Bibliography:

1.Andrews, C. F. The Renaissance in India. London: Church Missionary Society, 1912.
2.Montgomery, Helen Barrett. Western Women in Eastern Lands. New York: Garland, 1987.
3."Tucker, Charlotte." Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions; general editor, A. Scott Moreau. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2000.
4."Tucker, Charlotte Maria." Anderson, Gerald H. Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. New York: Macmillan Reference USA; London: Simon & Schuster and Prentice Hall International, 1998.
Last updated May, 2007.

May 9, 1914
Woodrow Wilson Proclaimed Mother's Day

Ana M. Jarvis was deeply attached to her mother whose name was Mrs. Ana Reese Jarvis. Mrs. Ana Reese Jarvis had been the daughter of a pastor and had taught in a Methodist Sunday school at Grafton, West Virginia.

Mrs. Jarvis died in 1905. Two years later, the Sunday school superintendent of her Grafton congregation asked Ana to help him arrange a memorial for the woman who had been so influential in that church. This set Ana thinking. It seemed to her that children often do not do enough to show their moms that they appreciate them while they are still alive.

Grafton held its special service on the second Sunday of May, 1907, the anniversary of Mrs. Jarvis' death. The following year, Ana convinced her own church in Philadelphia to hold a Mothers' Day service on May 10, 1908. Ana supplied the church with white carnations, which had been her mom's favorite flower.

After that, Ana wrote thousands of letters and held many interviews to promote a national Mother's Day. She enlisted friends behind her effort, too.

It took them six years, but in the end they succeeded. On May 8, 1914, both houses of the United States Congress passed resolutions establishing a Mother's Day observance. Acting on the authority of that resolution, President Wilson on this day, May 9, 1914, issued a proclamation regarding Mothers' Day:

"Now, Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the said Joint Resolution, do hereby direct the government officials to display the United States flag on all government buildings and do invite the people of the United States to display the flag at their homes or other suitable places on the second Sunday in May as a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country."
Today, Mother's Day is not celebrated so much with flags as with gifts, cards, hugs, thank yous and other tokens of affection. In some countries, the appreciation lasts for two days.

Thanks to the efforts of one Christian lady, Mother's Day is observed everywhere in the United States on the second Sunday of May. But it is observed on that day in other countries as well-- Christian and non-Christian alike--including Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Turkey and parts of Africa and South America.

Bibliography:

1.Hatch, Jane M. "Mother's Day." The American Book of Days, 3d Edition. New York: Wilson, 1975.
2.Myers, Robert J. with the Editors of Hallmark Cards. Celebrations: the Complete Book of American Holidays. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., 1972.
3.Rice, Susan Tracy, complier and Schauffler, Robert Haven, editor. Mothers' Day; its history, origin, celebration, spirit and significance as related in prose and verse. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1954.
4.Various encyclopedia and internet articles.

May 10, 1886
Karl Barth Was Monday's Child

On this day Monday morning, May 10, 1886, at about five o'clock Anna Katherina Sartorius Barth delivered a son. It was a hard delivery, and the child was ugly. "Karli," as his parents affectionately called him, was born at home--42 Grellingerstrasse in Basle, with just an aunt attending. Although both parents were born and raised in Basle, they had only recently returned to the city when Karl's father, Johann Friedrich Barth was offered a pastorate. He was an earnest, outspoken preacher much respected by his congregation. His son would become one of the best-known theologians of the 20th century.

After a happy childhood in Basle and Bern, Karl Barth attended the Universities of Bern, Berlin, Tübingen, and Marburg. Beginning in 1909 he pastored for many years; and even after he had become a famed professor at the universities of Göttingen, Münster and Bonn, he held that the essential task of theology was preaching. His theology, he said, grew out of his first pastorate in Safenwil, where he carefully crafted his sermons each week. At that time he was a liberal who even went so far as to publicly praise Schleiermacher and made speeches for the Religious Socialists.

Barth's first important work was his study on the Epistle of Romans. His friend Thurneysen had said to him, "What we need for preaching, instruction and pastoral care is a 'wholly other' theological foundation." For some reason the words stuck in Barth's mind. Although he had usually focused his sermons around a scripture, for the first time, according to his own words, he really became aware of the Bible.

Barth gradually came to repudiate liberal theology. Unlike many religious thinkers of the 20th century, who synthesized Christianity with other beliefs, he refused any "insights" borrowed from world religions, averring that religions are man's attempt to reach God, whereas Christianity is God's reaching down to humans through Christ Jesus. Christianity is not man's discovery but God's revelation. This is no merely intellectual revelation and certainly not a "direct" revelation.

"The revelation which has taken place in Christ is not the communication of a formula about the world, the possession of which enables one to be at rest, but the power of God which sets us in motion, the creation of a new cosmos."
Originally he wrote the book only for himself and his close circle of friends. The first printing consisted of only 1,000 copies which sold with difficulty.

Later Barth wrote Church Dogmatics and other theological works. These have been strongly criticized as cutting theology loose from historical actuality. Perhaps his most practical contribution was the Barmen Declaration, which called Christians back to the historical truths of their faith at a time when Hitler loyalists within the national church were warping the faith into a parody that applauded the regime and allowed Hitler to dictate in matters of religion. When Barth refused to cooperate with the Nazi regime, he was expelled from his professorship at Bonn.

Bibliography:

1.Andrews, James F., Editor. Barth. St. Louis, Missouri: B. Herder Book Co., ca. 1969.
2.Barth, Karl. The Epistle to the Romans. London: Oxford university press, H. Milford, 1957.
3."Barth, Karl." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford: OXford University Press, 1997.
4.Curtis, Ken et al. Dates with Destiny; the 100 most important dates in church history. Tarrytown, New Jersey: Fleming Revell, 1971, 1946.
5.Torrance, Thomas Forsyth. Karl Barth, biblical and evangelical theologian. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1990.
6.Van Til, Cornelius. Christianity and Barthianism. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1962.

May 11, 1994
Death of Persistent Jim Broomhall

When Jim Broomhall was nineteen, he read a book about the Yi (also called Nosu), a mysterious mountain people of China's Szechwan province. Intrigued, he made up his mind to tell them about Jesus. In preparation, he became a medical doctor.

Jim joined the China Inland Mission, which had been founded by his great-uncle Hudson Taylor; and he arrived in Szechwan in 1938. Because Japan had invaded China, he was unable to reach the Yi of the Liangshan mountains at that time. Instead, he worked at a mission hospital and married Theodora Janet Churchill. Not until 1943 were he and his wife able to work among the Yi. They traveled among them giving medical aid and making friends. But a Japanese advance forced them to leave again, still not having reached Jim's target--the Liangshan mountains.

Although thwarted, Jim told everyone "I want to go to Liangshan to make friends, for there are my Yi brothers whom I love and wish to serve." Finally in 1947, he got his wish, traveling the thousand miles from Lanzhou to Liangshan.

Jim rode a mule along the river banks, treating patients and inviting them to a clinic that he had established. On one occasion he removed a young man's festering arm (it had been damaged in a dynamite explosion) and replaced it with an artificial limb, much to the joy of the boy's family. One Summer he rode his mule up into remote mountain villages, tending the sick.

