Historical Writings

In Virginia, on the first Sunday after the arrival of the Jamestown Expedition, Anglican priest Robert Hunt, 39, held the first Anglican service in the New World. Named chaplain of the expedition to Jamestown, Hunt was also the first Anglican priest to come to America.

Assassination at Paris of Henry IV of France, formerly a Huguenot, who had converted to Catholicism to become king.

Sir William Phipps arrives in Massachusetts with a new charter that ends theocratic rule in the British colony.

In Everton, England, Anglican evangelical John Berridge preaches outdoors for the first time. His message is one of salvation by grace alone: "Cease from thine own works."

Baptism of Nathanael Tajkhan, formerly a Muslim, then a Hindu, until he heard the word of God. He became a zealous convert, preaching wherever he had opportunity, although renounced by his village. He won his wife and some others to Christ before his untimely death.

During the construction of a new cathedral at Zadonsk, remains of Tikhon, the Russian Orthodox bishop of Veronezh, are uncovered incorrupt. Many miracles will be reported occurring near them and he will be named a saint. He had written spiritual works stressing love and forgiveness.

Death in South Windsor, Connecticut, of Bennet Tyler, a Congregational theologian who had served as president of Dartmouth College and was a founder of the Theological Institute of Connecticut (now Hartford Seminary). While he was president of Dartmouth, the college admitted its first African-American student.

Althea Brown, an African-American Christian, is commissioned to go to Africa as a missionary. She will die there of malaria and sleeping sickness after compiling a dictionary and grammar of the Bushoong tribal language.

Death of John Hughes, 59, Welsh rail official and church worker. During his life, Hughes composed a number of hymns, including CWM RHONDDA, to which the Church today still sings "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah."

Christian missionary/educator Minnie Vautrin gasses herself to death in Indianapolis, unable to cope with memories of wartime experiences in which she protected thousands of Chinese women from rape by Japanese invaders.

After nineteen centuries of enforced exile, the Jewish people regained their homeland when the State of Israel was formally proclaimed in Tel Aviv. On this same date, the U.S. became the first world nation to recognize the newly-refounded state of Israel.

American missionary and martyr Jim Elliot wrote in his journal: 'To believe is to act as though a thing were so. Merely saying a thing is so is no proof of my believing it.'

In the Anglican Church in England, the Rev. F. Donald Coggan, 64, was named the 101st Archbishop of Canterbury by Queen Elizabeth II, succeeding former Archbishop Michael Ramsey.

Fr Oleg Steniaev and Bishop Arseney Epifanov of Istrinsk (vicar of Patriarch Alexis II), burn books of Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Rerikh, Vladimir Soloviev, Sergei Bulgakov, Paul Florensky, and others in a church yard. The authors had written works that were considered either heretical or liberal.