[ABOVE: Johann Peter Lange (1802–1884)—public domain, Wikimedia]

JOHANN PETER LANGE was a farm boy who became an internationally famous Bible scholar. He was born on this day, 10 April 1802, near the town of Elberfield, Prussia. His father, a farmer and wagon driver, taught his son these trades, expecting him to help out. However, the younger Lange loved reading. His father understood his passion and allowed him to indulge his inclination as much as business allowed. 

When Lange attended school, he so impressed his Latin teacher with his abilities that the man urged him to study for the ministry. So it was that shortly after his nineteenth birthday, Lange entered a college at Düsseldorf. The following year he moved on to the University of Bonn where he studied under the evangelically-minded Dr. K. I. Nitzsch. In spite of the general tendency of German theological scholarship to discredit the Bible, Lange remained fully committed to its validity. 

While serving as a pastor, he gained recognition as a theologian when he rebutted D. F. Strauss’s skeptical Life of Jesus in 1836. Liberals at the University of Zurich invited Strauss to become professor of theology there but, before he could fill the appointment, the city underwent a spiritual and political revolution. Lange was called in place of Strauss. He served Zurich for thirteen years and wrote his own three volumes on the life of Christ before he moved back to his alma mater, the University of Bonn. 

Lange wrote many other books. The most popular has been a twenty-five-volume commentary of the whole Bible. Philip Schaff translated this into English and it became well-known among evangelicals in English-speaking countries. Lange also wrote hymns, such as “The Lord of Life Is Risen.”

The Lord of life is risen,

  And love no longer grieves;

In ruin lies death’s prison,

  Sing, heralds, Jesus lives!

We hear the blessed greeting;

  Salvation’s work is done!

We worship Thee, repeating,

  Life for the dead is won!

Lange remained at the University of Bonn the rest of his life. He lectured until five days before his death in 1884.

—Dan Graves

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Lange rejected attempts to lessen Christ, attempts that have been too common as we can see in Jesus: "Who Do Men Say That I Am?"

(Jesus: "Who Do Men Say That I Am?" can be purchased at Vision Video)

Jesus the New Way features a modern scholar who also exalts the Lord.

Jesus the New Way can be purchased at Vision Video.

Other Notable Events

417

Co-emperors Honorius and Theodosius II forbid Jews of the Roman Empire to purchase or receive Christian slaves, although they may retain slaves who were already Christian or who came to them under an inheritance. Any attempt to convert a Christian is made a capital offense. 

428

Nestorius is made Patriarch of Constantinople. His attacks on the use of the term “Theotokos” (God-bearer) to describe the Virgin Mary will lead to clashes and get him declared a heretic. He will not deny Jesus’s nature as God, but feels the term challenges the important reality of Christ’s human nature.

1838

Theobald Mathew, an Irish Capuchin priest, inaugurates a temperance movement. His charitable works include organizing schools, founding a library, and comforting those dying of plagues. During the famine of 1846–1847 he will organize food relief and endeavored to raise funds worldwide.

1868

Listeners who hear the first complete public performance of Brahms’ Requiem in the cathedral of Bremen this Good Friday recognize it as a masterpiece. The master composer has taken his texts from the German Lutheran translation of the Bible and focuses on consoling the living.

1952

Watchman Nee is arrested in Shanghai. This Chinese Christian becomes well-known in the West when his many books are published.

1997

Death in Seattle of Betty Greene, a Women’s Air Force Service pilot during World War II. She had founded the Christian Airmen’s Missionary Fellowship in 1945, later known as the Missionary Aviation Fellowship. After leaving the airforce, she flew for Wycliffe Bible Translators around the world.

[ABOVE: Turku Cathedral, Finland, with its old tower before the great fire—1814 / Public domain, Wikimedia]

BEFORE the time of Michael Agricola, Finns read Swedish, Latin, or other European languages instead of their own—if they read anything at all. He changed that. 

A Finn himself, from the province of Nyland, Agricola encountered Reformation ideas while studying in Turku, Finland. Turku’s bishop was a Christian humanist sympathetic to the ideas of Erasmus, Luther, and others who were calling for reformation of the church. The bishop saw promise in his student and arranged for him to attend the University of Wittenberg. There Agricola studied under Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon, leading Lutheran reformers. They provided him with a letter of recommendation when he went home and soon he was teaching in Turku's school himself. 

Agricola taught salvation from sin through Jesus Christ and warned that masses, pilgrimages, holy places, prayers to Mary or the saints, veneration of relics, and performance of good works could save no one. But while he promoted Reformation ideas and taught the Bible, he did not trash everything Catholic, changing only what he thought really needed changing. His main desire was to see the inner life of his students transformed by an awareness of God and he was not as concerned about the forms employed. 

Like other reformers, Agricola recognized that most Finns would never learn to follow Christ with any depth unless they could read the Bible in their own language. Because Swedish was the official language of the country, his first step was to teach the Finns to read their own language. To accomplish this, he prepared a Finnish ABC book in 1543. Since Finland did not have a printing press, this had to be printed in Stockholm. 

The next year he compiled a prayer book. This included prayers by both the reformers and Catholic saints. It also included a calendar, weather lore, astronomical information, theology—and instructions for good hygiene! Evidently, he believed in packing as much information into one printing as he could. 

He followed a similar pattern when he completed his translation of the New Testament into Finnish. In it he included a short history of Finland with details about the Swedish occupation. Printed using old German letters and eighty-three woodcuts, more than a hundred copies survived into the twentieth century. 

Agricola was not able to finish a translation of the whole Bible, but he translated the Psalms and several key Old Testament passages. His printing of the Psalms once again added worthwhile, unrelated detail, listing the old gods of Finland—information that would have been lost otherwise. 

In 1554, when Finland was divided between two bishops, Agricola was made the Lutheran bishop of Turku. He died three years later, on this day, 9 April 1557. Finns considered his contribution to their literature, history, faith, and independence so significant that they honor him with a national holiday each year. 2010 was about the five-hundredth anniversary since his birth. He is known as the father of Finnish written literature.

—Dan Graves

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For more on the reforms inspired by Erasmus, see Christian History #145, Erasmus: Christ's humanist; for more on the impact of the University of Wittenberg, see "The backwoods school that changed a continent," in Christian History #139, Hallowed Halls.

Other Notable Events

715

Death of Pope Constantine in Rome. The notable feat of his pontificate was a visit to Constantinople. He had greatly feared for his life, but returned safely.

1558

William Nichol, of Haverfordwest, Wales, is burned at the stake for declaring that Catholics are worshipers of Antichrist.

1592

John Robinson, English Separatist, matriculates at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He will lead the group of Puritans from whom the first New England settlers derive.

1674

Dürer’s painting The Coronation of the Virgin burns in a palace at Munich this night, where it had been in the possession of Elector Maximilian of Bavaria.

1727

Death in Trondheim, Norway, of Thomas von Westen, apostle and educator to Norwegian Lapps.

1761

Death of English devotional writer William Law. His Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life had greatly influenced George Whitefield and John Wesley.

1857

Author and hymnwriter Marianne Farningham (Mary Anne Hearne) of Farningham, England, contributes some poetry to the first issue of the newspaper The Christian World and will continue as a regular and beloved contributor for over fifty years.

