Justin, Martyr

1096 The Jews of Trier (Treves) appealed to Bishop Egilbert to save them from rampaging crusaders. He agreed, but only if they were baptized. Many women preferred to die, kill their children and throw themselves into the River Moselle.

1265 Poet and politician Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy, was born in Florence, Italy (d. 13/14 September 1321).

1618 Johann Franck, hymnist, was born in Guben, Brandenburg (d. 18 June 1677).

1637 Martin Opitz (15971639), hymnist, was installed as historiographer to King Wladislaw IV of Poland.

1639 Melchior Franck, composer, died at Koburg (b. ca. 1579).

1657 Five Quakers from England arrived on Manhattan Island and were immediately imprisoned by the local government. Eight days later they were released on the condition that they leave the area and go to Rhode Island.

1661 James Guthrie, Scottish Covenanter pastor, was executed for saying that Christ, not King Charles of England, was the head of the church.

1689 Spanish missionaries formally established the mission of San Francisco de los Tejos in Texas.

1700 Gloria Dei Church, Philadelphia, was dedicated.

1727 Diego Jose Abad y Sanchez, Jesuit scholar, was born in La Lagunita, Mexico (d. 1779). He entered religious life in 1727 (?), and after a successful career as educator in rhetoric, philosophy, theology and law (canon and civil), as a Jesuit he was expelled from the Spanish Empire in 1767 and took to writing in Ferrara, Italy. His noted work De deo deoque homine heroica (1773) is a verse treatise on God intended for young Mexicans. His scholarly dedication extended to studying medicine and thereby prolonging his life when the doctors were powerless.

1741 The Presbyterian Church in the North American colonies split into New Sides (New School) vs. Old Sides (Old School) over revival methods. The factions reunited seventeen years later.

1793 Henry Francis Lyte, Scottish clergyman and hymnist, was born in Edham, Ireland (d. 20 November 1847).

1798 Simeon B. Marsh, American chorister, composer and newspaper editor, was born at Sherburne, New York (d. 14 July 1875).

1823 Reginald Heber (17831826), hymnist, was consecrated as a missionary to India.

1825 Jakob Aall Ottesen, who helped organize the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was born in Christiana (Oslo), Norway (d. 30 October 1904).

1826 Jean-FrÈdÈric Oberlin (b. 3 August 1740), German Lutheran philanthropist, died. At age twenty-seven he began a ministry among the poverty stricken in a desolate area between Alsace and Lorraine, a work he would continue for the next sixty years. His name is preserved in America through the Ohio town and college which bear his name.

1826 “The Exile’s Departure,” a poem by the American Quaker John Greenleaf Whittier (18071892), was published by William Lloyd Garrison (18051879).

1843 Isabella Baumfree (ca. 17971883), having received a vision of God telling her to “travel up an’ down the land showin’ the people their sins an’ bein’ a sign unto them,” left New York and changed her name to Sojourner Truth. She became one of the most famous abolitionists and women’s rights lecturers in American history.

1849 James H. Fillmore, American music publisher, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio (d. 8 February 1936).

1854 Emily Chubbuck Judson, the third wife of Burma missionary Adoniram Judson (17881850), died.

1884 Niels Christian Carlsen, United Evangelical Lutheran Church president and leader, was born in Denmark (d. 6 February 1950).

1893 The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church defrocked Charles Augustus Briggs (18411913), professor of biblical theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, on conviction of teaching heresy.

1936 John Alfred Morehead, president of the Lutheran seminary in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (1898–1903; now in Columbia, South Carolina) and of Roanoke College (19031919), died (b. 4 February 1867).

1940 Alfred F. Loisy (b. 28 February 1857), the French founder of modernism in the Roman Catholic Church, died.

1952 The last LCMS missionary left China.

1959 The Lutheran ChurchCanada, a federation of LCMS districts, was chartered by the Canadian Parliament.

1972 Watchman Nee (b. 1903), Chinese devotional writer, died.

1977 The Sumatran Lutheran Hour broadcast its first program.

1977 Beverly Messenger-Harris, one of the first women to be ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A., became that denomination’s first female rector at age twenty-eight when she took up her duties at Gethsemane Episcopal Church in Oneida, New York.

1978 The Evangelical Free Baptist Church was incorporated by the state of Illinois in Du Page County. The denomination withdrew from the Southern Baptist Convention following a doctrinal dispute.

1981 Alfred C. Seltz died at Fergus Falls, Minnesota (b. 26 June 1904, Antrim Township, Minnesota). He was a 1927 graduate of Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) and served parishes at Plummer, Ogema, Frazee, Gorman Township and Alexandria, Minnesota. Seltz was a vice-president of the Minnesota District of the Missouri Synod from 1951 to 1963 and became the first president of the Minnesota North District when the Minnesota District divided in 1963, holding that position until 1970.

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