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Quote of the day

“Now let our mourning hearts revive, And all our tears be dry Why should those eyes be drowned in grief Which view a Savior nigh What though the arm of...”

Hatfield, Edwin F. The Poets of the Church. New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Co., 1884.

Devotional

Jesus recognizes potential (1999)

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he...

Events

394

Relics are installed at the Basilica of St. Thomas the Apostle in Edessa. These will be significant in establishing an upper limit on the date of Egeria’s famed pilgrimage to the Mideast. 

Authority for the date: Christian Women in the Patristic World.

565

Celtic missionary and abbot Columba confronts a monster at Loch Ness, becoming the first recorded observer of the creature. “At the voice of the saint, the monster was terrified,” writes his biographer, “and fled more quickly than if it had been pulled back with ropes.”

Authority for the date: Adomnan. Life of St. Columba. ca. 690.

1433

Paul Craw (Pavel Kravar), Bohemian Hussite, is burned to death in Market Street before St. Andrews in Scotland, the first martyr so burned in that nation. A brass ball has been placed in his mouth so he cannot testify to the crowd.

Authority for the date: Paul Vysny. “A Hussite in Scotland” Scottish Historical Review.

1532

[or August 23rd] Death at Canterbury, Kent, England, of William Warham, who had been the last Catholic archbishop of Canterbury under King Henry VIII.

Authority for the date: Britannica.

1555

Jeanne D’Albret, Queen of Navarre, calls for a conference of her beleaguered Huguenot ministers.

Authority for the date: Anderson, James. Ladies of the Reformation. London: Blackie and Sons, 1857.

1576

After a four month march over the Alps and across Europe, the Duke of Alva and his forces arrive in Brussels to put down Dutch and Belgian revolt against the repressive Spanish government.

Authority for the date: https://europeanhistory.boisestate.edu/reformation/netherlands/revolt.shtml

1751

Isaac Backus is re-baptized, and will become a great Baptist leader of New England.

Authority for the date: McLoughlin, William Gerald. Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition, edited by Oscar Handlin.

1752

Death in Lyndon, Rutland, England, of William Whiston, who had been a priest in the Church of England, but left after becoming an Arian. He will long be remembered among English-speaking Christians because he translated the works of Josephus into English.

Authority for the date: New National Dictionary of Biography.

1773

Death at Hayley, England, of Baron George Lyttelton, author of the witty Dialogues of the Dead, and also of Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul. He considered Paul’s conversion sufficient in itself to demonstrate that Christianity was a divine revelation.

Authority for the date: Wikipedia.

1822

Death of Indian convert and hymnwriter Krishna Pal.

Authority for the date: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/.

1861

Death of Richard Oastler. A champion of social reform, including factory laws in England, he had been fired from his job and imprisoned for debt. During his imprisonment he wrote the Fleet Papers, a weekly journal discussing factory conditions and poor laws. Eventually supporters had raised funds to pay his debt and he was freed.

Authority for the date: Encyclopedia Americana.

1885

Death of William P. Mackay, Scottish Presbyterian clergyman and author of the hymn “We Praise Thee, O God, for the Son of Thy Love.” After practicing medicine for a number of years, Mackay had abandoned his career and become ordained a pastor of the Prospect Street Presbyterian Church in Hull in 1868.

Authority for the date: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/

1894

Repose (death) from dysentery of Saint Isaac (Antimonov), an elder of the monastery of Optina. Against the wishes of the monks, a bishop had placed him in charge of the monastery, but he overcame their opposition by humility and gentleness.

Authority for the date: www.pravoslavie.ru.

1962

Paul Pang leaves Hong Kong to undertake the training in the United States that will enable him to found the Schools for Christ ministry, which flourishes first in Hong Kong and then on the Chinese mainland.

Authority for the date: Linder, God’s Special Agents

1968

Pope Paul VI becomes the first reigning pope to visit Latin America.

Authority for the date: World Topic Year Book, 1969.

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