The Yi were appalled when Jim took in a leper. The two shared a room and ate the same food. The villagers were so outraged that the leper would endanger Jim this way that they wanted to kill him, but his condition improved, although the irreversible damage could not be undone.

Without even the aid of an x-ray machine, Jim performed two operations on a girl with a crippling bone disease and gave her a new life. Multiply these instances by hundreds and you can see why the Yi came to love their missionary doctor.

In 1951, many Yi came to say goodbye to Jim, his wife and their four daughters. The Communists, after placing his family under house arrest, had ordered them to leave the country. Jim shifted his focus to the Philippines. In 1988, although in ill health, he obtained permission to visit the Yi again. He left in tears, declaring he wanted to return again in two years. In 1991, he did return. By then he was deaf and paralyzed along one side of his body, but people ran to tell each other that Dr. Broomhall was back. A woman knelt before him with a ring, given to her by her mother. "You healed my mother. When she was dying, she gave me her ring and said I must give it to you."

"The people of Liangshan have been such a support and help to me," he said. "I will never forget their friendship." Knowing he could never return again, the teary-eyed doctor picked up a clod of earth to take home with him. Three years later Jim died on this day, May 11, 1994. He was 83. His work lives on in the Christian lives he left behind and in the several books he wrote about the Yi.

Bibliography:

1.Mundus, Gateway to Missionary Collections in the United Kingdom. "Anthony James Broomhall (Jim)." http://www.mundus.ac.uk/cats/3/4.htm
2.OMF International. Pray for China Fellowship, Newsletter, September, 1994. Translated from the book Christianity in Sichuan Banshu Bookshop, Chengdu, 1992.

May 12, 1871
John Herschel Laid to Rest beside Newton

John Herschel was bullied at school so his parents had him tutored at home. Born the only child of the astronomer William Herschel, who discovered Uranus and cataloged the objects of the northern sky, John grew up knowing the most famous scientists of his day. The young man shot past his rivals in mathematics and science. At Cambridge, he placed first in mathematics exams. At twenty-one, he became the youngest person admitted to the Royal Society.

Traveling the European continent, he met other great scientists. He was so impressed with French mathematics that he translated three volumes worth of papers into English. Abandoning Newton's clumsy calculus, he adopted the clearer system created by Newton's German rival, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and convinced the English to do so, too. These were small potatoes for the man who became world-famous as an astronomer.

William Herschel had urged his son to enter the ministry, which he saw as a safe civil service career. John balked. He tried his hand at law instead. When his father died, John used his inheritance to strike out on his own. He sailed to South Africa with his wife, Margaret Stewart to scan the southern skies as William had scanned the northern. The pair lived there for several years. The British government offered John a salary, but he refused it, preferring to stick to his own researches.

With techniques learned from his father, John ground lenses and built some of the largest telescopes in the world. Through these scopes, he compared stellar magnitudes (true brightness) by contrasting them with the moon's image which he reduced to a pinprick for contrast. John was fascinated with double stars. He logged over 1,200 new examples. The importance of double stars (binaries) is that they rotate around each other. By observing their rotations, he could calculate their masses and prove that Newton's laws applied to distant stellar bodies.

John also cataloged many nebulae (gas clouds and galaxies) and showed that most consisted of faint stars. He made calculations of the density of the Milky Way and tried to determine its structure. He tied together all of the day's astronomical knowledge in a popular textbook. Space does not permit us to list all of his contributions to science and technology. For example, when he heard the first report on daguerreotype photography, he was able to develop a similar process within a week and to create a completely new photographic processes afterwards.

John was happy with his wife, Margaret Stewart. She was the daughter of a Scottish Presbyterian. Under Margaret's influence, John underwent a genuine conversion experience. Men like John Herschel give the lie to the notion that great scientists cannot be genuine Christians. His faith fired him with zeal for educational reforms in South Africa--zeal that spurred the development of public education in that nation. One reason that John wanted public education was "to fit [students] for a higher state of existence, by teaching them those [things] which connect them with their Maker and Redeemer." He said of the Bible, "All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truths that come from on high and are contained in the sacred writings."

Upon his death, on this day, May 12, 1871, Sir John Herschel was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey alongside Sir Isaac Newton.

Bibliography:

1.Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. New York: Doubleday, 1964.
2.Ball, Robert Stawall. Great Astronomers. London: Isbister and Co., 1901.
3.Buttmann, Gunther. The Shadow of the Telescope; a biography of John Herschel. Translated by B. E. J. Pagel. Edited and with an introd. by David S. Evans. New York: Scribner, 1970.
4.Graves, Daniel. Scientists of Faith. Grand Rapids, Mi.: Kregel, 1996. "Herschel, John Fredrick." Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. London: Oxford University Press, 1921-1996.
5."Herschel, John Fredrick William. " Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Editor Charles Coulston Gillispie. New York: Scribner's, 1970.
6.Herschel, John Frederick William. "Outlines of Astronomy" in Treasury of World Science. Editor Dagobert. D. Runes. New York:philosophical Library, 1962, pp449-458.
7.Kunitz, Stanley J and Howard Haycraft. British Authors of the 19th Century. New York: W. W. Wilson, 1936.
8.McPherson, Hector. Makers of Astronomy. London: Oxford University, 1933.
9.New Dictionary of Thoughts. Compiled by tyron Edwards, revised and enlarged by C.N. Catrevas and Jonathan Edwards. New York: Standard Book Company, 1949.

May 13, 1619
John Barneveld Executed

John Oldenbarnevelt was a hero in the long struggle between the Netherlands and Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was he who convinced England and France to the side with the Dutch. He was also a firm supporter of William the Silent, the strong Dutch leader who won crucial victories against Spain.

After William was assassinated, Oldenbarnevelt threw his influence behind Maurice of Nassau to become the new Captain General of the Netherlands. The states agreed. John Oldenbarnevelt then negotiated a peace treaty with Spain by which Spain agreed to recognize the Netherlands as a separate nation for twelve years. So why did Maurice engineer a coup, arrest Oldenbarnevelt, try him for treason and execute him when he was seventy years old?

Religious and political issues were at stake. First and foremost, Oldenbarnevelt was an Arminian. Arminianism is an interpretation of Calvinism that says that our destiny is not completely fixed by God in advance. A man has some choice in whether or not he is saved, if no more than to say "yes" or "no" to God's offer of salvation. Salvation is not entirely by God's command. For years the strict Calvinists and the Arminians fought word battles over this issue.

Politics often mirrors faith. Oldenbarnevelt, champion of man's spiritual freedom, favored a freer nation and a more liberal government. He was for state's rights. The strict Calvinists preferred a centralized government and fewer state's rights.

The two positions could not be reconciled without much generosity on each side. The Arminian states were Oldenbarnevelt's allies. It was they who had supported his peace plan when Maurice wanted to fight on. Alarmed that the Calvanists appeared ready to suppress the Arminian states, Oldenbarnevelt urged them to arm to defend themselves, a move Maurice viewed as treason.

Maurice declared himself on the side of the strict Calvinists, who were the majority in the Netherlands. Eventually the Calvinist states gave him complete authority to deal with the situation. Maurice arranged a meeting with the Arminian political leaders. As each one stepped into Maurice's apartment, he was arrested. The man whom Oldenbarnevelt had raised to power now sought his death.