1875

Death of John Samuel Bewley Monsen, a clergyman and hymnwriter of the Church of England. His death is caused by a fall from the roof of his church. Hymnologist John Julian will describe Monsen’s hymns as generally “bright, joyous, and musical.” Two of his best known will be “Fight the good fight,” and “Lord of the living harvest.”

1906

Edward Lee asks Pentecostal evangelist William Seymour to pray for him that he will be given the gift of tongues. When Seymour prays, Lee does speak in tongues, one of the events initiating the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles.

1909

Death of Frances Eleanor Townsley, believed to have been only the second woman in the United States ordained as a Baptist minister (ordination April 1885 in Fairfield, Nebraska).

1930

Soviet authorities convict the Orthodox priest Innocent Semyonovich Popov of conducting “intensified agitation for the preservation of the church,” and organizing illegal meetings in his flat, eliciting “massive disturbance amidst the population.” Originally sentenced to death, his sentence was commuted to five years in prison.

1933

Death in Jos, Nigeria, of Johanna Veenstra, who had served the Christian Reformed Church as a missionary.

1934

Louisa Lee becomes the first missionary assigned by the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions. After twenty years of service in India with the Presbyterian Church in the USA, she has recently broken with it because she feels that its adoption of modernist ideas undercuts basic Bible doctrines. She will continue to serve in India until her death in 1972.

1945

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is hanged by Nazis at Flossenbürg Concentration Camp. Shortly before the end he says, “This is the end… for me, the beginning of life.”

[ABOVE: Mary Reed—frontispiece, John Jackson, Mary Reed missionary to the lepers. London: Marshall Brothers, 1899. Public domain]

MARY REED was born in Lowell, Ohio, in 1854. Converted to Christ at the age of sixteen, she immediately recognized she was meant to serve in Christ’s kingdom. For ten years she taught school before going to India as a Methodist missionary in 1884 to work among women confined to zenanas—the courtyards of their homes. 

Her health soon faltered in the hot climate and the mission sent her to a cooler mountain retreat to recover. There she encountered many people suffering from leprosy and gave them what help she could. She continued to serve as a missionary for several more years before ill-health forced her to return to the United States. 

While in America she began to pay attention to some symptoms that had troubled her for some time. For instance, she was experiencing a tingling sensation in one finger. Spots had developed on her body. One day it dawned on her that she had probably contracted leprosy. Because rural American doctors had little knowledge of the disease, a firm diagnosis had to wait until she could speak with experts in New York. They confirmed her suspicion. To protect her family from exposure, she left the United States abruptly without embracing her dearest relatives, telling only one sister the reason for her sudden departure. 

Reed believed God had sent her the disease as a way of opening her way for a new work. A Mission to Lepers accepted her as superintendent of the Chandag Heights Leprosy Home at a beautiful location in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains. Sympathy for her condition caused many people to support the work. For several years she supervised Methodist mission work in the area, as well as managing and expanding the separate work of the Mission to Lepers. 

The disease continued its progress, attacking her vocal chords, too, but advanced much more slowly than was usual. Although she administered medicines to those at her missions and had no personal objection to medicine, from the start she felt convinced the Lord did not want her to employ any herself. In 1896, in answer to her prayers and the prayers of many others, her disease went into remission. Critics claimed she never had leprosy at all. 

In 1898, exhausted by her role with the two missions, she left the Methodist work and devoted herself exclusively to those suffering from leprosy. Most of the people who came to Chandag Heights became Christians. Cast out from their families and offered no solace in their traditional religion, they found great appeal in Christianity. Many showed evidence of new life, turning from selfish and quarrelsome behavior to peaceable and service-oriented attitudes. Such evidence of her usefulness caused Reed to write, “Oh, how my heart goes out in praise and gratitude to Him who so wonderfully verifies his blessed promise, ‘Lo, I am with you always.’” 

When Reed was an old woman, her leprosy began to spread again. Thankfully, drugs now existed to control it and this time she felt no hindrance to using them. Almost completely blind by 1938, she retired. Five years later, on this day, 8 April 1943, she died at Chandag Heights, faithful to Christ to the end. “Jesus has enabled me to say not with a sigh but with a song, ‘Thy will be done.’” She was buried at the foot of a chapel that she had built.

—Dan Graves

_ _ _ _ _

One of the most famous missionaries among people with leprosy was Father Damien, whose story is told in Molokai. Watch at RedeemTV.

Molokai can be purchased at Vision Video.

Other Notable Events

1378

Bartolomeo Prignano is elected Pope Urban VI. His harsh words to the cardinals as soon as he assumes office leads to rumors that he is insane. His electors will leave Rome and name a rival pope (Clement VII), starting the Great Western Schism.

1530

A Diet summoned by Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire meets at Augsburg to deal with religious dissension in Germany.

1546

The Council of Trent adopts Jerome’s eleven-hundred-year-old Latin translation of the Bible (the Vulgate) as the only authentic Latin text of the Scriptures although reformers have long complained that Jerome’s Latin translation is faulty. 

1586

Death in Braunschweig of theologian Martin Chemnitz, known as “The Second Martin” (after Luther) for his efforts to defend conservative Lutheran positions.

1669

Turkish Muslims on the island of Kos burn to death John Naukliros, accusing him of recanting from Islam. He responds, “I believe with all my soul and heart in my Lord Jesus Christ and I confess him as true God Who will judge all the world, both the living and the dead.” He tells his persecutors that he despises Islam and is prepared even to endure torture for the love of Christ.

1807

Thomas Campbell sails from Ireland for Philadelphia. In America he will become a leader in a movement back to Bible essentials.

1812

Ordination and installation of Nathaniel Taylor as pastor of New Haven’s Center Church. He will oversee a growth of four hundred members during several revivals and will also become a prominent New England theologian.

1839

James Thomson, agent for the Montreal auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible Society and eleven other Protestants form the French Canadian Missionary Society whose “exclusive object” is “to provide means for preaching and otherwise disseminating the Gospel of Christ among the inhabitants of Canada using the French language.”

1857

A small group of Dutch immigrants meet in Zeeland, Michigan, to organize the first Christian Reformed Church.

1868

Ordination of George Matheson, blind hymnwriter and pastor of Clydesdale parish of Innellan in Argyllshire, Scotland. He will write “O Love that Will not Let Me Go.”

1883

Newly arrived to America, deaconess Elizabeth Fedde begins a diary. “I came here to New York and was received by my brother-in-law, with whom I have lived for three weeks. During that time I have gone around to become a bit acquainted and have made some house visits and sick calls (ten in all).”

1901

James Chalmers and his associates are clubbed to death and eaten while visiting the Fly River in New Guinea.

1929

Religious associations in Russia are forbidden to help members financially or enter into mutual aid agreements. All previous anti-religion laws are summarized into one “Law Concerning Religion.”

1974

Death of Baptist leader and educator George Morling in Sydney, Australia. Morling College will be named for him.

2002

Muslims in Kano state, Nigeria, demolish the first of eleven church buildings they will destroy this month to ensure that Christianity does not retain a foothold in the state.

2012

On Easter morning in Kaduna, Nigeria, a car bomb, apparently targeting All Nations Christian Assembly Church, kills dozens of Nigerians in the street outside the place of worship.

