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Devotional

Why did Christ sigh?

Read Mark 7:31-37. There is one peculiar circumstance [in Mark 7:31-37] which deserves to be particularly noticed, namel...

Events

1392

Death of Sergius of Radonezh, a monastic reformer, and one of the most revered saints of Russia. His reforms had emphasized that monks should live by their own labor. Forty groups went out from his original monastery, the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, settling in difficult places that they cultivated until they became centers of expanding civilization.

Authority for the date: Wikipedia.

1555

Promulgation of the Peace of Augsburg which created a legal basis for Lutheran and Catholic states to live side by side in the Holy Roman Empire.

Authority for the date: Britannica.

1643

Members of the Westminster Assembly and the Scottish Commissioners subscribe to the Solemn League and Covenant, allying Parliament with the Scots Covenanters.

Authority for the date: Leith, John H. Assembly at Westminster. John Knox, 1973.

1727

Death of Jacques Abbadie. He had become a doctor of theology at the age of seventeen, organized Huguenot churches in Berlin, and pastored in France, England, and Ireland. A Calvinist, his writings, such as The Truth of the Christian Religion, had battled atheism, Arianism, deism, and socinianism.

Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.

1765

Death of Richard Pococke, who had traveled extensively in the Mid East and Alps before becoming a bishop in the Church of England. He had written extensively of his Oriental travels and of visits he later made to out of the way places in England, Scotland, and Ireland while a bishop. 

Authority for the date: Dictionary of National Biography.

1789

Elias Boudinot, a representative of New Jersey, asks Congress to appoint a joint committee of the House and Senate to approach President Washington with a petition to proclaim a day of thanksgiving. This sparks vigorous debate about separation of church and state and whether the president has the authority under the constitution. In the end the resolution is approved. President Washington, mindful of the limits of his authority, requests the individual states to comply with his proclamation. 

Authority for the date: Kirkpatrick, Melanie. “Thanksgiving and America.rdquo; Imprimis (Nov 2016).

1827

Influential Methodist itinerant preacher Freeborn Garrettson exclaims, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” and dies a few hours later (at about 2 o’clock the following morning).

Authority for the date: Bangs, Freeborn Garrettson

1835

Episcopal bishops George Washington Doane, William White, and others consecrate Jackson Kemper for work on the American frontier (Missouri and Indiana). The event takes place in St. Peter’s Church, Philadelphia.

Authority for the date: Project Canterbury. anglicanhistory.org/usa/jkemper/‎

1836

Death of Luther Rice, missionary advocate. He had sailed to India as a Congregationalist, converted to Baptist views and returned to the United States to urge Baptists to form mission societies, at which he succeeded in the South. He also founded Columbian College, the first unit of George Washington University.

Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.

1879

After a lengthy stay in America to recuperate from the effects of exhaustion, Dr. Clara Swain, missionary doctor, sails from the United States to return to her medical work in India.

Authority for the date: Hoskins, Mrs. Robert. Clara A. Swain, M.D., 1912.

1892

Death in Bakwena, South Africa, of Chief Sechele, who had become interested in Christianity under the influence of David Livingstone and had united with the church two years before his death.

Authority for the date: Evangelical Christendom(September 1, 1893) 280

1897

William Raws founds America’s Keswick Colony of Mercy as a spiritual restoration center for men who have become addicted to alcohol.

Authority for the date: “America’s Keswick” (brochure).

1929

J. Gresham Machen gives the inaugural address of Westminster Seminary to a class of fifty students and some guests.

Authority for the date: Piper, John. "J. Gresham Machen's Response to Modernism." www.desiringgod.org.

1941

Death of Warren Akin Candler, a prominent figure in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the first chancellor of Emory University. A strong proponent of traditional Christian morals and a vigorous opponent of racism, he spoke out strongly against lynching and insisted on integrating the faculty of Paine Institute, a college that he had helped found to educate African-American clergy.

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

1957

Death of Baptist pastor Jove Ejovi Aganbi. Years earlier, as a young teacher, he had been flogged in Sanubi for helping destroy an idol. Leaving town, he had met a pastor who encouraged him to become a pastor, too. When Baptist leaders had asked him to work in Lagos, he declined, wanting to bring the gospel to his own people. This had offended them so greatly they cut off his financial aid. However, Aganbi had carried out his vision, establishing several churches among his people, founding schools and a Baptist hospital, and translating hymns into African languages.

Authority for the date: Dictionary of African Christian Biography.

1995

Roz Al-Yousef, an Egyptian Magazine, publishes an article by Muslim journalist Eassam Abe al-Gewad, stating that from mid-August to mid-September more than a dozen Coptic Christians have been murdered in Upper Egypt. The writer says that the murders were well organized, with defined goals, and covered up by the government.

Authority for the date: Bistawros, Baheg T. The Coptic Christians of Egypt Today: Under Threat of Annihilation.

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