Maurice put Oldenbanevelt on trial. The same men were both accusers and judges. Although he defended himself well, the unfair proceedure found the nation's grand old statesman guilty of high treason. On this day, May 13, 1619, the politicians sent Oldenbarneveldt to the scaffold where an executioner beheaded him.

Bibliography:

1."Arminianism." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
2.Bangs, Carl. Arminius. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1971.
3.Motley, John Lothrop. Life and Death of John of Barneveld. London: John Murray, 1904.
4.Various encyclopedia and internet articles.

May 14, 1948
Union Jack Down, Star of David Rises

At the turn of the twentieth century, a few books on Bible prophecy said it would happen. The majority spiritualized the predictions or applied them to the church.

Up to the last moment, the United States urged caution. Accept a truce and don't declare nationhood, advised General Marshall. He pointed out that war was inevitable if the Jews went ahead with their plans. The United States, he said, could not help Israel. Although the Zionists had gained control of Palestine's internal lines, the forces arrayed against them were enormous and some were British-trained. The Arabs far outnumbered the Jews and the quality of the Arabs' weapons was better. They dominated half of Jerusalem. The Jewish leadership discussed the problem all the night of May 12 and finally voted to proceed with the declaration of nationhood.

At 8 am on this day, May 14, 1948, the British, who controlled Palestine, lowered their Union Jack over Jerusalem. For the Arabs this was the signal for war. By mid-afternoon conflict was raging across the Holy Land. At 4 p.m. Ben-Gurion read the Declaration of Israeli Independence. Jewish sufferings and their historic roots in Palestine gave them a moral right to possess it, he said. After 1,878 years Israel had a nation again--if they could keep it. The Israelis offered peace.

The day was sultry. Arab troops rode to battle with cheers ringing in their ears and flowers on their vehicles. The Arabs had air forces, Israel none. Of the 85,000 Jews in Palestine, 30,000 had become troops. What weapons they possessed were often antiquated. Moshe Dayan had only two old field pieces to use against Syrian tanks, but he used them with such effect that the Syrians disengaged. Israel's advantages were military skill, intimate knowledge of the terrain, a superb grasp of military tactics, unity of command, and control of internal lines. The Jews, however, thought their chances were just even--if help poured into the country. Still, their opponents were often demoralized. Iraqi conscripts had to be chained to their guns.

The fiercest fighting was in the South against Jordanians and Egyptians. Jerusalem's Jews were outgunned and Arabs held the high ground. Fighting was intense in the historic city, and many died on both sides. British General Glubb who sided whole-heartedly with the Arabs, directed local troops against the Jews. But the Jews were skilled street fighters. With homemade mortars they inflicted fifty percent casualties on some of Glubb's companies.

When overt hostilities ceased, the Arabs had possession of the old quarter of Jerusalem. But Israel's tiny force held more ground than anyone would have credited. Many students of scripture saw these events as fulfillment of Biblical prophecies that Israel would be restored as a nation.

Bibliography:

1.Postal, Bernard and Henry W. Levy. And the Hills Shouted for Joy; the day Israel was born. New York: David McKay, 1973.
2.Thomas, Baylis. How Israel Was Won; a concise history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 1999.

May 16, 1569
Dirk Willem Burned after Rescuing Pursuer

How many Anabaptists died during the sixteenth century persecution in Europe? No one knows for sure. What is certain is that at least 1,500 were cruelly tortured and killed. For the most part these were peaceful citizens who did not believe in war and who became the forerunners of today's Mennonites and Amish. The main complaint of the authorities against them was that they did not believe infant baptism had any value. They chose to be re-baptized as willing adults.

Although no other charges were proven against them, they were sentenced to death. For the men death was usually by fire; for women it was by drowning. Many Anabaptists proved to be so bold in their final testimony for Christ that authorities began to clamp their tongues before leading them out to their execution so that they could not speak up and win more converts.

One of the Anabaptists who died in flames was Dirk Willem. His story is particularly touching, because he forfeited a real chance to escape when he turned back to help one of his pursuers.

Dirk was captured and imprisoned in his home town of Asperen in the Netherlands. Knowing that his fate would be death if he remained in prison, Dirk made a rope of strips of cloth and slid down it over the prison wall. A guard chased him.

Frost had covered a nearby pond with a thin layer of ice. Dirk risked a dash across it. He made it to safety, but the ice broke under his pursuer who cried for help. Dirk believed the Scripture that a man should help his enemies. He immediately turned back and pulled the floundering man from the frigid water.

In gratitude for his life, the man would have let Dirk escape, but a Burgomaster (chief magistrate) standing on the shore sternly ordered him to arrest Dirk and bring him back, reminding him of the oath he had sworn as an officer of the peace.

Back to prison went Dirk. He was condemned to death for being re-baptized, allowing secret church services in his home and letting others be baptized there. The record of his sentencing concludes: "all of which is contrary to our holy Christian faith, and to the decrees of his royal majesty, and ought not to be tolerated, but severely punished, for an example to others; therefore, we the aforesaid judges, having, with mature deliberation of council, examined and considered all that was to be considered in this matter, have condemned and do condemn by these presents in the name; and in the behalf, of his royal majesty, as Count of Holland, the aforesaid Dirk Willems, prisoner, persisting obstinately in his opinion, that he shall be executed with fire, until death ensues; and declare all his property confiscated, for the benefit of his royal majesty."

Dirk was burned to death on this day, May 16, 1569. His tongue was not clamped. The wind blew the flame away from him so that his death was long and miserable. Time and again Dirk cried out to God. Finally one of the authorities could not bear to see him suffer any longer and ordered an underling to end his torment with a quick death.

Bibliography:

1.Braght, Thieleman J. van. The Bloody Theater of Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians, Who Baptized Only Upon Confession of Faith, and Who Suffered and Died for the Testimony of Jesus, Their Savior, From the Time of Christ to the Year A.D. 1660. Translated from the original Dutch or Holland Language from the Edition of 1660 by Joseph F. Sohm. http://www.homecomers.org/mirror/head.htm
2."Dirk Saves His Enemy." http://www.goshen.edu/mcarchives/ Features/DirkWillems.html
3.Dyck, Cornelius J. An Introduction to Mennonite History; a popular history of the Anabaptists and the Mennonites. Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1967.

May 21, 1874
Sankey First Sang "The Lost Sheep"

"What work are you in?" The man asking the question had just introduced himself to Ira B. Sankey as Dwight L. Moody.

Sankey replied that he worked for the Internal Revenue Service.

"Well, you'll just have to give it up," said Moody.

Sankey was in Chicago to attend a convention. He had heard of Dwight L. Moody's evangelistic work and wanted to see the great soul winner for himself. During the service, Moody asked someone to select a song. Sankey started to sing Cowper's hymn, "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood." The crowd enthusiastically picked up the tune.

"I've been praying eight years for someone like you," Moody told him. Sankey wasn't so so sure about this. Imagine being prayed out of one job into another! But several months later, Sankey joined Moody. Moody preached and Sankey sang. Between them they led hundreds of thousands to commit their lives to Christ.