[ABOVE: Lillian Trasher in 1910—Public domain because of age.]

TEN DAYS before she was to marry, Lillian Trasher heard a missionary speak. She sensed God’s Spirit telling her she was to break her engagement and become a missionary. Sobbing bitterly, she obeyed.

Years earlier in Georgia, as a girl, she believed the words of a neighbor who told her she could have a relationship with Christ. She had gone into the woods and prayed, “Lord, I want to be your little girl.” Then she added, “Lord, if ever I can do anything for You, just let me know and I’ll do it.”

As a young woman, she worked in an orphanage and suffered hunger. It was there she met her prospective husband, a minister. When the Lord told her to become a missionary, she knew she had to keep her childhood promise. The church she attended could not support her so she sold her meager belongings and placed the money in a drawer. A sister thought the money was for orphanage bills and used it, leaving Lillian only $18. This was enough for her to travel to Washington, DC. She set out, confident the Lord would provide. She had the impression she should go to Africa, but nothing more definite.

Along the way, she encountered a missionary couple. Impressed with her faith, they invited her to accompany them to Egypt. Delegates to a mission conference raised the money for her fare:

We were having prayer in my cabin just before sailing and someone asked me to open my Bible and ask God to give me a verse. This I did, and noted the first verse that caught my eyes. It was Acts 7:34, a verse that I had never noticed before: ‘I have seen, I have seen the affliction of My people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt.’ In this unmistakable way God set His seal upon my call.

Once in Egypt, she took in a dying orphan baby. The infant girl cried constantly. The missionaries said Lillian must give it back. However, she could not abandon the girl to the neglect that had almost killed the child in the first place, so with what little money she had she rented an apartment, and trusted that God would provide. The Lord sent more orphans to her.

Years of discouragement followed. She ate a coarse grain that she detested. While traveling she slept in jails. Finally she declared that God was going to build a great Christian orphanage, operating on faith principles. Before she could begin to realize that dream, the British expelled her from Egypt because of political turmoil. Visiting America she became acquainted with the newly-formed Assemblies of God churches, which promised to sponsor her work.

When she was allowed to return to Egypt in 1920, she promised the Lord she would take whomever he sent to her orphanage if he would provide the food and funds. The orphanage grew to house over a thousand orphans and widows. Lillian became famous world-wide and acquired the nickname “Mother of the Nile.”

While caring for the physical needs of the orphans, Trasher did not forget their spiritual needs. For years she prayed for revival. On this day, 7 April 1927, she wrote her sponsors with good news:

“Today I witnessed the greatest revival I have ever seen in my life. Three days ago we started a revival meeting among the children. The Spirit was with us from the very first meeting, dozens getting saved and dozens seeking the Baptism [of the Holy Spirit]. This afternoon I thought the children had better not have a night meeting as they had been praying and crying for hours; so I said that everyone was to go to bed early. I went to my room early also, but soon I heard such a noise coming from all sides that I sent a girl to see if there was a funeral passing by. She returned and said it was the children praying everywhere. I went first over to the widows and blind girls’ department and found they were crying and praying. I went to the kitchen; they were praying, crying, and talking in tongues. I went to the big girls’ room; they were all on their faces crying to God or shouting.

“But the most wonderful sight I ever saw in my life was when I followed the noise up to the housetop. There were dozens and dozens of little girls shouting, crying, talking in tongues, rejoicing, preaching, singing—well, just everything you can think of, praising God....”

The revival lasted for months and broke out again in successive years. The orphanage, now government-operated, is the largest in Egypt.

—Dan Graves

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Robber of the Cruel Streets is the story of another friend of orphans: George Müller. And, like Trasher, Lilias Trotter left friends and home to work in North Africa as a missionary.

Robber of the Cruel Streets: The Prayerful Life of George Muller and Many Beautiful Things: The Life and Vision of Lilias Trotter can be purchased at Vision Video.

Other Notable Events

1321

Muslims near Bombay challenge Franciscan Thomas of Tolentino to say what he thinks of Muhammad. When he responds that “Muhammad is the son of perdition and has his place in hell with the devil his father...” they kill him and his companions, who will become known as the Four Martyrs of Tana. Jordanus of Severac survives to bury them and to conduct mission work in India for about ten years.

1498

A trial by fire is arranged between Fra Domenico, one of Girolamo Savonarola’s followers, and another monk. When Savonarola will not allow Fra Domenico to undertake the ordeal, he loses his influence in Florence.

1541

On his thirty-fifth birthday, Jesuit priest Francis Xavier preaches in Portugal while his ship prepares to sail for India. Word is brought him of a youth mortally wounded in a duel. Xavier hurries to the young man’s side and pleads with him to forgive his opponent. The dying duelist is unwilling. “Will you pardon him if God grants you life?” asks the priest. “Yes,” whispers the dying youth. “Then you will recover,” says Xavier, and the young man does.

1546

Death in Gotha, Thuringia, Germany, of Friedrich Myconius, an associate of Martin Luther who had brought the Reformation to Thuringia and labored throughout Germany and Switzerland.

1550

John Hooper declines the bishopric of Gloucester because he does not believe it is right for him to don the required vestments. He will be placed under house arrest and finally actually imprisoned, after which he will relent and accept consecration. During the persecutions under Mary Tudor, he will be burned to death as a heretic.

1628

Arrival in what is now New York of Dominie Jonas Michaelius, the first Dutch Reform pastor in the New Nederlands.

1779

James Hackman, curate of Wiverton, Norfolk, shoots and kills Martha Reay, mistress of the Earl of Sandwich, outside a London theater. Reay, considerably older than Hackman, seems to have encouraged his attentions because she desired the respectability of marriage which the earl would not give her. Hackman had studied to become a clergyman so that he could support her, but Reay, having borne the earl several children, in the end chose not to leave him. Hackman will be hanged shortly afterward, rejecting an offer of assistance from the earl.

1818

Moravian missionaries and Hottentot converts arrive at the Witte Revier where they will soon clear land assigned them by South Africa’s colonial government and erect a mission-house, church, and other buildings. But local Africans will drive them from the place the following year—murdering several Hottentots, stealing the mission’s cattle, and burning the mission buildings to the ground. Within a few years a new and more successful station will be built nearby.

1824

Premier of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis (Solemn Mass) in St. Petersburg, Russia.

1845

Death in Calcutta from cholera of Mahendra Lal Basak, a promising minister and educator who had given up caste, family, and friends to follow Christ.

1872

Death of Abigail Bradley Hyde in Andover, Massachusetts. She had written a number of hymns including “Dear Savior, if These Lambs Should Stray.”

1885

Deaconess Elizabeth Fedde, working in New York City, writes in her diary, “A terrible day. Board meeting, and I have been left in a powerless position. This is the hardest time I have had in America, and the appeal for help is in danger. God be merciful! I have the whole board against me and everything is wrong and I wish I were dead. God be merciful to me, a sinner!”

1898

Giuseppi Verdi’s Te Deum is first performed, in a concert by the Paris Opera, with two other religious compositions from his Quattro pezzi sacri. Allegedly he will ask to be buried with this piece under his head.

1924

Death in California of John Norton Loughborough, a leader in the early Seventh-day Adventist movement, and its first historian.

