Historical Writings

Death of Leonard Euler, in St. Petersburg. He had been a notable mathematician and a dedicated Christian apologist. In the latter capacity, he experienced the gibes of Voltaire and of Frederick the Great.

Death of Elie Neau, a French Huguenot. Because of persecution, he had fled to the New World. Captured by a French corsair, he had been returned to France where efforts were made to force him to convert to Catholicism. Having refused to give way, he was kept three years in prison, a year in the galleys, and another year in a dungeon until England obtained his release. He had said to one captor, "Sir, do not pity me, for could you but see the secret pleasures my heart experiences, you would think me happy." Later, living in the United States, he ran a school for slaves.

The first American congregation of Dunkards (German Baptists) gathered in Philadelphia, PA.

The Sunday School Society was formed in London, under the leadership of Robert Raikes. It provided weekly Christian tutoring for the poor. Eventually 3,730 schools were formed, and their success ultimately inspired the founding in 1824 of the American Sunday School Union.

Protestant Christianity first came to China when English missionary Robert Morrison, 25, arrived on this date. (Catholic missions had first penetrated China in the 16th century with the arrival of Jesuit Matteo Ricci in 1582.)

Samuel Marsden is shipwrecked while sailing to take the gospel to the Maori of New Zealand.

Death of Hannah More, Christian playwriter, Sunday school leader, and philanthropist.

St. Louis, Missouri, became the site of the first Hebrew synagogue to be built in the Mississippi Valley.

Death of Starets (Elder) Macarius, who had translated many Greek texts of the holy fathers into Russian, bringing renown to the Optina Monastery.

Sir Michael Costa’s oratorio Naaman receives its first performance—at the Birmingham Festival in England, the same venue which nineteen years earlier had premiered Mendelssohn’s Elijah.

The cornerstone is laid for Ida Scudder's mission hospital at Vellore, India.

The Lutherans of Betafo-Ambohimanarina, Madagascar, unite in a prayer vigil for a confrontation between pastor Daniel Rajaofera and a local sorcerer that is to take place the next day. As it turns out, the sorcerer fails badly and many idolaters burn their idols on September ninth.

The first cathedral of the Syrian Orthodox Church in the U.S. and Canada was dedicated in Hackensack, NJ. The American archdiocese for this branch of Orthodoxy was created the previous year by Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Yacoub III.

Death in Chicago of Luigi (Louis) Francescon, a pioneer in the Italian Pentecostal movement, and an international missionary who participated in the formation of Pentecostal fellowships in Argentina, Brazil, and the US