It almost didn't turn out that way, however. Shortly after Sankey joined Moody, the Great Chicago Fire broke out. Sankey helped fight the flames, was nearly trapped, and barely escaped in front of them. He made his way to Lake Michigan and put off shore in a row boat. The boat's line broke and the singer was blown away from shore. Only with desperate effort and much prayer was he able to work his way back to dry land.

When Moody and Sankey rejoined forces, they toured Britain. Sankey saw a poem he liked in Scottish newspaper, tore it out, and read it to Moody. Moody didn't seem interested so Sankey tucked it into his pocket. When Moody asked for a closing hymn the next evening, the Holy Spirit prompted Sankey to use the poem in his pocket. Although he had composed no music for it, he pulled it out and made up the melody on the spot, half-singing and half-speaking the words. It was on this day, May 21, 1874 that the world first heard "The Ninety and Nine," a song based on Jesus' parable of the lost sheep. Response was overwhelming. Moody himself came down afterward with tears in his eyes and asked where Sankey had found the wonderful song!

Elizabeth Clephane wrote the words, but died before she knew how God had used them. The song begins:

There were ninety and nine that safely lay
In the shelter of the fold.
But one was out on the hills away,
Far off from the gates of gold.
Away on the mountains wild and bare.
Away from the tender Shepherd's care...
and ends:

There arose a glad cry to the gate of heaven,
"Rejoice! I have found My sheep!"
And the angels echoed around the throne,
"Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!
Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!"

Bibliography:

1.Hyde, A. B. Story of Methodism. Greenfield, Mass: Willey and co., 1887. Source of image.
2.Moody, William D. Life of D. L. Moody by His Son. Revell, 1900.
3.Sankey ,Ira David, 1840-1908. My life and the story of the Gospel hymns and of sacred songs and solos; with an introd. by Theodore L. Cuyler. New York : Harper, c1907.
4.Various internet articles such as the cyberhymnal articles on Clephane and Sankey.

May 22, 1498
Savonarola's Interrogation and Sentence

The young man left home secretly at 23, without parental approval, flinging aside years of medical and philosophical education, to join the Dominicans. Convinced of the reality of the after-life, with its dismal doom or glorious salvation, he became morose. An urgent sense of right drove him to denounce the morals of the day. At first his messages were too scholarly for the masses, but in time they gained power. Audiences pressed into chapel to hear him utter dark prophecies of the future of Italy and Florence.

Savonarola became one of the great names of his age. Pietro de Medici of Florence was a weak man. Savonarola's allies deposed the ineffectual tyrant and the priest became the city's effective leader, and a gadfly in the side of the corrupt Renaissance Pope, Alexander VI. He denounced papal iniquity and took political sides against the pope. Worst of all, from the Pope's point of view, he called upon Europe's leaders to dethrone the pontiff.

Alexander in turn sought to bring down the puritanical friar who spoke with such vehemence against his pleasures and vices. Yet he was patient and could bide his time, for he saw that the political tide must soon turn against Savonarola.

For a time, Savonarola triumphed. A Florentine republic was formed. Savonarola's bullies burned the "vanities" of the city-- art works and books. No building had sufficient capacity to hold the thousands who came for his sermons. By 1498 all had changed. Poorly conceived policies, by no means all Savonarola's fault, starved the city. Its coffers were empty. Alexander VI threatened interdiction. While many of Savonarola's predictions came true, others failed.

The Florentines turned against the preacher they had lauded. A Franciscan challenged Savonarola to an ordeal by fire. Savonarola's disciple Domenico da Pescia accepted as his surrogate. Crowds gathered. The Franciscan backed out and used every device to prevent the test. Cheated of their spectacle, the crowds blamed Savonarola. The next day he was arrested.

Between April 9th and May 23rd Savonarola was tortured repeatedly and forced to recant. Each time, when he recovered from the torments, he renounced his recantations, the last time with such boldness that his interrogators quailed. On this day, May 22, 1498, he was interrogated one last time. Seeing that he could not be moved, his interrogators sent him shackled back to his cell and sentenced him to death.

The sentence was carried out the next day. Savonarola and two friars were hung and burned. Scoffers shouted, "If you can work miracles, work one now!" After he was dead, his hand flew up, two fingers extended, as if blessing the crowd. The crowd panicked and fled the square, crushing several children to death.

Bibliography:

1.Foster, K. "Savonarola, Girolamo." New Catholic Encyclopedia. New York : Thomson, Gale, 2002 - .
2.Lord, John. Beacon Lights of History. New York: J. Clarke, 1888-1902.
3.Roeder, Ralph. The Man of the Renaissance; four lawgivers: Savonarola, Machievelli, Castiglione, Aretino. Cleveland and New York: World Publishing, 1967, 1933.
4."Savonarola, Girolamo." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
5.Uden, Grant. Anecdotes from History: being a collection of 1000 anecdotes, epigrams, and episodes illustrative of English and world history. Oxford, Blackwell, 1968.
6.Various encyclopedia articles.

May 23, 1891
Inexpensive Chapels on Wheels

In western movies and books, good sheriffs march into town and clean up with their six shooters. In real life, other forces were also at work.

Some Wild West towns grew up overnight. Others fell empty almost as quickly when mines ran out, or disaster struck and camps moved on. Usually the population was rough and ignorant of Christ.

Under those conditions, it didn't make much sense to go to the expense of putting up a church. The town it was built for might disappear before the building was finished. Bishop Walker, an Episcopalian, had a thought. Why not outfit railroad cars as a chapels? These could be pulled to where they were needed and would cost just two or three thousand dollars to buy.

Whether Walker knew it or not, chapel cars were already in use in England on remote sidings. But he was good at selling his idea. Cornelius Vanderbilt, One of America's richest men, gave the first donation to the new ministry and Walker's first chapel car was delivered in 1890.

"The Cathedral Car," as it was called, traveled over seventy thousand miles during its ten years of service. Many of the men who visited it came merely out of curiosity, but untold numbers of others accepted the Christian way of life or were strengthened in their Christian walk through it.

On this day, May 23, 1891, the first of several Baptist rail cars was dedicated in Cincinnati Ohio. The "Evangel" seated one hundred worshippers. Ten feet wide and sixty feet long, it was the brain child of Reverend Boston W. Smith. He had help from Northern Pacific Railroad. Its General Manager ordered his people to hook the car to any of the company's engines at no charge. Prodded by a preacher brother, this railroad manager had also organized the syndicate that raised the funds to build "Uncle" Boston's cars. The syndicate's most prominent member was business tycoon, John D. Rockefeller. Baptist cars took names such as "Glad Tidings," "Grace," and "Herald of Hope."

Thomas Edison, an unlikely friend of the church who considered himself an agnostic, provided the rail chapels with his new invention the phonograph. Cowboys starved for music came to hear recordings. It was another practical drawing card.

Not everyone appreciated the idea of chapel cars. In Oregon, one car was pelted with eggs, marked with graffiti and set afire. It survived, protected by nobler individuals in the local population.

The Roman Catholic church built three cars. Altogether at least eleven of the iron-wheeled chapels went West. The idea was borrowed by other countries, too. The Orthodox used them in Russia, Presbyterians in South Africa and missionaries in China. It is a safe bet that America's chapel cars did more to tame the west than all the gunmen heroized in Hollywood films.