1933

“German Christians” apply the Nazis’ Aryan clause to the church, effectively barring Jews (and individuals of Jewish descent) from holding church offices.

1938

Japanese soldiers shoot Herman Liu in front of his home where he is waiting for a bus with his son. Liu, educated in the West, had become the first Chinese president of the Baptist University of Shanghai. After Japanese occupation, he had resisted them and helped war refugees. Urged by friends to flee he had replied, “I will not desert.”

1942

Formation of the National Association of Evangelicals at Hotel Coronado in St. Louis Missouri. Rev. J. Elwin Wright delivers the opening address of a three-day conference. Evangelicals are there to find common ground to fight against evil forces, he says, and to seek ways to fight for Christ aggressively and unitedly.

1947

Repose (death) of Savvas the New, patron saint of the Greek island Kalymnos. An ascetic, he had been priest and spiritual father of the nuns of the Convent of All Saints but was also known for painting icons.

1948

The Episcopal Church consecrates three Filipino bishops, thus extending apostolic succession to the Philippine Independent Church.

2007

Death in Nineveh, New York, of Johnny Hart, following a stroke. He had created the popular comic strip B.C. (featuring Stone Age characters) through which he sometimes expressed evangelical Christian beliefs after his conversion.

WHERE THERE IS A CHURCH established by the state, persecution of sects that hold views that differ from the official church often follows. The great reformers of the sixteenth century, including Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Bucer, and Cranmer, were all guilty of executing or urging the execution of those who differed from them in religious views.

Only two such executions took place during the short reign of King Edward VI (1547-1553). In general, the English reformers were not bloodthirsty. However, they did not tolerate Anabaptists. Anabaptists, the ancestors of today’s Mennonites (among other groups) believed that only converts who confessed Christ when old enough to understand their action could properly be baptized. It was not for that viewpoint that Joan Bocher and George Van Pare [a.k.a. George van Parris] were executed, however, but because of their teachings regarding Christ.

Joan Bocher, also known as Joan of Kent, had distributed copies of Tyndale’s New Testament when it was illegal to do so and had used her wealth to relieve prisoners of conscience. She also taught that the Virgin Mary had two seeds, one natural and one spiritual, and that Christ was the spiritual seed. When confronted about her unusual views, she stuck to them stubbornly and even impudently. Although she accepted Jesus as virgin-born and God-man, Cranmer, Ridley, and Coverdale condemned her to be burned to death as a blasphemer.

At first Edward refused to sign her death warrant. For a boy, he seems to have been far ahead of his adult advisors in wisdom on this issue. He said that to burn her was too much like the cruelty the same reformers condemned when it was done by Catholics. Cranmer argued with the king until he beat down his objections. With tears in his eyes, Edward finally signed, but warned Cranmer he was responsible if the deed should be wrong. Joan was burned in May 1550.

The second victim was a Dutch surgeon named George Van Pare. He was known for his strict and prayerful life. However, he was condemned because, in addition to his Anabaptist views on baptism, he seems to have denied the full divinity of Christ, saying only God the Father was God. Because he spoke no English, his trial was conducted through an interpreter. Cranmer condemned him on this day, 6 April 1551. Later that month Pare went to the stake: a historian wrote, “He suffered with great constancy of mind and kissed the stake and faggots that were to burn him.”

These were costly precedents. During the reign of Queen Mary, when Catholics burned Protestants in large numbers, they gave as their justification the executions of Bocher and Pare in addition to others that had taken place under King Henry VIII with Cranmer’s consent. When Cranmer himself was led to the stake, some people muttered that he only got what he deserved.

—Dan Graves

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For more on the English Reformation see "The Accidental Revolution" in Christian History 118. For more on Cranmer, see Christian History 48 Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation

Other Notable Events

885

(Probable date) Death of Methodius, who with his brother Cyril had evangelized the Balkans.

1203

Death in Denmark of church reformer and abbot William of Eskhill.

1528

Death in Nürnberg of Albrecht Durer, German painter, engraver, and designer of woodcuts, famous for his religious scenes, including the popular “Praying Hands” (a study for the hands of an apostle). He was deeply influenced by Martin Luther.

1579

The Stroganoffs send gifts to five audacious Cossack brigands—Iermak Timofeif, John Koltzo, James Mikhailoff, Necetas Pan, and Matthew Meschteriak—inviting them to become warriors of the White Czar. These Cossack leaders and their followers became the staunch defenders of Christian Muscovy.

1593

Hanging in London of John Greenwood and Henry Barrow, non-conformists who denied that the Church of England had biblical authority.

1743

Death at Lincoln Inn, London, of lawyer William Melmoth. He had authored the popular tract The Great Importance of a Religious Life Consider’d (1711), in which he argued that we should live lives of faith because belief offers us the greatest prospect of happiness.

1779

Ordination by a Congregational Council, of Henry Alline at Falmouth, Nova Scotia. He becomes a successful leader in the Canadian and New England “New Light” revival.

1821

David Marks, still a teenager, leaves home to become a boy preacher. He will endure great hardships and win many souls as a Free Will Baptist.

1827

Death in Plymouth, England, of Robert Hawker, a noted preacher, writer, and compiler of a popular hymn books for children. His most famous hymn was the doxology “Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing.”

1828

Death in Hancock, Vermont, of Jeremiah Ingalls, who had composed and published hymn tunes, including NORTHFIELD (“O, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing”) which he had supposedly written while waiting for a meal in an inn at Northfield.

1851

Anglican priest Henry E. Manning is received into the Roman Catholic Church. He will become archbishop of Westminster in 1865 and a cardinal in 1875.

1894

Death in Denver, Colorado, of William M. Thomson, a missionary veteran of work in Syria and author of The Land and the Book which illustrated the Bible with photographs of the Middle East. The work enjoyed popularity in the United States and in Britain, where it sold more copies than any other American publication except Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

1921

Simon Kimbangu heals a sick woman in the Congo Free State (now Democratic Republic of the Congo). Soon a movement will form around him and become the large Kimbanguist church.

1933

Bakht Singh arrives in Bombay to begin an evangelical work there. He had been converted aboard a ship while voyaging to Canada.

1956

Death of Daniel Gee Ching Wu, an Episcopal priest who had worked among the Chinese of San Francisco.

1966

Death in Zürich of influential Swiss theologian Emil Brunner, who had reaffirmed the tenets of the Protestant Reformed tradition in twentieth-century terms, while seeking ground for dialog with moderns holding theories of evolution, idealism, liberalism, and scientism. 

1971

Death of Igor Stravinsky, perhaps the greatest innovator of twentieth-century music. By the time of his conversion to Christianity in his forties, his masterpieces The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring had already become concert staples. Among the Christian works he will write are Pater Noster; Symphony of Psalms; Mass; Canticum Sacrum; A Sermon, a Narrative, and a Prayer; and Requiem Canticles.

1994

An aircraft bearing Rwanda's dictatorial President Juvenal Habyarimana is shot down. The nation's majority ethnic group, the Hutus, use the event as an excuse to massacre minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus, killing eight hundred thousand in three months. A Tutsu rebellion will kill many Hutus and conquer most of Rwanda by mid-July 1994, establishing a Tutsu-dominated government. Ironically, both ethnic groups subscribe at least nominally to Christianity and some Christian leaders will support and some oppose the genocide and retaliation.

