MARCH 20
Jealous Religious Leaders Kicked Gossner out of Russia (1858)
“This agent is about the same in appearance as Mebalwe, and speaks Portuguese as the Griquas do Dutch. He has two chainsful of women going to be sold f...”
Blaikie, William Garden. The Personal Life Of David Livingstone. Edinburgh, 1880.
Enjoy the Happy Effects of Christ’s Incarnation (1874)
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him—1 Corinthians 2:9...
Events
687
Death of Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, who had been a vocal supporter of Celtic church practices against Roman practices until the Synod of Whitby opted to adhere to Roman practices.
Authority for the date: Standard encyclopedias.1212
On the evening of Palm Sunday, Clare of Assisi leaves her father's house accompanied by an aunt to meet Francis of Assisi. She has her hair cut and exchanges her rich gown for a plain robe and veil, in a move that will result in the creation of the second Franciscan order, the Poor Clares.
Authority for the date: The Catholic Encyclopedia1473
Kneeling in the confessional, Catherine of Genoa experiences an overpowering sense of her faults and of the world’s misery, owing to its sin against the goodness of God, and she nearly swoons. Transported by love for God, she lives the remainder of her life (d.1510) in an unusually heightened spiritual state.
Authority for the date: Pope Benedict XVI “General Audience.” www.vatican.va.1612
Polish forces attack the Blue Jay Lake monastery near Novgorod and kill Euphrosynus, its founder, because he does not have valuables to turn over to them as ransom for his life.
Authority for the date: https://oca.org.1653
[Old Style] Oliver Cromwell’s government creates a court of forty-three commissioners to examine all ministers who are awarded church positions in England to certify their fitness for ministerial service.
Authority for the date: Dale, R.W. History of English Congregationalism.1661
Death at St. Mary’s College, St. Andrews, Scotland, of famed Presbyterian preacher and author Samuel Rutherford (March 29 and 30 are also sometimes given).
Authority for the date: Bonar, A.A. Letters of the Rev. Samuel Rutherford. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1863.1757
Evangelist William Romaine preaches at St. Mary’s, Oxford, on “the Lord our righteousness” and gives such offense to the self-righteous scholars that he is barred from ever preaching there again.
Authority for the date: Ryle, J.C. Five Christian Leaders of the eighteenth century. London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1960.1799
Believing himself eternally damned, William Cowper writes his last poem “The Castaway,” in which he compares himself to a man who has fallen off a ship in a storm and has to be abandoned by his shipmates. Cowper is well-known in English literature as a precursor of the Romantic movement and also wrote such hymns as “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood,” and “O for a Closer Walk with God.”
Authority for the date: Cowper, William. Poems of William Cowper, Esq., with a New Memoir.1873
In a letter to an assembly of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, W. H. Miles, their only living bishop, urges them to elect three more because the denomination has grown so large one or two bishops can no longer oversee it.
Authority for the date: Phillips, C. H. History of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America.