Bibliography:

1.Baynes, A. Hamilton. South Africa [Handbook of English Church Expansion] London: Mowbray, 1908. Source of image.
2."Chapel Cars of America." http://www.chapelcars.com/
3.McKernan, Mary. "How the West Was Really Won." Christian History Magazine. Christianity Today, 1996.
4.Various internet articles including the book review of Taylor, Wilma Rugh and Taylor, Norman Thomas. This Train Is Bound for Glory. Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1999.

May 24, 1896
D-Day for the Volunteers of America

The prisoners eyed the beautiful woman with interest. How short she was! But it was obvious she cared about them. Not many other people did.

Maud Booth was is Sing Sing Prison, New York, on this day, May 24, 1896, because she had received a letter from a prisoner. He asked her to provide relief for his family, left destitute when he was locked up. On the envelope, the Warden scrawled an invitation for Maud to speak. Maud, a fiery speaker and ardent evangelist, took him up on it.

Now she told an assembly of prisoners: "I do not come here to prevent you from paying the just penalty of your crimes; take your medicine like men. When you have paid the penalty, I will help you. I will nurse you back to health. I will get you work. Above all, I will trust you. It depends on you whether I keep doing so or not."

Five Sing Sing prisoners made up their minds to follow Christ. By year's end, the Volunteer Prison League was formed. By 1923, over 100,000 prisoners had signed up for its programs. Maud championed prison reform to the end of her life. She set up Houses of Hope around the country to help ease ex-cons back into society. In one form or another these halfway houses remain to this day. Volunteers of America did as much to bring about twentieth century prison reform as any other organization--and probably more.

The Volunteers of America had emerged out of the Salvation Army. Ballington Booth, the son of General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, came to America to reorganize the Salvation Army work. General Booth didn't like the way Ballington "Americanized" the Army.

Following a sharp disagreement, Ballington and his beautiful wife Maud left the Army. On March 8, 1896, they announced they were setting up a new organization, God's American Volunteers (afterwards known as Volunteers of America).

The volunteers not only engaged in prison work. Wherever its leaders saw a need, they stepped forward to meet it. VOA sponsored disaster relief, helped found the Parent and Teacher Association (PTA), set up food pantries, provided lodgings for working men, affordable housing for the working classes, and even offered day nurseries for working mothers. Eventually it offered housing programs for the mentally ill and medical services to the poor.

When we total up the impact for good that Christianity has had on American society, we must not forget the important role of the Volunteers of America.

Bibliography:

1.Chesham, Sallie. Born to Battle, The Salvation Army in America. New York, New York: Salvation Army, 1965.
2.Foster, Warren Dunham. Heroines of Modern Religion. New York: Sturgis and Walton, 1913.
3.Volunteers of America. http://www.voa.org/

May 25, 1830
American Sunday School Union's Huge Challenge

As if they were one person, two thousand delegates jumped to their feet. "Aye, aye," their bodies seemed to shout as they united in approval of the measure just introduced.

It was on this day May 25, 1830 in Philadelphia. Just six years earlier, on the same day, the American Sunday School Union had adopted its name and constitution. Now the members were pledging themselves to take on an enormous task. The motion that had brought them to their feet was this:

"Resolved, that the American Sunday School Union, in reliance upon Divine aid, will, within two years, establish a Sunday school in every destitute place where it is practicable, throughout the Valley of the Mississippi."

In just two years they hoped to reach over 4,000,000 people in an area of over 1,300,000 square miles!

The first year the American Sunday School Union sent out 49 missionaries. The next year, they sent out 112. Such small numbers could not hope to do the job alone. And, of course, they weren't expected to. They were told to recruit helpers in every little community. Their instructions could be boiled down to this: Start a class, teach it, and where possible find a Christian man or woman willing to lead it, give that person a bundle of books and tracts and set him or her to work.

"We're all Presbyterians around here," someone might say in a challenging tone. "What are you? A Methodist?" The missionary could explain that his literature was non-denominational. It didn't promote any particular church. Instead it offered studies straight from the Bible. Thanks to the neutral tone of the lessons, the same Sunday school could belong to everyone. In one Illinois village, a Sunday school brought together three Catholic families, two Scottish Presbyterian homes, three or four Anglican households, several Baptists and some people who did not believe in Christ at all.

In those days there were few public schools. Sunday schools taught people to read and showed them how they could become voters. That made Sunday schools popular, making it possible for families to keep contact with distant members through letter writing. Education drew them into the life of the nation. And for families living alone in the woods or on the prairie, it was wonderful to look up and see the unfamiliar face of a missionary with news from the rest of the nation. Later, the Sunday School Union published Christian fiction that made reading a lot more fun for children.

The task was so big and the country was growing so fast that the job didn't get done in two years or in three. In fact, the American Sunday School Union was still hard at work under greatly different conditions in 1974 when it changed its name to American Missionary Fellowship.

Bibliography:

1.Boylan, Anne M. Sunday School : the formation of an American institution, 1790-1880. New Haven : Yale University Press, c1988.
2.Fergusson, Edmund Morris. Historic Chapters in Christian Education in America; a brief history of the American Sunday school movement, and the rise of the modern church school. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1935.
3."Our History and Heritage." American Missionary Fellowship. http://www.americanmissionary.org/history.shtml
4.Seymour, Jack L. From Sunday school to church school : continuities in protestant church education in the United States, 1860 - 1929. Washington, D.C. : University Press of America, 1982.
5.Various internet articles.

May 28, 1938
The Kuhn's Rainy Season Bible School

After a giddy youth in which dances and flirtations had a prominent part, vivacious Canadian Isobel Selina Miller drifted into agnosticism and even contemplated suicide. But then she turned back to Christian faith and made up her mind to follow God wholeheartedly. Isobel heard a missionary speak of the satanically oppressed Lisu tribes of Southeast Asia, who had not a word in their language for compassion, forgiveness, mercy, or justice--but hundreds of words to describe the best way to skin someone alive. Isobel pleaded with the Lord to be allowed to serve them as a missionary.

"If you go to China it will be over my dead body," said Isobel's mother. Isobel was aghast. Her mother had raised her in the Christian faith and was a leader in missionary support. Now she was showing that personal affections mattered more to her than Christ's work. What is more, Isobel felt she must obey her mother as the Bible commanded. She was truly perplexed, for God seemed to be calling her to China.

Miraculously the Lord provided the money she needed to attend Moody Bible Institute. Her mother's opposition ended abruptly with death by cancer. On her death bed Mrs. Miller confessed that "Belle" (her daughter's nickname) had chosen the better part and that her own works were as wood, hay, and stubble. Then John Kuhn entered Isobel's life. A few years later they married. John shared Isobel's vision and commitment. Through prayer and pluck the two achieved their goal of reaching the Lisu.

After years of labor, they had won few converts. Belle then had one of the most innovative ideas of their ministry. Why not set up Bible school during the rainy season? Little else could be done during that time. On this day, May 28, 1938, the first Rainy Season Bible School opened. The idea was successful beyond their wildest hopes. Thirty or so students became evangelists and reached distant villages for Christ. Many, on only a few weeks' training, gave their lives for Christ. Some carried the gospel while sick.