[ABOVE: Sea beggar medal—Ruth Putnam's, William the Silent, Prince of Orange. Putman, 1911. Public domain]

WHEN THE NETHERLANDS (including the ancestors of modern Belgians, Flemish, and Dutch) came under the rule of Emperor Charles V, he determined to stop the spread of the Reformation there by strong measures. And when control of the area passed to King Philip II of Spain, he imposed new and more tyrannical orders. The Inquisition burned hundreds of Protestants, while harsh edicts crushed trade and drained the wealth of the nobles and merchants. Reduced to poverty, they chafed at their loss of wealth and liberty.

In November 1565 the Prince of Parma, a high-ranking Catholic noble, married in Brussels. That same day about twenty Flemish nobles attended a secret church service at which Franciscus Junius, a bold Huguenot (French Protestant), preached. They came away determined to form a league against the “barbarous and violent Inquisition.” During the days of celebration that followed the Prince’s wedding, they enlisted like-minded noblemen.

In the following weeks, the conspirators drew up a covenant demanding a retraction of the harsh edicts and an end to the Inquisition in the Netherlands. They also vowed to defend one another, saying, “We likewise promise and swear mutually to defend one another, in all places, and on all occasions, against every attack that shall be made, or prosecution that shall be raised, against any individual among us on account of his concern in this Confederacy.” Under cover of banquets held throughout the land, they obtained the signatures of two-thousand or more nobles.

Their covenant declared that the Inquisition was “not only contrary to all human and divine laws, but exceeds in cruelty the most barbarous institutions of the most savage tyrants in the heathen world.” One of the first to sign it was Count Brederode, a descendant of the former kings of Holland. Perhaps he hoped to restore his throne.

Brederode led two hundred knights and nobles into Brussels on 3 April 1566. They were soon joined by a hundred more. In a meeting the next day, they drew up a petition to present to Margaret, Duchess of Parma, Philip’s regent in the Netherlands.

On this day, 5 April 1566, between three and four hundred of these covenant-signers rode peaceably to present their petition to Margaret. They declared they had never failed in their loyalty to King Philip and nothing now was further from their hearts. However, they would risk his displeasure, they said, rather than allow him to remain in ignorance of the evils with which their country was now menaced by the introduction of the Inquisition and the enforcement of the edicts. They pleaded that she send an emissary to Philip describing the true state of the nation and that meanwhile the Inquisition and edicts be put on hold.

Margaret told them that she could neither suspend the Inquisition nor the edicts. However, she would reduce some of the Inquisition’s executions from burning to beheading. During Margaret’s discussions with her advisors, one advisor, Count Berlaymont, contemptuously described the petitioners as Gueux—beggars. When Brederode and his associates heard this, they proudly took the name to themselves and even dressed as beggars and made medals depicting beggars.

As it turned out, Philip was inflexible. Forty years of cruel war followed and the warning of the beggars proved only too accurate. By the time of his death, Philip had lost his grip on the Netherlands. The Protestant faith became dominant in the Dutch-speaking parts of the land, although in Belgium Roman Catholicism remained the faith of the people.

—Dan Graves

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For more on the Calvinist path of Christianity that dominated the Netherlands, see Christian History #120 Calvin, Councils, and Confessions and the DVDs Zwingli And Calvin and Calvin, Zwingli, and Br. Klaus: Shapers of the Faith

Calvin, Zwingli and Br Klaus can be streamed at Vision Video.

Other Notable Events

582

Death of Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople, who had maintained that after the resurrection the body will be more subtle than air and no longer palpable, a position that the future Pope Gregory the Great vehemently opposed.

1242

Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod defeats the Teutonic Knights on frozen Peipus Lake.

1614

Indian Princess Pocahontas, a convert to Christianity, marries English colonist John Rolfe.

1735

Death at Upminster of William Derham, a Church of England clergyman and scientist, who had measured the speed of sound with more accuracy than had been achieved before.

1803

The first complete performance of Beethoven’s oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives takes place in Vienna.

1811

Death in Gloucester of Robert Raikes, an English philanthropist generally regarded as the founder of the modern Sunday school movement.

1834

Matthew Simpson rides away from the medical profession in Ohio to become a Methodist itinerant preacher. At the time he still struggles even to speak with people. However he will become a notable educator and bishop.

1835

Rama Varma, son of a Rajah, is baptized in India despite strong Hindu opposition. After several years of evangelistic and apologetic work, he will die at the age of 42.

1922

Death in Bombay of Indian intellectual, evangelist, and philanthropist Pandita Ramabai.

1940

Death in Calcutta, India, of Charles Freer Andrews, an Anglican priest and missionary to India, where he had assisted the poor and pursued social justice. He had been a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi.

1956

East German authorities dynamite ruins of the Ulrich church in Magdeburg, despite Christian protests. Religious leaders’ plans to rebuild the historic sanctuary are ignored. It dates back to 1023 but has been damaged in the war.

[ABOVE: Charles Simeon—cover image from Handley Carr Glynn Moule, Charles Simeon. London, Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1948.]

SHORTLY AFTER COMING TO CAMBRIDGE on 29 January 1779, Charles Simeon faced a serious test of conscience. “It was but the third day after my arrival that I understood I should be expected in about three weeks to attend the Lord’s Supper...The thought rushed through my mind that Satan himself was as fit to attend as I; and that if I must attend, I must prepare for my attendance there.” Until then, he had been more concerned with clothes than with Christ, spending the large sum of £50 a year on his wardrobe.

Without delay he bought The Whole Duty of Man—the only religious book he had heard of. Fasting, praying, reading, confessing, and crying to God for mercy, he got through his first Holy Communion. He knew he would have to take the sacrament again at Easter and read a book on how to prepare for the Lord’s Supper. His sins oppressed his mind so much that he found himself wishing he might exchange his life for that of a dog so that he would not have to face eternity.

Simeon’s misery lasted for weeks. However, his reading brought him a new understanding—that Christ was his sacrificial substitute:

The thought came to my mind, What, may I transfer all my guilt to another? Has God provided an Offering for me, that I may lay my sins on His head? Then, God willing, I will not bear them on my own soul one moment longer. Accordingly I sought to lay my sins upon the sacred head of Jesus...

He began to have hope. Early this morning, 4 April 1779, Easter Sunday, he awoke with these words on his heart and lips: “Jesus Christ is Risen Today; Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” From that hour, peace flowed into his soul. At chapel, taking Communion, he felt close to God and saw that all his sins were buried in Christ’s grave.

Simeon eventually became the vicar of Trinity Church, Cambridge. He preached a direct, forthright gospel—one for which his congregation was not prepared. Some boycotted him, and the church wardens locked him out of his own church. Drunken students mocked him and threw stones through the chapel windows. The congregation even chose other pastors to give their Sunday afternoon lectures. Though opposition continued for thirty years, interested listeners rose to over a thousand during the same time.

Simeon persevered and became a leader of the Evangelical wing of the Church of England in the early 19^th century. Many of the students who attended his chapel adopted his methods, and he even bought control of church vacancies so that he could appoint Evangelicals throughout England. He was active in forming the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Religious Tract Society, the Church Missionary Society, and a society to evangelize Jews. Several of his spiritual children became chaplains to India. Among them was Henry Martyn, who became famous as a Bible translator in India and Persia.

