Today in Christian History
January 19
825
Vikings wipe out the monastery on the Isle of Iona. They allow its monks to celebrate mass before slaying them.
1563
The Heidelberg Catechism was first published in Germany. Written by Peter Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus, it comprised a balanced statement of Calvinist tradition, and was soon after accepted by nearly all of the Reformed churches in Europe.
1568
Death of Miles Coverdale, 80, publisher of the first printed English Bible. He completed the translation of the Old Testament which William Tyndale had left unfinished at his death in 1536.
1774
Pioneer Methodist bishop Francis Asbury wrote in his journal: ‘Lord, ever draw my heart after thee! May I see no beauty in any other object, nor desire anything but thee!’
1803
Death in Edinburgh, Scotland, of John Erskine, an evangelical minister connected with Scotland’s eighteenth-century revivals.
1804
Anglican missionary to Persia Henry Martyn wrote in his journal: ‘To be made fit for the work of a missionary I resigned the comforts of a married life, …and that was a severe struggle. Now again will I put forth the hand of faith, though the struggle will be far more severe.’
1852
H.M.S. Dido reaches Banner Cove, Patagonia, and finds dead missionaries, whose diaries show that “Arise, My Soul, Arise” was one of last songs they sang.
1859
The Finnish Missionary Society is organized as the result of a decree by Csar Alexander III (Russia had occupied Finland). Its purpose is to spread Christianity in Finland although it will later conduct foreign missions.
1886
Death in Wakefield, Massachusetts (formerly South Reading), of hymnwriter Georgiana L. Heath who had written “For the Presence of the Springtime” and “Ye Soldiers of Jehovah.”
1889
The Salvation Army split, as one faction within the denomination renounced allegiance to founder William Booth. Booth’s son Ballington and his wife Maud led the American splinter group, which in 1896 incorporated itself as a separate denomination known as the Volunteers of America.
1896
Death in Oxford, Georgia, of Atticus Greene Haygood, who had been an editor, an author, and the president of Emory College, as well as a progressive bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, advocating fair treatment and full education of African Americans.
1897
Mel Trotter staggers drunk through Chicago, determined to drown himself in Lake Michigan, but comes to the Pacific Garden Mission, enters, and is converted. Three years later, alcohol-free, he heads a rescue mission in Grand Rapids and eventually founds the Mel Trotter Mission.
1900
Death in Bournemouth, England, of Henry Twells, a clergyman in the Church of England, a preacher of power and author of the hymn “At Even, E’er the Sun Was Set.”
1918
Soviets execute the Orthodox priest Peter Skipetrov who had denounced communism boldly in his sermons.
1922
The Hymn Society of America is formed to improve the music and poetry of Protestant hymns and write new hymns relevant to contemporary life.
1947
An outpouring of God’s Spirit follows a fervent prayer by the seminarian Raymond Buana Kibongui at the Undergraduate Bible Seminary of Ngouedi (in what is now known as the Republic of Congo). Swedish missionaries and Congolese seminarians and pastors had been praying for a spiritual revival.