Isobel and John suffered greatly in their ministry. Often they were threatened. Sometimes they were separated for as much as a year at a time. During World War II the Japanese held their young daughter in a concentration camp. Every kind of privation dogged their steps.

By God's grace, they triumphed. Belle wrote eight books recounting her experiences with the Lord and his answers to prayer. Above all she wanted to overcome self and see souls won for Christ. "I would fall on my knees and weep before the Lord, asking for his help. And never did he spurn me. He was firm in correcting me but always loving. I have never attained the place where one is beyond the temptations of self. But I want to testify to what God can do to change a human being, one that found she was indeed -- scum." To the Lisu and the many who profited from her books she was a bright light.

Bibliography:

1.Kuhn, Isobel. Green Leaf in Drought Time. Chicago: Moody Press, 1957.
2.-------------- In the Arena. Chicago: Moody Press, 1958.
3.-------------- "Unprepared for the Cost." Moody Monthly. 83 (June, 1983) 46-9.
4."Kuhn, Isobel (Miller)." Anderson, Gerald H. Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. New York : Macmillan Reference USA; London : Simon & Schuster and Prentice Hall International, 1998.
5.Moreau, A. Scott. "Kuhn, Isobel." Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2000.
6.Robinson, Gail. "Reading Between the Lives." Moody Monthly. 83 (Jun 1983) 43-4.

May 29, 1593
John Penry Pleaded for Welsh Soulwinners

John Penry wept for Wales. In Elizabeth's England, there were far too few pastors assigned to teach the Welsh, and of those, many were absentees from their flocks or little better than rogues. Penry wrote Equity of a Humble Supplication in Behalf of the Country of Wales that Some Order May Be Taken for the Preaching of the Gospel Among Those People. He complained that thousands in Wales had almost never heard of Christ. "O destitute and forlorn condition! Preaching itself in many parts is unknown. In some places a sermon is read once in three months." He proposed a system of lay pastors supported in part with voluntary gifts from the people. His attack on the neglectful practices of the Church of England won Penry the undying enmity of John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Having become a Puritan separatist in his thinking, Penry could not accept a state-run system, because, as he phrased it, "The truth of Christ and ministry of Christ as it is his will be in bondage unto no antichristian power. If it be, it is antichrist's truth and ministry." Because of such outspoken views, and his stern warnings to the queen and her bishops, Penry had to flee at times. Eventually he would be hanged, making him a hero and martyr in Wales.

What sealed his doom was The Marprelate Tracts. These were satirical exposés larded with heavy-handed taunts at English bishops ("petty popes"), coarse talk ("Printed overseas, in Europe, within two furlongs of a bouncing priest") and silly sneers ("Ha, ha, Dr. Copycat!"). Their theme can be summed up in the words of the first tract: "Leave you your wickedness and I'll leave the revealing of your knaveries." An example of the knavery was confiscation of stolen cloth by one bishop for his own use. "Well, one or two of the thieves were executed and at their deaths confessed that to be the cloth which the bishop had, but the dyers could not get their cloth, nor cannot unto this day..." Penry was thought to have a hand in preparing the popular pamphlets although he denied it. While it is true that they were printed on the same press as his books, the general consensus today is that he did not write them. They weren't his style.

Captured, he was treated to a travesty of justice. Some strong words of warning against Elizabeth in his notebook were interpreted as treason. Archbishop Whitgift was the first to sign his death warrant. Penry was hauled off to be hanged on this day, May 29, 1593. A thin scattering of bystanders, none of them his friends, watched as the 34-year old departed this world at the end of a rope about four in the afternoon. He was not allowed to preach a final sermon.

He had, however, written a lengthy letter to his four daughters (Deliverance, Comfort, Safety and Sure Hope), none of whom was old enough to really understand yet what was going on; the eldest was four years, the youngest four months. In it he showed his deep affection for them: "Wherefore, again, my daughters, even my tenderly beloved daughters, regard not the world or anything that is therein..." He implored them to follow true faith: "And I, your father, now ready to give my life for the former testimony do charge you, as you shall answer in the day of the Lord, to embrace this my counsel given unto you in His name, and to bring up your posterity after you (if the Lord vouchsafe you any) in this same true faith and way to the Kingdom of Heaven."

Bibliography:

1."Great Non-Conformist Preachers of Wales." V Wales. http://www.red4.co.uk/Folklore/trevelyan/glimpse/ noncomformists.htm
2.Marprelate Tracts. Modernised spelling and punctuation by J. D. Lewis. http://www.anglicanlibrary.org/ marprelate/Tract1m.htm
3.Peel, Albert. The Notebook of John Penry, 1593. London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1944.
4."Penry, John." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
5.Pierce, William. John Penry; His life times and writings. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1923.
6.Sampson, George. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. Cambridge, 1961; especially "The Marprelate Controversy," pp. 164 - 166.
7.Various internet and encyclopedia articles.

May 30, 339
Eusebius, 1st Church Historian

Suppose you are a survivor of an outlawed organization whose origins go back to around 1700, seventy-six years before America became an independent nation. "Tell the story of your people," you are urged.

The problem is, your people were an illegal group. In fact, the government tried to exterminate them! Their leaders were captured and killed and many letters and books burned. They left no public festivals, no monuments--very little by which historians ordinarily trace history. And to make your task more challenging, your people were scattered over most of the known world. How could you possibly put together their story? That is the kind of task Eusebius tackled.

His people were the Christians who had been persecuted for almost three hundred years. A measure of peace came to the believers when Constantine became emperor. At last the story of the church could be told.

Eusebius was the one for the job. He had already prepared a chronology of the Bible and early church, trying to establish the dates of Christ's death and the events that followed. This was a difficult undertaking because many different calendars were in use at the time and he had to match up events recorded under one system to events recorded under others.

Eusebius' ten-volume history is our best authority for early Christian history. We owe him a special debt because he quotes from many sources that no longer exist. We are blessed that he showed interest in a broad range of material. He traced the lines of apostolic succession in key cities. Thus we know how the church progressed in the big towns. The church has always been nourished with the blood of martyrs. Eusebius told the stories of many who suffered for Christ.

He was also interested in debates over which books should be in the Bible and he gave us various views of the matter. Because of this we know a good deal about how we got the New Testament. Eusebius also traced the threads of heresy. Through him we know of challenges to orthodoxy in the early centuries of the faith. Above all, Eusebius described how God preserved the church and poured his grace upon it. Eusebius even followed the woeful fate of the Jews and their struggles.

Late in life, Eusebius was invited to become bishop of Antioch. He turned down the offer. His backers appealed to the Emperor to compel him to accept. Instead, Constantine praised Eusebius for refusing.

Eusebius died on this day, May 30, 339. He was seventy-four years old. In addition to all his other writings, he left behind him commentaries on Isaiah and on the Psalms, a geography of the Bible, and a concordance of the Gospels. He wrote books to clear up differences in the Gospels. Finally he produced an account of the Martyrs of Palestine whom he had personally known. But his history remains his most important contribution to the church, and the one by which his name will always be remembered, for it gave us our past.

Bibliography:

1.Aland, Kurt. Saints and Sinners; men and ideas in the early church. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970.
2.Bacchus, F. J. "Eusebius of Caesaria." The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.
3.Barnes, Timothy David. Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1981.
4."Eusebius: He Saved our Family History." Glimpses #91. Worcester, Pennsylvania.
5."Eusebius." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.