Simeon was so active and influential that his name crops up frequently in biographies and histories of the early nineteenth century. He never lost his zeal, preaching and evangelizing until just weeks before his death in 1836. He was known for his deep love for the Book of Common Prayer.

—Dan Graves

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Before Simeon, Comenius was also one of the world's great Christian educators. His story is available as a docudrama, as a drama filmed in his native land, and in Christian History # 13 Jan Amos Comenius

Comenius can be purchased at Vision Video

Other Notable Events

397

Death of Ambrose of Milan, a bishop of many talents. He will later be considered one of the four Latin fathers. He had been one of the “tools” God used to lead Augustine of Hippo to Christ.

636

Death of Isidore, archbishop of Seville, a Spanish scholar famous for his Etymologies, an encyclopedia of early medieval knowledge that used liberal arts and secular learning as the foundation of Christian education.

814

Death in Constantinople of Platon, an uncle of Theodore the Studite. The funeral oration Theodore composes for his uncle will become one of the most important sources for the history of Theodore’s family. (Theodore will be famous as a champion for the restoration of icons.)

896

Death of controversial Pope Formosus. His bones will be exhumed and his corpse tried by Pope Stephen VI but he will be reburied with full honors in St. Peter’s the following year under Pope Romanus.

1081

Emperor Alexius Comnenus is crowned emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine). He will do much to restore its strength and his appeal to the West for military assistance will be a major factor in instituting the crusades.

1523

Leonard Kopp helps twelve nuns escape from their cloister at Nimschen in Saxony, hidden in his fish barrels. One of them, Katherina von Bora, will wed Martin Luther.

1634

Death in Amsterdam of Episcopius, leading Arminian theologian.

1660

King Charles II of England, still in exile, issues the Breda Declaration, making promises that he will violate soon after his return to England, among them “We do declare a liberty to tender consciences; and that no man shall be disquieted, or called in question, for differences of opinion in matters of religion which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom.” He will be a great persecutor of Presbyterians and of Independents such as John Bunyan.

1687

King James II of England issues a Declaration of Indulgence, granting full liberty of worship in England. Because he goes around the constitution by not consulting Parliament, even many of its beneficiaries are displeased.

1739

Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt receives its first complete performance at the King’s Theatre, London.

1742

Charles Wesley preaches his famous sermon, “Awake, thou that sleepest,” to the University of Oxford. Printed, the sermon will become Methodism’s most popular tract.

1840

Death of John Campbell, a Scottish businessman, missionary, preacher, and philanthropist. He had founded a tract society, numerous Sunday schools, societies for disgraced women, and a Bible society. At the request of the London Missionary Society he had even inspected mission work in South Africa. Among his charitable activities he brought Africans to Britain for training and advocated the abolition of the slave trade.

1889

Death from pneumonia of Asa Mahan, an American holiness leader and the first president of Oberlin College and of Adrian College. One of the last things he said to his wife Mary was, “Let us praise God, my dear, for all his goodness today before you go.”

1944

The BBC broadcasts “The New Man,” the seventh and last of C.S. Lewis’s pre-recorded fifteen-minute talks known as “Beyond Personality,” all of which will later be included in his book Mere Christianity.

1964

Brazil’s leading Catholics side with dictator General Castelo Branco against the social democrat João Goulart, issuing a manifesto entitled “Brazil Has Decided for Freedom” in which they denounce atheistic communism.

1968

Assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, of Baptist minister the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., a vocal advocate of civil rights.

1995

Death of Sun Yanli, a hymnwriter and an eminent leader in the Three-Self Patriotic Church, the government-sanctioned church of China. Despite his associations, he was cruelly persecuted for several years during the Cultural Revolution.

[ABOVE: Sebastiano Mazzoni (1611–1678), Raising of the Cross—photographer Didier Descouens / [CC-BY-SA 4.0] Wikimedia]

WELL-KNOWN is the story of Jesus, the founder of Christianity, and the last days of his earthly ministry. During that time, he ate the Last Supper with his disciples. Before the meal, they quarreled who was greatest. To show that the greatest should serve, Jesus stooped to wash his disciples’ feet.

It was at this meal that he predicted one of them would betray him, and Judas left to do the deed. The rest of the disciples remained in prolonged discussion with Christ. Finally they left the room and walked to the Garden of Gethsemane.

After Jesus spent time in anguished prayer, a mob arrived and arrested him, although not without incident. The men who asked for Jesus fell backward when he said, “I am He.” Peter slashed off the ear of one of the mob, but Jesus healed it. He urged his persecutors to let his disciples go.

The captors led Jesus to the house of the High Priest. When no charge against him stuck, the High Priest commanded Jesus, in the name of God, to declare whether or not he was the Son of God. When Jesus affirmed this, he was declared guilty of blasphemy, a crime deserving capital punishment. Unable to conduct executions themselves, the Jewish authorities were forced to bring Jesus before the Roman governor Pilate. They obtained the death warrant by suggesting that as a pretend king, Jesus was setting himself against Rome. If Pilate freed Jesus, they argued, he was no friend of Caesar.

Pilate was in a bind. In October, AD 31, Roman Emperor Tiberias had executed Sejanus, his anti-Semitic advisor, and ordered Roman governors not to mistreat Jews. Consequently, Pilate could not take a stern line with the Jewish leaders. Instead, he had Jesus whipped and crucified. Darkness fell upon the land as Jesus hung on the cross—a mysterious darkness mentioned by at least two ancient writers. From the cross Jesus forgave those who crucified him, and arranged his mother’s care. He said he was thirsty and groaned that God had forsaken him. At one point, he promised a thief eternal life. Six hours after the nails went in, Jesus committed his soul to God and died. At that awful moment, the ground broke open.

But on what date did Jesus die? The answer is of interest not only to scholars but to every Christian. The truth of the Bible hinges on it because there are seeming discrepancies between John and the synoptic gospels.

All accounts agree that Christ’s death took place during the hours when Passover lambs were slain. From the law of Moses we know the lamb was to be slain on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nisan. We believe it was on a Friday because the gospels say the next day was a Sabbath.* It would seem a simple matter to check when Nisan 14 fell on a Sabbath within the time frame of Christ’s preaching. His ministry commenced sometime after John’s, which began in the fifteenth year of Emperor Tiberias’ reign.

Wrestling with ancient dates is never easy, however. For one thing, scholars disagree about the fifteenth year of Tiberias. Is it to be dated from the beginning of his co-regency with his adopted father Augustus, or the beginning of his independent rule? For another, Jewish months began at the new moon. In the first century, new moon was determined by naked eye observation. A cloudy evening or a low moon could place the new moon a day later than the actual new moon as calculated by modern astronomers.

Furthermore, to keep their lunar calendar synchronized with the seasons, the Jews added an intercalary month (essentially a “leap month”) every two or three years. We have no record of which years received an intercalary month. Finally, because of the many subtle movements of the earth and moon, calculating when a new moon would be visible from Jerusalem twenty centuries ago is a prodigious task even for modern astronomers using computers.

