Historical Writings

Death in Jerusalem of Godfrey of Bouillon, a crusader who became king of Jerusalem.

Canonization of theologian Thomas Aquinas, author of Summa Theologica and Summa Contra Gentiles. He had synthesized Aristotelian thought with Christian.

Birth of Heinrich Bullinger, Swiss reformer. He continued Zwingli's work afterhis death at Kappel (1531), and composed the Second Helvetic Confession in 1566.

Death of Georg Neumark, German educator, hymnwriter, and composer, in Thuringia. One of his best known hymns is, "If Thou but Suffer God to Guide Thee."

Papal guards arrest the influential Quietist spiritual leader Miguel de Molinos, internationally renowned for his Spiritual Guide. He will die in prison after mistreatment and torture.

Death of Baptist leader Benjamin Keach. Years earlier, he had been fined and pilloried for a work entitled A Child's Instructor which rejected infant baptism.

Birth of Lemuel Haynes, colonial American Congregational clergyman. In 1785,Haynes, 32, was ordained to a church in Torrington, Connecticut, making him the firstAfrican-American to pastor a white church.

Death at Fulham of Thomas Sherlock, bishop of London, notable for defences of the Christian faith.

Death of Jane Austen in her sister Cassandra's arms. Suffering Addison's disease, the author is just forty-one years old. She will be remembered as one of the greatest novelists of the English language, but had also written fervent prayers which demonstrated Christian faith.

The Vatican I Ecumenical Council issued the proclamation 'Pastor Aeternus,'declaring the pope's primacy and infallibility in deciding faith and moral matters. (FewProtestants agree with this doctrine.)

American philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson noted: 'Great men are theywho see that spiritual is stronger than material, that thoughts rule the world.'

Wasyl Swystun and a group of thirty influential Orthodox laymen summon one hundred and fifty-four delegates to Saskatoon, Canada, where they discuss what they consider to be the unsatisfactory direction the church in the Ukraine and the Russian Orthodox mission in Canada are headed and vote to take steps that will lead to the creation of the Ukrainian Greek-Orthodox Church of Canada.

Azer Ata is ordained a priest in Egypt. He will become pope of the Coptic church in 1959, taking the name Kyrillos VI.

German theologian and Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from prison: 'Thereligious act is always something partial; "faith" is something whole, involving the wholeof one's life. Jesus calls us not to new religion but to life.'

Death of Josiah Mutabuzi Isaya Kibira, a leader in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania and an advocate of ecumenism.