Historical Writings

Death of Sergius of Radonezh, a monastic reformer, and one of the most revered saints of Russia. His reforms had emphasized that monks should live by their own labor. Forty groups went out from his original monastery, the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, settling in difficult places that they cultivated until they became centers of expanding civilization.

The Peace of Augsburg was signed, resolving bitter disputes between Protestants and Catholics in the German states. Its wider significance, however, meant that both the political unity of Germany and the medieval unity of Christendom was permanently dissolved.

Members of the Westminster Assembly and the Scottish Commissioners subscribe to the Solemn League and Covenant, allying Parliament with the Scots Covenanters.

Death of Jacques Abbadie. He had become a doctor of theology at the age of seventeen, organized Huguenot churches in Berlin, and pastored in France, England, and Ireland. A Calvinist, his writings, such as The Truth of the Christian Religion, had battled atheism, Arianism, deism, and socinianism.

Death of Richard Pococke, who had traveled extensively in the Mid East and Alps before becoming a bishop in the Church of England. He had written extensively of his Oriental travels and of visits he later made to out of the way places in England, Scotland, and Ireland while a bishop.

The establishment of religion on a national level was expressly prohibited in the U.S. with the adoption of the First Amendment, the opening words of which read: 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' Final ratification of the First Amendment came in 1791.

Episcopal bishops George Washington Doane, William White, and others consecrate Jackson Kemper for work on the American frontier (Missouri and Indiana). The event takes place in St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia.

Death of Luther Rice, missionary advocate. He had sailed to India as a Congregationalist, converted to Baptist views and returned to the United States to urge Baptists to form mission societies, at which he succeeded in the South. He also founded Columbian College, the first unit of George Washington University.

Death of Peter Cartwright, 87, early American Methodist circuit rider. Converted at age 29, Cartwright possessed a rough, uneducated and eccentric personality; but he spent over 50 of his 87 years spreading the Gospel through the Midwestern frontiers of Kentucky and Illinois.

After a lengthy stay in America to recuperate from the effects of exhaustion, Dr. Clara Swain, missionary doctor, sails from the United States to return to her medical work in India.

Polygamy was officially banned by the Mormon Church. (This announcement followed on the heels of an 1890 Supreme Court ruling denying all privileges of U.S. citizenship to Mormons who practiced this outlawed form of marriage.)

William Raws founds America's Keswick Colony of Mercy as a spiritual restoration center for men who have become addicted to alcohol.

Death of English Old Testament textual scholar Henry A. Redpath, 60. From 1892-1906, Redpath and Edwin Hatch compiled "A Concordance to the Septuagint and Other Greek Versions of the Old Testament"-- still in print today!

J. Gresham Machen gives the inaugural address of Westminster Seminary to a class of fifty students and some guests.

Death of Warren Akin Candler, a prominent figure in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the first chancellor of Emory University. A strong proponent of traditional Christian morals and a vigorous opponent of racism, he spoke out strongly against lynching and insisted on integrating the faculty of Paine Institute, a college that he had helped found to educate African-American clergy.

Death of Baptist pastor Jove Ejovi Aganbi. Years earlier, as a young teacher, he had been flogged in Sanubi for helping destroy an idol. Leaving town, he had met a pastor who encouraged him to become a pastor, too. When Baptist leaders had asked him to work in Lagos, he declined, wanting to bring the gospel to his own people. This had offended them so greatly they cut off his financial aid. However, Aganbi had carried out his vision, establishing several churches among his people, founding schools and a Baptist hospital, and translating hymns into African languages.

Roz Al-Yousef, an Egyptian Magazine, publishes an article by Muslim journalist Eassam Abe al-Gewad, stating that from mid-August to mid-September more than a dozen Coptic Christians have been murdered in Upper Egypt. The writer says that the murders were well organized, with defined goals, and covered up by the government.