Historical Writings

Death of Otgar, archbishop of Mainz, an event made all the more memorable because Rabanus Maurus, a famous educator and scholar, will be unanimously elected as his successor.

Death of Anselm of Canterbury, English theologian, author of the ontological argument for the existence of God, and a father of medieval scholasticism.

Death at Cluny of theologian Pierre Abelard, whose "conceptualism" changed the development of philosophy. He will be remembered for seducing his student Heloise. Although often accused of heresy, he remained a popular teacher.

A stroke leaves Roman Catholic mystic Catherine of Siena paralyzed from the waist down.

Twelve Jesuit priests, sent by Ignatius of Loyola, arrive in Prague to help Canisius found a college in the heart of Hussite country. They face jeers and threats until the Archduke of Bohemia deploys guards and threatens severe penalties against any injury done them.

William Bradford is chosen governor of Plymouth Colony when his predecessor John Carver dies suddenly.

The Toleration Act was passed by the Maryland Assembly. It protected Roman Catholics within the American colony against Protestant harassment, which had been rising as Oliver Cromwell's power in England increased.

Birth of English churchman and hymnwriter Reginald Heber. Heber published his first hymn at 28, and among his best remembered today are: "Holy, Holy, Holy," "The Son of God Goes Forth to War" and "From Greenland's Icy Mountains."

English churchman John Henry Newman wrote in a letter to his sister: 'May I be patient! It is so difficult to make real what one believes, and to make these trials, as they are intended, real blessings.'

Rev. Henry Lipowsky, a former lieutenant in the Austrian Army, opens the first Bohemian-American church in the United States, the St. John Nepomuk Church of St. Louis, Missouri.

Sunday school teacher Edward Kimball visits the Holton Shoe Store in Boston, Massachusetts, where Dwight L. Moody works, finds him in a stockroom, and speaks to him of the love of Christ. Shortly thereafter, Moody is converted and devotes his life to serving God, becoming a notable American evangelist.

Thomas Huxley first publicly uses the word "agnostic" at a meeting of the London Metaphysical Society to describe intellectuals who, like himself, are unable to come to certain conclusions on big issues such as the existence of God.

Leo XIII published the encyclical, "Inscrutabili dei consilio." It outlined a program of reconciling the Catholic Church with modern civilization, many of its details reversing policies of his predecessor, Pius IX.

Birth of A. W. Tozer, one of the most popular and influential pastors to come out of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church. Tozer was also a prolific writer, and his best- known publications include "The Pursuit of God" (1948) and "The Root of Righteousness" (1955).

While rushing to assist a dying man in Labrador, missionary-doctor Wilfred Grenfell is trapped on an ice-pan (a small flat sheet of ice) and almost loses his life when it floats into the ocean.

On his twenty-seventh birthday, while laying bricks, John Ajayi Agbona hears a voice calling him to ministry with the Christ Apostolic Mission Church of Nigera. He obeys and will be instrumental in founding eighty churches in five nations as well as schools in Nigeria. His work will often be accompanied by miraculous healings.

Egypt grants the Coptic Orthodox Church of Mayiet Bara a permit to repair its toilet, publishing the edict in a semi-official newspaper. This outrages Christians and moderate Muslims because it highlights their long-standing complaint that even the simple repair of a lavatory in a Christian house of worship cannot proceed without the written consent of the Minister of the Interior.