OCTOBER 20
Dying Schaff Placed His Trust in Christ (1893)
“Mr. Spurgeon is a preacher who hurls damnation at the heads of his sinful hearers. Some men there are who, taking their precepts from Holy Writ, would...”
Drummond, Lewis. Spurgeon, Prince of Preachers.
Envy makes the bones rot (1828)
Envy makes the bones rot—Proverbs 14:30 (ESV). We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another&mda...
Events
1349
Pope Clement VI condemns self-flagellation. The practice had arisen two hundred years ealier, initiated by the monk Peter Damien as a means to help himself suppress his lusts.
Authority for the date: Morgan, Robert J. On This Day. Nelson, 1997.1629
John Winthrop is elected governor of Massachusetts Bay. His journal will become a treasure mine for historians.
Authority for the date: Britannica.1820
Tsar Nicholas I issues a decree for resettling Molokans to the remote Caucasus. This small, independent-minded, and somewhat quirky Christian sect was Bible-centered and rejected icons, priests, and church buildings.
Authority for the date: Anar Alizade, Christianity in Azerbaijan1842
Death from consumption of 27-year-old Grace Darling in Northumberland, England. Daughter of a lighthouse operator, she had gained honor four years earlier by persuading her father to assist her in rowing through terrifying waves to rescue nine shipwrecked women and children who had been abandoned by sailors. An admiring public had taken up a £700 subscription to reward her, but she had refused to let that honor or offers of marriage go to her head.
Authority for the date: Chambers Book of Days, 1881.1913
Death of Mary Lathbury, “the Saint of Chautauqua.” She wrote the hymns “Break Thou the Bread of Life” and “Day Is Dying in the West.”
Authority for the date: Cyberhymnal.1949
The last of the Inklings’ Thursday meetings is held this evening. This group of Christians associated with Oxford included such notable thinkers as J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield.
Authority for the date: Carpenter, Humphrey. The Inklings. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1979.