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Quote of the day

“B esides that reverence which today s festival has gained from all the world, it is to be honoured with special and peculiar exultation in our city, t...”

Charles Lett Feltoe, trans. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 12. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.

Devotional

Faith, Not Works, Counts for Righteousness (1900)

And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness &m...

Events

1073

Consecration of Gregory VII (Hildebrand). His reign will be marred by continual skirmishing with Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV.

Authority for the date: Oestereich, Thomas. “Pope St. Gregory VII.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton

1315

(traditional date) Death by stoning of mystic and missionary Raymond Lull in Bougie, North Africa (Tunisia). He had been persuaded by a vision to seek the conversion of Muslims, had founded a school to train men to the task, and had studied Islamic culture.

Authority for the date: Turner, William. “Raymond Lully.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company

1629

Samuel Skelton and Francis Higginson, Presbyterian reverends, arrive on the ship Talbot to Massachusetts, the first clergymen of that sect in what will become the United States.

Authority for the date: Slosser, Gaius Jackson, ed. They Seek a Country. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1955.

1770

John Beck, born to missionaries in Greenland, returns to his land of birth, having completed his formal education in Europe. He will serve as a Moravian missionary in Greenland for over fifty years. 

Authority for the date: John O. Choules and Thomas Smith, The Origin and History of Missions. p.56

1794

Bishop Asbury preaches the dedicatory sermon for Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded by Richard Allen and fellow African-Americans after they were segregated from white worshipers in St. George’s Church, Philadelphia.

Authority for the date: Christian History 62 (1999).

1861

At Casa Guidi (in Florence, Italy) toward morning the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning seems to be in an ecstasy. She tells her husband of her love for him, gives him her blessing, and raises herself to die in his arms. “It is beautiful,” are her last words. Among her poems is the sonnet “Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet.”

Authority for the date: Orr, Mrs. Sutherland. Life and Letters of Robert Browning.

1864

In a ceremony that fills Canterbury Cathedral beyond capacity, Samuel Adjai Crowther is consecrated as the first African bishop of the Church of England.

Authority for the date: Christian History 79 (2003).

1875

The first Keswick convention opens, a holiness movement that spreads around the world. Delegates had met for prayer the day before.

Authority for the date: Barabas, Steven. So Great Salvation; The History and Message of the Keswick Convention. 1957; Harford, Charles F.

1881

Convinced that he is the long-awaited Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, a Sufi Muslim in Kordofan (then a province of Sudan) proclaims “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Prophet of God, and Muhammad al-Mahdi is the successor of God’s Prophet!” He soon imprisons Christian missionaries and in 1885 will massacre many of the Christians in Khartoum.

Authority for the date: www.cfl-sacramento.org/html/SaintJosephineMargaretFortunataBakhita.html

1900

Pastor Meng is seized and beheaded at Pao ting Fu, having refused to flee, declaring he will stand by foreign missionaries whose lives are threatened.

Authority for the date: Beach, Harlan Page. Princely Men in the Heavenly Kingdom. New York: Young People’s Missionary Movement, 1907.

1936

In the encyclical Vigilanti Cura, Pope Pius XI warns against “the damage done to the soul by bad motion pictures.”

Authority for the date: www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_29061936_vigilanti-cu

1958

Death of Edward Scribner Ames who had studied the psychology and sociology of religion. In his book The Divinity of Christ he admitted he was not an orthodox Trinitarian. He saw Jesus as divine in the sense that he revealed divinity, and in the sense that all men share something of the divine, but Christ to him was “a revelation of the best things we know about the world.”

Authority for the date: http://www.pragmatism.org/research/ames.htm

1979

Repose (Death) of Archbishop Andrew (Father Adrian) of New Diveyevo Monastery in Jordanville, New York. Born in the Ukraine, he had been forced to flee his native land because of Soviet persecution, eventually migrating to the United States where he established an Orthodox monastery. He was sought out for his deep spirituality.

Authority for the date: http://christthesavior.net

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