What we do know is that Jesus died when Caiaphas was high priest (dates uncertain), Pontius Pilate was governor (AD 26 until sometime before Passover AD 37), and Tiberias was emperor (AD 14–37). Working with astrophysicist Graeme Waddington, physicist Colin J. Humphreys was able to narrow down the possible dates of Christ’s death to just two: 7 April 30 and 3 April 33.

Using careful examination of the available records and astronomical evidence, Humphreys argued that April 3, AD 33 not only fits best with all the evidence, but also experienced an eclipse of the moon—an event known in ancient literature as “the moon turning to blood.”** Showing that the ancient calendar of Moses differed from the official Jerusalem calendar of the first century, he was able to eliminate the discrepancies between John’s Gospel and the synoptics. John reports the official Passover as it would have been observed at the temple, whereas the other three writers use an older calendar.

It seems, then, that on this day, 3 April 33, under the Julian calendar, Jesus died.

—Dan Graves

*Some scholars argue that the Passover and other high holy days were regarded as sabbaths and that Jesus could not have been in the grave three days and three nights if he died on a Friday. A Thursday crucifixion allows a greater range of dates for Christ’s death and undermines the arguments for the 7 April and 3 April dates given above.

**Because of a reader's comment, let me make clear: a blood moon is an eclipse of the moon, which is primarily a phenomenon observed at night, not an eclipse of the sun which happens during the day. This article is not suggesting that the darkness during the day was caused by an eclipse of the sun. Peter in Acts 2:14-20 quotes Joel 2:28ff. Among the signs included in that Joel passage are the sun being darkened and the moon turning to blood. We have no obvious natural explanation for the sun being darkened. Cunningham’s point was that his computer models show that an eclipse of the moon happened on one of the possible dates for the crucifixion, thus strengthening that date's candidacy—especially when that event is apparently alluded to by Peter as evidence to his audience. Peter in effect told them, “Hey you saw the sun go dark and the moon become a blood moon. Now you are seeing people prophesying under the power of the spirit. These things, and the mighty works Jesus did, are proof that he was the promised one."

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To visit the traditional sites of Holy Week, watch Passion In Jerusalem

Other Notable Events

1253

Death of Bishop Richard of Chichester, who had suffered persecution from hostile King Henry III but was beloved by his people.

1327

Papal bull of John XXII condemns the writings of Marsilus of Padua and John of Jandun.

1418

At the Council of Constance, Jean Gerson rejects propositions of Matthias Grabow that are intended to suppress the lay spiritual renewal movement called the Brethren of Common Life. Gerson’s defense of the lay brothers ensures they will obtain papal approval.

1528

Adolf Clarenbach, having preached Reformation ideas in Wesel and Cologne, Germany, is arrested by Catholic authorities in Cologne. He will be sentenced to death.

1769

Death in Mülheim (in the Ruhr) of Pietist preacher and hymnwriter Gerhard Tersteegen. Among his best-known hymns was “Thou hidden love of God.”

1826

Death of Reginald Heber in India. The following year, his hymns will be published posthumously. Among them will be “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains.”

1901

James Chalmers and Oliver Tompkins sail from Daru, Papua, New Guinea, in what will be their last voyage. Within days, cannibals will martyr and eat them.

1960

Dennis Bennett, an Episcopal priest in California, announces from the pulpit that he has been baptized in the Holy Spirit. For this he will be ousted by his church, but his testimony will lead to the “Second Wave” of charismatic Christianity in America (the Azusa Street outpouring being the best-known expression of the first wave).

1971

Nazarene evangelists Tómaz Phiri and Nadies Kampione (husband and wife) make a dangerous night escape from Mozambique to Malawi with their children. Although refugees, they will plant four churches that will remain in a flourishing condition years later.

Did a divine intervention occur on this day, 2 April, 306? Eusebius Pamphilius, the most notable of the early church historians, thought so. He was an eyewitness.

Four Caesars shared rule of the Roman Empire. Beginning in 303, they issued edicts that Christians be required to make idol sacrifices and offer libations. In Caesarea this resulted in the incarceration of many Christians who refused obedience. Tribunes and centurions summoned citizens by name to sacrifice. Those who refused were imprisoned and tortured. When the prison overflowed, graffiti shows that prisoners were held in a large underground cistern. 

Eusebius himself eventually fled to Egypt to escape persecution but not before witnessing the heroic end of one of his pupils. This was a young man named Apphianus. Not yet twenty, the youth had lived a blameless life among depraved surroundings in the “college town” of Berytus. Despised by his wealthy parents for his conversion to Christianity, he came to Caesarea to study at Eusebius’s school.

One day, seeing governor Urbanus about to sacrifice to idols, Apphianus eluded the ruler’s guards, rushed up to the governor, grabbed his hand, and pleaded with him to cease his idolatry. The furious governor had him beaten and torn on the spot. When Apphianus held to his faith, the governor threw him into “a deep dark prison,” apparently the cistern.

The next day Apphianus underwent tortures again, including having his feet burned to the bone. On the third day, finding Apphianus still firm, the soldiers pitched him alive into the sea. But, wrote Eusebius: 

As soon as they had cast this truly sacred and thrice-blessed youth into the fathomless depths of the sea, an uncommon commotion and disturbance agitated the sea and all the shore about it, so that the land and the entire city were shaken by it. And at the same time with this wonderful and sudden perturbation, the sea threw out before the gates of the city the body of the divine martyr, as if unable to endure it.

Archaeology suggests Caesarea had four entrances. One of these four gates, at the lower end of the city, opened onto the sea. That seems to be where Apphianus’s body was cast up. As of 2002, excavations of Caesarea had not identified earthquake damage in the relevant time frame to explain the city shaking, but much excavation remained to be done.

—Dan Graves

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For more accounts of early church martyrs, watch The Trial and Testimony of the Early Church at RedeemTV

Trial and Testimony can be purchased at Vision Video.

Other Notable Events

307

Theodosia of Tyre, having commended Christians who are in chains for their faith in the market place, is seized and tortured. When she refuses to recant, she is thrown into the sea. 

1139

Pope Innocent II opens the Second Lateran Council. It will deal with abuses in the church and condemn Peter of Bruys and Arnold of Brescia.

1234

Edmund of Abingdon is consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. His years will be spent wrestling with corrupt King Henry III, who refuses to allow him to fill church vacancies, pocketing the money from them instead.

1548

Martin Bucer declares he will sign the Augsburg Interim if certain changes are made; but Emperor Charles V insists on his signature as the document stands. When Bucer refuses, he will be placed under house arrest and then in close confinement until on April 20, he will capitulate.

1582

John Payne, a Catholic, is hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, England, allegedly for treason to Queen Elizabeth. A sympathetic crowd ensures he is completely dead before they allow the drawing and quartering to proceed.

1739

At Kingswood, England, Wesley first preaches in the open air to miners, a decisive step that frees him from dependence upon the favor of Church of England clergy for access to pulpits, but which requires him to swallow his pride.

1767

A sealed letter from Charles III of Spain is opened by authorities throughout Spain and the next morning every Jesuit in the realm is arrested, placed aboard ship, and expelled from the country.

1787

Death in Bologna of Francisco Saverio Clavigero, a Jesuit who had written a sentimental but inaccurate account of the American Indians wiped out by the conquistadors.

