Historical Writings

Death of Bishop Ethelwold. His emphasis had been to repair the spiritual damage left by Danish invasions, to promote the Benedictine order, and build monasteries and nunneries. The English people consider him a saint because he sold the treasures of the church to feed the poor. Objects could be replaced, he said, but lives are not replaceable.

Death of John of Plano Carpini, emissary of the pope to the Mongols. He had traveled great distances to protest the invasion of Christian lands and assess the strength and goals of the Tatars.

German reformer Martin Luther wrote in a letter: 'Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for He is victorious over sin, death, and the world.'

Wu Yushan is consecrated as a Catholic priest at Nanjing by the Chinese bishop Luo Wenzao. Wu's sermons will become the first collection by a Chinese Christian.

Death in Schenectady, New York, of Jonathan Edwards, Jr., son of the famous Jonathan Edwards and of his vivacious wife, Sarah Pierpont. Edwards had learned the Mohican language, was a strictly orthodox pastor and theologian, and became the president of Union College shortly before his death.

Death of Elizabeth Inchbald, a beautiful actress, who, after the death of her husband, had made her living as a popular dramatist and novelist. Frugal, she had gone cold and hungry herself in order to have enough to help others. Uneasy at publishing a memoir she had written, she accepted the advice of her Roman Catholic spiritual advisor, and destroyed its four volumes for which she had been offered the magnificent sum of £1,000.

Death of Robert Morrison, 52, the first English Protestant missionary to reach China. Sent by the London Missionary Society in 1807, in 1823 he completed a Chinese translation of the Bible - it filled 23 volumes!

Birth of Walther Eichrodt, German Reformed Old Testament scholar. He taught at Basel and Erlangen universities, and is highly regarded among Christian evangelicals today for his Theology of the Old Testament (1933-39).

On his twenty-third birthday, Vladimir Nikolsky becomes a monk in the Russian Orthodox Church, taking the name Andronicus. He will go on to become an archbishop and a martyr under the Soviet regime.

Anglican missionaries Robert Warren Stewart, his wife Louise, their two children and seven other Christians are butchered in China.

Czechoslovakian law says that any priest consecrated without permission of the state is to go to prison for three years - robbing the church of its perogative to choose its own representatives.

English apologist C.S. Lewis wrote in a letter: 'How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, it is irresistible.'

Following her graduation from rabbinical college in Philadelphia, Linda Joy Holtzman was appointed spiritual leader of the Conservative Beth Israel congregation in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, making her the first female rabbi to head a Jewish congregation in America.

Isaiah Ghele Sakpo, a leader, evangelist, and prophet in Nigeria's Apostolic Church, inaugurates the LAWNA Evangelical Defense Force (LAWNA stands for "Lagos, West and Northern Areas"), a movement whose task is to promote evangelism, prayer, and other spiritual activities among members.