JANUARY 19
Surprise Attack Left Church Planter Henry Dead in Finland (1156)
“Thou hast given us a New Covenant and hast sealed that covenant in Thy blood, O Jesus, on the cross. I now declare before Thee and before my conscienc...”
“A SOLEMN COVENANT: The Dedication of Myself to God.” by Albert Benjamin Simpson Saturday, January 19, 1861.
Scripture for little boys
Text— The Master is come, and calleth for thee. John 11:28. Motto— There are no slaves in Christ’s ser...
Events
825
Vikings wipe out the monastery on the Isle of Iona. They allow its monks to celebrate mass before slaying them.
Authority for the date: McNeill, John T. Celtic churches. Univ of Chicago.1563
Reformed scholars issue the first full edition of the Heidelberg Catechism, a Calvinist statement of faith written by Peter Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus. It will soon be accepted by nearly all of the Reformed churches in Europe.
Authority for the date: Strong, James and John McClintock. Cyclopedia Of Biblical, Theological And Ecclesiastical Literature.1803
Death in Edinburgh, Scotland, of John Erskine, an evangelical minister connected with Scotland’s eighteenth-century revivals.
Authority for the date: Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals.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.
Authority for the date: Duffield, Samuel Willoughby. English Hymns; their Authors and History. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1886.1859
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.
Authority for the date: www.lutheranhistory.org.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.”
Authority for the date: Burrage, Henry S. Baptist Hymnwriters and Their Hymns. Portland, Maine: Brown, Thurston & Co., 1888.1896
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.
Authority for the date: http://www.findagrave.com1897
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.
Authority for the date: Henry, Carl F. H. The Pacific Garden Mission. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1942.1900
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.”
Authority for the date: Nutter, Charles S. Hymn Writers of the Church. Lamar, 1915.1918
Soviets execute the Orthodox priest Peter Skipetrov who had denounced communism boldly in his sermons.
Authority for the date: http://orthodoxwiki.org1922
The Hymn Society of America is formed to improve the music and poetry of Protestant hymns and write new hymns relevant to contemporary life.
Authority for the date: Encyclopedia of Associations.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.
Authority for the date: Dictionary of African Christian Biography.