Historical Writings

Pope Innocent IV approves Clare's rule for the Poor Clares.

French bishops declare Pope Urban VI's election invalid because of the mob pressure put on them to elect an Italian pope. However, Urban's overbearing behavior is the real reason for the action. Thus begins the Great Schism in which two and three popes rule at once.

English Parliament orders Roger Williams’s book The Bloudy Tenent to be burned by the public hangman. Bloudy Tenent is an appeal for liberty of conscience against the “bloudy” practice of persecution.

English founder of Methodism John Wesley wrote in a letter: 'You have but one Pattern; follow Him inwardly and outwardly. If other believers will go step for step with you, well; but if not, follow Him!'

Birth of Adoniram Judson, American Baptist missionary. He first sailed to Burma in 1812, and spent nearly all of his remaining 38 years in missionary and literacy work there. Judson translated the entire Bible into Burmese by 1834.

Mary Groves Müller gives birth to a still-born babe. Her husband chides himself for not having more seriously considered the peril of child-bearing so as to pray more earnestly, and acknowledges that he has not rejoiced in the prospect of parenthood as a blessing but rather dreaded it as a burden and hindrance in the Lord's work.

Death of Karl F. A. Guetzlaff, first German Lutheran missionary to China, in Victoria, Hong Kong.

Death of Robert Moffat, pioneer missionary to southern Africa. The father-in-law of David Livingstone, one of his achievements was to translate the Bible into the Sechvana language.

Birth of Kenneth Scott Latourette, Baptist church historian. Teaching at Yale from 1921-53, his greatest writings were his 7-volume History of the Expansion of Christianity (1937-45) and 5-volume Christianity in a Revolutionary Age (1958-62). Latourette died a bachelor.

Death of hymnwriter William H. Draper at Clifton, Bristol. He had translated into English the hymn "All Creatures of Our God and King" by Francis of Assisi.

English Bible expositor Arthur W. Pink wrote in a letter: 'Waiting on the Lord (Isa. 40:31, etc.) describes an attitude of soul when we are engaged in true prayer, but waiting for the Lord is the exercise of patience while His answer tarries.'

The United States drops an atomic bomb on Urakami (Nagasaki), killing many Christians. One who survived was Fujie. She found her cousin Sojiro so burned she could only guess who he was from the shape of his lips. "Ah, Fujie," he said. "Take me to the church...I want to confess to the father. I want the sacrament." After helping him to the priest, she went back to search for her mother but discovered that the elderly woman, who had spent much of her time in prayer, had been vaporized.

Arrest of Jesuit bishop Tsiang Beda of Shanghai. Chinese officials had asked him to head China's state-run church and he refused. He will die in prison.

The Church of the Lutheran Confession adopted its constitution at a convention held at Watertown, South Dakota. The denomination was formally organized the following January (1961) at Sleepy Eye, Minnesota.

St. Herman, "Wonderworker of All America," is glorified with a solemn liturgy at Holy Resurrection Orthodox Cathedral on Kodiak Island, Alaska, with simultaneous rites taking place at other Orthodox centers.

Zareef Moreed Iskander, a Christian building contractor from Beni Khalid, Egypt, is murdered by militant Muslims, who accuse him of working on a church without a building permit.