SEPTEMBER 4
THOMAS GILLESPIE: THE MAN WITH THE STRAIT-LACED CONSCIENCE (1741)
“Abide with me fast falls the eventide The darkness deepens Lord with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abid...”
Hatfield, Edwin F. The Poets of the Church. New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, 1884.
Serve where you are (1892)
... but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by s...
Events
422
Death of Pope St. Boniface I, who was awarded the papacy by Imperial decree. Boniface had supported Augustine of Hippo against Pelagianism.
Authority for the date: Brusher, Joseph. Popes Through the Ages. Neff-Kane, 1980.1646
Johann Companius dedicates the first Lutheran church in America in the Swedish colonial settlement Christina, near present-day Wilmington, Delaware, on Tinicum Island.
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.1666
The Great Fire of London destroys old St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.1741
Thomas Gillespie becomes the minister of Carnock in Fife. He becomes a strong advocate of allowing Presbyterian congregations to choose their own ministers, rather than having one appointed by the general assembly.
Authority for the date: Larsen, Timothy T., David W. Bebbington, and Mark Noll. Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals. IVP Academic, 20031771
Francis Asbury boards ship for America, where he will so organize and extend the Methodist church that by his death it will have grown from being one of America’s smallest denominations to being its largest.
Authority for the date: Nygaard, Norman Eugene. Bishop on Horseback: the story of Francis Asbury. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1962.1773
Some of the priests of the Canonical Chapter of Castellena protest having to do homage and pay tithe to a woman “bishop” (abbess) in Naples.
Authority for the date: Morris, Joan. The Lady was a Bishop.1817
The Dutch announce plans to reorganize the Protestant churches in the Dutch Indies (Indonesia).
Authority for the date: A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, 1450–1990, edited by Klaus Koschorke, Frueder Ludwig,1844
Death of Oliver Holden, composer and American Puritan clergyman, in Boston, Massachusetts. He had written CORONATION, the tune to which we sing the hymn “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.”
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.1846
Death of David Abeel. A pioneer missionary to Batavia, he had also been instrumental in organizing the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East.
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.1911
Sergius Petrovich Ilmensky, an Orthodox priest, becomes editor of “The Saratov Theological Herald.” His increasing prominence will cause him to be made bishop of Solikamsk six years later (taking the name Theophanes) but the Communists will drown him on Christmas Eve 1918 while he is administering the diocese of Perm by their command.
Authority for the date: Moss, Vladimir. Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of the Urals, Siberia and Central Asia.1977
Trans World Radio begins broadcasting from its newest station, a 100,000-watt shortwave transmitter in Guam.
Authority for the date: Berg, Jerome S. Broadcasting on the Short Waves, 1945 to Today.