Historical Writings

George Herbert is ordained as a Church of England priest. Three years later, he will be dead of tuberculosis but on his sickbed will have written timeless religious poems.

Baptist pioneer missionary J. Hudson Taylor, 21, set sail from England to China. In 1865, Taylor founded the China Inland Mission, now known as Overseas Missionary Fellowship. Its U.S. branch is HQ'd today in Robesonia, PA.

Death of George Arthur, penal reformer, in Tasmania.

Attending a prayer meeting in Dunedin, New Zealand, Florence Young is terrified at the thought of Christ’s Second Coming until suddenly she realizes that the promise of Isaiah 43:25 applies to her: “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake.” Thereafter she is able to serve the Lord with gladness, and eventually will be instrumental in founding and operating the South Sea Evangelical Mission.

Cheka Communists execute Vyrubova and Kalerina, Orthodox nuns at St. John the Theologian in Cherdyn, Perm province. The charge is "counter-revolutionary agitation."

The Carpatho-Russian Diocese of the Eastern Rite of the U.S.A. was canonized as a diocese of the Greek Orthodox Church. Father Orestes Chornock, Orthodox bishop of Agathonikia, was made Metropolitan of the new diocese.

The first Baptist church was organized in Anchorage. (Prior to this date, there had been no Baptist church in Anchorage, and only one Baptist church in all the rest of the state of Alaska.)

American missionary and martyr Jim Elliot wrote in his journal: 'Father, make of me a "crisis man." Make of me a fork, so that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.'

Death of William F. Albright, 80, American Methodist archaeologist. Professor of Semitic languages at Johns Hopkins for nearly 30 years, he penned over 1,000 articles and books, and led several Near Eastern expeditions which excavated the biblical sites of Gibeah, Bethel and Petra.

Death of Abba Gebre Michael, an Ethiopian Catholic, who had translated several prayer books into the Amharic language.