May 31, 1792
William Carey Preached Deathless Sermon

The sermon that William Carey preached on this day has been called deathless. Mission text books agree that it changed the world. Thousands, perhaps millions have read or quoted the two most remarkable phrases from it: "Expect great things from God; Attempt great things for God!"

A poorly-educated cobbler, William Carey always sought to teach himself new things. He was converted to Christ by dissenters (English Christians who operated outside of the official Church of England). Immediately he recognized that others also needed Christ. He began to preach and strained even harder to educate himself, going hungry--and allowing his family to suffer--so that he could buy himself books. He became a Baptist pastor.

Reading Captain Cook's voyages gave him a heart for world missions. The people that Cook wrote about needed Christ. At that time, Protestants were doing little to spread the gospel world wide. Hans Egede in Greenland, the Moravians in the West Indies, David Brainerd and John Eliot in America had undertaken efforts, but the reformation church at large was idle.

But when William spoke up in behalf of missions, an older pastor responded with a withering rebuke. "Young man, sit down: when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine."

William sat down on that occasion, but he didn't sit back. He was the kind of man, who once he begins a thing, must go through with it. He gathered facts and statistics, Bible commands and commonsense arguments demolishing the position of those who said the church should do nothing. The result was a book called An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen.

On this day, May 31, 1792, at ten in the morning, he addressed his fellow Baptists at a Nottingham conference. He took as his Isaiah 54:1, 2: "Lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes, for thou shall break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. " As he saw it, this was a challenge for missionary work. It was a challenge for faith. "Expect great things from God; Attempt great things for God!" he urged.

"If all the people had lifted up their voices and wept," said Dr. Ryland, "...it would only have seemed proportionate to the cause; so clearly did Mr. Carey prove the criminality of our supineness [lying down] in the cause of God!" But his listeners seemed indifferent.

At their meeting the next day, they said the venture was too big for them. Carey seized Fuller's arm and, in deep distress asked whether they were once more going to go their separate ways without doing anything. This final plea made the difference. The gathering put forward a resolution for drawing up plans to form a Baptist Mission Society. William Carey became their first missionary.

Bibliography:

1.Boreham, F. W. "William Carey's Text." Life Verses, Volume One. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel, 1994.
2.Harrison, Eugene Myers. "William Carey, the Cobbler Who Turned Discoverer." http://www.wholesomewords.org/ missions/giants/biocarey2.html
3.Webber, Daniel. "William Carey and the Missionary Vision." http://www.indialink.org.uk/15/careydw.rtf
4."William Carey; a Baptist Page Portrait." http://www.baptistpage.org/Portraits/print/ print_carey.html

June 1, 1660
Mary Dyer Hanged for "Wrong" Faith

Did the Massachusetts Puritans rely too heavily on works and not enough on the grace of Christ? Some early settlers thought so. Salvation was by grace for those who were filled with the Spirit, taught Anne Hutchinson, and Mary Dyer agreed. To the Puritans this seemed antinomian, that is, opposed to law.

Mary Dyer was a "very proper and fair woman" according to Governor Winthrop. With her husband, William, she came to the New England colony in 1635 and joined a Boston church. At first all went well. But when Anne Hutchinson began to push her views, Mary agreed with them. William also adopted the ideas and was disenfranchised in 1637. When Anne was expelled from the assembly in 1638, Mary Dyer was the only person who would stand with her, accompanying her from the building.

Mary had a stillborn child and the congregation cruelly suggested this was the hand of God punishing her. They started a rumor that it was a monster. The Dyers were expelled from the colony and helped found Providence, Rhode Island.

Mary Dyer traveled to England in 1650. The views of George Fox, the Quaker, appealed to her and seemed the logical extension of what she already believed. She became a Quaker. On her return to Rhode Island she was arrested and jailed in Boston but released on her husband's entreaty. More and more she felt the need to spread the gospel as she saw it.

She made missionary trips into New Haven and Boston. In 1659 she visited Quaker friends who were jailed in Boston. Local authorities warned her to get out of town and not return. Return she did, however, and was condemned to die in September 1659. She was given a reprieve, however, although two Quakers who had traveled with her "to look the bloody law in the face," were executed.

Once more Mary Dyer put her life on the line. For the fourth time she defied the Massachusetts law. She was arrested and condemned to death, all pleas by family proving ineffectual. The authorities would not agree to let her go unless she swore never to return. This she would not do. "...in obedience to the will of the Lord I came, and in His will I abide faithful to the death."

On this date, June 1, 1660, the authorities hanged her. To them she was simply a hard-headed heretic. Like many of the early Quakers she was willing to pay the price for her faith. It seems that she even longed for martyrdom.

Mary left behind seven children. Quakers eventually won civil rights in America. Christianity, more than any other single force, has extended the human rights, despite ugly chapters such as this. Mary Dyer, with her gospel of grace was an important player in that battle.

Bibliography:

1."Dyer, Mary." Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Scribner, 1958-1964.
2.Morton, Nathaniel. New England's Memorial, 1669. (Includes the account of the hideous monster).
3.Selleck, George A. Quakers in Boston, 1656-1964: three centuries of Friends in Boston and Cambridge. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Friends Meeting at Cambridge, 1976.

June 2, 1780
The Anti-Catholic Gordon Riots

No Popes! Down with the Catholic Relief Bill." Shouting and shaking their fists, 50,000 people, all wearing blue badges on their hats and carrying blue flags, marched toward the House of Commons in London. It happened on this day, June 2, 1780.

For two hundred years, since the time of Queen Elizabeth I, Catholics in Protestant England had lived under restrictions. But after the Revolutionary War broke out in America, King George III's ministers thought it would be wise to pass a law freeing Catholics. Otherwise they feared that Ireland might grab the chance to revolt while Britain was busy fighting in America. Some officials thought it was a shame, too, that Catholics had fewer rights than England's other citizens.

But Lord George Gordon, a retired navy Lieutenant, hated the Roman Church. He collected thousands of signatures on a petition to overturn the Catholic Relief Act that passed in 1778. With 50,000 people at his back, he marched to Parliament to present the petition.

The mob turned ugly. Smashing windows and breaking down doors, they looted Catholic homes and set them on fire. For over a week the rampage continued. Unpopular Protestant leaders suffered, too.

Writing a letter to a friend, Ignatius Sancho said, "Gracious God! what's the matter now? I was obliged to leave off--the shouts of the mob--the horrid clashing of swords--and the clutter of a multitude in swiftest motion--drew me to the door..."

He had already described at least a hundred thousand "poor, miserable, ragged rabble, from twelve to sixty years of age, with blue cockades in their hats, besides half as many women and children, all parading the streets, the bridge, the park, ready for any and every mischief." These rioters robbed anyone unfortunate enough to fall in their path.

The rioters broke into Catholic chapels and attacked London prisons: King's Bench Fleet and Newgate. Newgate, in fact, was set on fire, and all its prisoners freed. When the mob attacked the Bank of England, John Wilkes ordered his men to shoot. Several rioters fell dead. More people died in a brewery that caught fire. On the evening of June 6, Prime Minister Lord North barely escaped the mob by forcing his coach horses into a gallop. He lost his hat, which the crowd tore up. The pieces were passed around like trophies.

