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AUGUST

29, 1782 --England. The Royal George, the first ship carrying Bibles for the seamen of the Royal navy, has been sent by the Bible Society of London. The Society was organized two years ago to supply English soldiers with copies of the Word of God. Today, the Royal George sinks off Spithead. The Bible Society will change its name to the Naval and Military Bible Society.

29, 1792 --Connecticut. At Warren, Litchfield County, Charles Grandison Finney is born. As a young man he will enter a law office in Adams, New York of which time he will later say, he was "almost as ignorant of religion as a heathen." His curiosity will be excited by quotations from the Bible in his law books, and will purchase his first copy of Scripture and will begin to attend prayer meetings, and church services. He will describe his conversion experience as following great mental agony, and long and fervent prayer: "the Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body, and soul. I could feel the impression like a wave of electricity going through and through me." He will forsake his law practice and will be received under the care of the Presbytery.
     "Instead of telling sinners to use the means of grace, and pray for a new heart," he confesses, "I called upon them to make themselves a new heart and spirit, and pressed the duty of immediate surrender to God."
     He will institute the "altar call" calling upon his audiences to go forward to the "anxious bench." It has been unknown until now.
     Mr. Finney will deny the doctrine of imputation, and will espouse the universality of atonement. To Mr. Finney, Regeneration consists in an act of the Holy Spirit. Such doctrinal divergences will be strongly opposed by men as Asahel Nettleton and Lyman Beecher.

29, 1824 --France. Felix Neff, a former student of Robert Haldane in Geneva, and who has gone to help the languishing Waldensian Church, today opens and dedicates a church he has helped build for the inhabitants of Violens, a hamlet high in the Alps.

29 -31, 1897 --Switzerland. In the city of Basel, two hundred and four delegates assemble and draw up what will come to be known as the "Basel Program." It states the object of Zionism is "to establish for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine."

29, 1912 --England. Today in London, the funeral of William Booth will be conducted. He is the "General" of the Salvation Army.

30, 258 --Africa. In Carthage, Cyprian, bishop here, refuses to sacrifice to the pagan gods before the Roman proconsul Aspasius Paternus. He firmly confesses Christ. As a result, on September 14th, he will die by the sword. His most remembered saying is thus given a truer meaning: "Outside the Church there is no salvation."

    
 

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