FEBRUARY 17
James Renwick Was the Last of Many Scots Martyrs (1688)
“Be content with no degree of sanctification. Be always crying out, Lord, let me know more of myself and of thee.”
Whitefield, George. Letter CCLXII to Mrs. S_______, Works. I, 245.
Make Use of the Least Gift (1877)
The kingdom of heaven is like yeast, St. Matthew 13:33 (NIV). Thought.— God needs little to do much. What is small...
Events
661
Death of Finan, bishop of Lindisfarne (an island in the North Sea), who had sought to preserve Celtic customs against Roman influence.
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.1600
Pantheist philosopher and occult practitioner Giordano Bruno is burned alive by secular authorities to whom the Roman Inquisition hands him over after an eight year investigation and trial.
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.1791
Methodist evangelist John Wesley becomes ill after preaching at Lambeth and will die on March 2nd.
Authority for the date: Hatfield, Edwin. The Poets of the Church. New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, 1884.1821
Levi Parsons arrives in Jerusalem, the first Protestant missionary to found a permanent mission in that city.
Authority for the date: Jessup, Henry. Fifty Three Years in Syria.1828
Representative John Quincy Adams comments in his diary on the overly-crowded conditions of the church that meets inside the Capitol building in Washington.
Authority for the date: John Quincy Adams, Memoirs, Vol. VII.1898
Death of Frances Willard, a Methodist crusader for prohibition and women’s rights.
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.1912
Death of John Nelson “Praying” Hyde, who had served as a missionary in India. His last words were, “Shout the victory of Jesus Christ!” He had recently undergone surgery for a malignant tumor of the brain.
Authority for the date: Miller, Basil. Praying Hyde. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1953.1926
Arrest of Dr. Kao, a Chinese Christian who had moved into the pagan city of Gan-djou to act as a Christian witness. Authorities are angry at him for exposing criminal activities in the city government. He will suffer in jail for many months.
Authority for the date: Platt, J. Three Women: Mildred Cable, Francesca French, Eva French. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1964.1977
Death of Orestes (Chornock) of Agathonikeia, who had helped draw thirty-seven Catholic uniate parishes in North America back to Orthodoxy after years of conflict with Rome, which wanted to Latinize the churches and end priestly marriages. Orestes became the first ruling bishop of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese.
Authority for the date: orthodoxwiki.org.2001
Death of Richard Wurmbrandt, Romanian-born founder of the Voice of the Martyrs and of ministries to Eastern Europe during the Communist era.
Authority for the date: World.2008
Two members of the Home Guard, bribed by a man who is furious that his wife converted to Christianity, assassinate Pastor Samson Neil Edirisinghe in Ampara, Sri Lanka, critically injuring Edirisinghe’s wife and wounding their two-year-old son.
Authority for the date: Persecuted: the global assault on Christians.