On June 7th, the government finally called the army in. By then, fires burned everywhere, and there was no way to fight them, because the mobs had destroyed the fire-fighters' equipment. Soldiers and horsemen began shooting into the crowds or charging into them with swords and bayonets. Close to 500 people were killed or wounded before the riot was stopped. Later, 52 of the ringleaders were convicted and about 25 executed for their part in the shameful episode. The act stood.

Bibliography:

1.Castro, J Paul de. The Gordon Riots. Oxford, 1926.
2.Pollen, J. H. "Gordon Riots." The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1914.
3.Various internet and encyclopedia articles.

June 3, 1926
Bob Childress Headed for the Hills

Tension at the funeral was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Two seventeen-year-olds near Buffalo Mountain, Virginia, had been courting the same young widow. In a drinking bout, one stabbed the other to death. It was "normal" under such circumstances for more killings to break out. No one sat easy.

The pastor sensed the fear, too. Bluntly he said, "You are ignorant, silly fools who needed the grace of God to civilize you." The room grew perfectly quiet. All eyes fastened on him as he continued, "Sin is the cause of all this. It's sin."

Bob could talk as he did because he had grown up among these people. His earliest memory was from the Christmas he was three years old. He got drunk and woke up with a hangover the next morning. The grownups told him it was fine to be drunk; they thought being drunk made life bearable.

When Bob was six, Quakers started a school nearby. Bob's older brother encouraged all the children in the family to attend. Bob's parents were against it, but school won. Bob loved it and walked five miles each day to attend. When he was fourteen, the teacher married and left. The school closed. Bob joined other wild boys, drinking, playing poker, and throwing rocks at houses and churches. Killings were common. With his first $5 bill, he bought a .32 caliber revolver.

Bob couldn't figure out the constant fighting and killing. His jaw was broken; He was shot in the leg once and in the shoulder another time. "Time and again I saw men kill each other, men without hate in their system, but drunk and with guns and knives always handy....The year I was twenty I was hardly ever sober, not even in the morning. I was miserable and sick to my soul...." Bob reached the point he hoped someone would kill him. He almost shot himself.

One Sunday, after playing cards and drinking, Bob found himself drawn into a Methodist church. Revival services were going on. He attended church that entire week, and for the first time "felt a power stronger than the power of liquor and rocks and guns."

God showed Bob that only Christ could change Buffalo Mountain. In spite of humiliation and poverty (his suit didn't cover his wrists or ankles, and his twang drew laughs), he left home to get the training he needed. Bob longed for a ministry with the mountain people. Instead, he was offered a church with a new car and big bucks. The night before he had to give an answer, the Montgomery Presbytery told Bob, "We've got a [mission] field in the mountains where they're shooting each other, they're ignorant, they don't have a chance, they have no schools or Sunday schools. There's enough work to kill you, but we'll furnish you a living while you're at it." On this day, June 3, 1926, Bob and his family were packed in the car, headed for Buffalo Mountain.

For the next thirty years Bob poured himself out for the mountain people, establishing churches and schools. He visited five or more families a day. For years he had the only car on the mountain, and he took people to the doctor and the hospital. On Sundays he traveled a circuit of 100 miles on the mountain, preaching four or five sermons. In winter, when his car couldn't make it through the snow, he went to church on a mule or by horse and buggy. Under his ministry the mountain became more civilized and the killings less frequent. Christ changed the hearts of many people at Buffalo Mountain.

Bibliography:

1.Adapted from an earlier Christian History Institute story.
2.Davids, Richard C. The Man Who Moved a Mountain. Fortress Press, 1972.

June 4, 1820
This Hymn Was More than a Coincidence

How long Pastor's prayer is this morning," thought Elvina.

Sitting in the choir loft, her mind turned to our need for salvation and the price Jesus paid for it. Words began to form themselves. She had to get them down. But she had no paper. Well, that wasn't quite true...

Scribbling on the flyleaf of her hymnbook, she wrote:

I hear the Savior say,
"Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all."

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

Not bad. Not bad at all. After service, she handed the words to her pastor. Did his face crease into a little smile at this evidence of her "naughty" behavior? We may never know.

But we do know that an extraordinary "coincidence" took place that day at the Monument Street Methodist Church of Baltimore. Organist John Grape had recently written a new tune and given it to the pastor. The pastor saw that the tune and the poem fit together extremely well. So he united them. In that way one of the most beloved hymns of the church came into being.

For nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim,
I'll wash my garments white
In the blood of Calvary's Lamb.

And now complete in Him
My robe His righteousness,
Close sheltered 'neath His side,
I am divinely blest.

Elvina was 45 at that time. Born on this day, June 4, 1820, she was married first to Richard Hall and then after his death, to a Methodist minister, Thomas Meyers. She died in 1899.

Bibliography:

1.Butterworth, Hezekiah and Brown, Theron. The Story of the Hymns and Tunes. New York : George H. Doran Co., 1906.
2."Elvina M. Hall." www.cyberhymnal.org
3.Various articles in volumes of hymn stories and on the internet

June 6, 1844
YMCA Became Associated for Christ

A strong argument can be made that Christians in voluntary associations have done more good for the world than all its governments put together. One such association is the YMCA.

The YMCA's first report expressed as well as anything the problem which led to its formation. "Until recently the young men engaged in pursuits of business were totally neglected. They were treated as though deprived of mind, as though formed only to labor and sleep...without a moment for spiritual or mental culture, without the disposition or even the strength for the performance of those devotional exercises which are necessary to the maintenance of a spiritual life."

Country boys like George Williams were appalled at the degradation of workingmen in London. Williams, who was strongly influenced by a rather unusual combination of religious forces--the British Quakers and the American evangelist Charles Finney--began a work among his fellow employees. Soon he had won many to Christ. A go-getter in business, too, he rapidly advanced to partnership in his firm (a drapery house) and used his own substantial wealth to support evangelical causes.

On this day June 6, 1844, twelve men, all but one associates of Williams' firm, met in his bedroom and created the Young Men's Christian Association. Its original intent was merely to work with employees of other drapery houses. The era was one of evangelical advance. Associations to deal with the dreadful social and moral consequences of the industrial revolution were springing up everywhere in Protestant countries. The YMCA hired a hall and assumed the task of reclaiming men through lectures, exercise and innocent amusement.

Many prominent men threw their weight behind the work. Lord Shaftesbury was the YMCA's president for a time. Thomas Binney and other evangelical leaders gave their support.

The organization caught on like wildfire. Long before Williams' death in 1905, it had achieved a membership of 150,000 in Britain and half a million in America with thousands of branches worldwide.

For his service to the well-being of the nation, Queen Victoria knighted him. Today the YMCA does not have the evangelical impulse it once did. Nonetheless, it continues to promote physical and intellectual well-being in men and women throughout the world. Although now largely forgotten, its early nondenominational Christian ideals gave rise to an organization which bettered the lives of millions.

Bibliography:

1.Williams, George. Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. London: Oxford University Press, 1921 - 1996.
2.Williams, J. E. Hodder. The Life of Sir George Williams. New York: YMCA, 1906.

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