1844

Death of Radhanath Das, a well-educated Hindu convert to Christianity, who became an educator in Christian schools, a catechist in homes, a peacemaker among Christians and Hindus, a tract writer, and an evangelist. His death is the result of tending boys with smallpox.

1866

Forced into exile from his station in the Orange Free State by Boers, pioneer missionary François Coillard goes to Natal.

1875

Death of Henry Budd (birth name Sakachuwescam), a Cree Indian who had ministered for thirty-five years in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Although deeply engaged in improving the spiritual welfare of his parishioners, his diary also records many secular activities undertaken to help them deal with disease and survive periodic food shortages because of their hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

1894

Death in Sunderland, England, of William D. Longstaff, author of the hymn “Take Time to Be Holy”

1914

Three hundred Pentecostals meet at the Grand Opera House in Hot Springs, Arkansas, for a ten-day conference. The conference will birth the Assemblies of God.

1952

Death in New York of Samuel Zwemer, who had been a notable missionary to Muslims.

1978

Episcopal Canon Mary Simpson of New York speaks from the pulpit of Westminster Abbey in London, the first ordained woman to preach there.

[ABOVE: John Vassar—frontispiece, E. T. Vassar, Uncle John Vassar, or the fight of faith. London: R. D. Dickinson, 1879. Public domain.]

JOHN VASSAR came from hard-working, prayerful parents. Though he took after them in respect to the hard work, he was not nearly as inclined to prayer. While still a boy working in his family’s New York brick kiln, Vassar would break into profane rages when angered.

When Vassar married at twenty-five, neither he nor his wife were Christians. Vassar was eager to make money, however, and that desire actually facilitated his salvation when a cousin paid him to attend a revival meeting. Vassar came under deep conviction for his sins. The next evening, he was back in church. He wrestled with guilt and terror for a full week. Seeing his wife get into bed one night, he asked, “How can you rest when your husband is going right down to hell?”

Shortly afterward, however, the now twenty-eight-year-old Vassar received his assurance of heavenly sonship. Immediately he wanted to win others to Christ, but realized he needed knowledge first. He read the Bible every chance he got and posted memory verses at his work station in his cousins’ brewery.

By the time he was thirty-seven, his wife, sons, and father had died. Uneasy about making beer, he resigned and joined the American Tract Society. His preaching, prayers, and witnessing became legendary, for he would approach everyone he met—from the lowliest slave to the President of the United States—with questions about their spiritual state. He abruptly confronted sinners, “My friend, will you kindly permit me to ask, ‘Have you been born again?’” He followed this opening by appeal, warning, argument, entreaty, and a plea for the Holy Spirit to make the words effective. Revival broke out wherever he went.

Co-workers who roomed with him said he was at prayer when they went to bed and at prayer when they awoke. A minister from Ionia, Michigan, said, “I never knew a man who prayed so much.”

For a while he was called upon to act as an agent for suppressing illegal liquor trade in Dutchess County, New York. When rowdies mocked and threatened him, a concerned pastor offered him a cane for protection. Vassar replied, “If my master wants John Vassar tonight, nothing can save him. If he does not, all these men combined can’t hurt him.” He was not harmed.

During the Civil War, he served the Tract Society on the front lines. Going from tent to tent, he assisted any chaplain who seemed dedicated to Christ, regardless of denomination. To the soldiers he would often say, “I hope this loyal blue covers a heart loyal to the Lord Jesus. He is the best friend a soldier can have. Tell me, is he your friend?”

After the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate general J. E. B. Stuart’s cavalry captured Vassar and threatened to execute him as a spy. Unfazed, he pressed his concern for their souls until the men urged Stuart to free him, warning, “or we’ll have a prayer-meeting from here to Richmond.”

On this evening, Saturday, 1 April 1865, when news of Union general Sheridan’s complete victory at Five Forks came in, Union general Ulysses S. Grant saw an opportunity to crush Lee’s weakened army at Petersburg. Hours before dawn he ordered his forces to advance. Vassar wrote, “Sunday morning dawned on a field of strife and blood and death. Such a Sabbath I had not in all my army experience seen. For three miles I passed along the lines amid roaring cannon and bursting shells, where the ‘gray’ and ‘blue’ often lay close together, mingling their life-blood and dying groans. We little realized in the confusion and horror of that day that the God of our fathers was using our men to strike the blows which should bring the long conflict to an end.”

After the war, he worked among southerners and freed blacks and traveled all the way to San Francisco, persuading men and women to follow Christ. He kept his work up until about six months before his death. In great pain, he once murmured under his breath, “Dear Lord, how much better this than sin!” He died in December 1878. His last whisper was “Hallelujah!”

—Dan Graves

_ _ _ _ _

[Christianity in the Civil War looks at many more examples of faith during America’s costly conflict.]

Other Notable Events

409

An imperial edict outlaws amusements on Sundays within the Roman Empire, even if Sunday falls on New Year’s Day, the emperor’s birthday, or his anniversary. 

774

The magistrates of Rome, carrying the banners of the city, greet Charlemagne three miles from Rome, sent forward by the pope to meet him.

1229

Martyrdom of Abraham of Bulgaria. While living as an Islamic merchant, he converted to Christianity and is killed by Muslims for changing religions.

1318

Pope John XXII issues the bull Redemptor noster, decreeing the establishment of an archbishopric at Sultaniyya, a capital city in Southern Azerbaijan. The decree places the territory of Hulakus Empire, as well as the Chagatai Khanate, India, and Ethiopia under the jurisdiction of the archbishopric of Sultaniyya and charges Dominican monks with governing the archbishopric.

1375

Catherine of Siena, an Italian mystic and peacemaker, claims to have received the stigmata (body marks corresponding to Christ’s wounds on the cross), visible only to herself. She will be known for persuading Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome and for The Dialogue of Divine Providence, written (according to friends) while conversing with God in ecstatic states. In 1970, Pope Paul VI will declare her a doctor of the church.

1743

David Brainerd arrives at Kaunaumeek, about 20 miles northwest of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where he will serve as a missionary among the Housatonic Indians. He will start a school for Indian children and translate some psalms.

1787

Richard Allen, an ex-slave and African-American preacher, organizes the Free African Society, a self-help and mutual aid organization.

1820

Death at Kensington Gore (London) of Isaac Milner, a clergyman, mathematician, educator, and theological writer. His ardent evangelicalism had impelled him to make Queen’s College “a nursery of evangelical neophytes” when he was its president; his educational fervor had given the school good standing; and his love of fun had made him the life of every party.

1860

Jonathan Goble, a Baptist missionary, arrives with his wife at Kanagawa, Japan. Eleven years later, Mrs. Goble becomes ill and Jonathan determines to provide her with “gentle, outdoor exercise.” Rather than have her carried by four men, he designs a two-wheeled cart with long shafts to pull her in. His plans are stolen and soon rickshaws are in use throughout the entire Far East, providing work for thousands of men.

1868

Hampton Institute opens in Virginia to begin its task of training freed slaves “hand, head, and heart,” that is, with a vocation, academics, and faith.

1872

Death in London of Christian Socialist F. D. Maurice who had a strong influence on his generation, including men like James Clerk Maxwell.

1927

Death in São Paolo of Solomon Ginsberg, missionary to Brazil.

1956

Death of William Reed Newell, author of the gospel hymn “At Calvary.” He will be buried in Florida.