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JUNE

 9, 1834 --India. William Carey dies having labored in India for forty-one years. Through his efforts and those who have labored here with him, 1.) The Sacrifice of children at the great annual festival at Guriga Sauger is prohibited; 2.) Suttee, or the immolation of widows on the burning pyres of their dead husbands, is also abolished; 3.) A Benevolent institution for instructing the children of Indigent parents of Portuguese, Greek, American, and others has been established in Calcutta; 4.) A Leper Hospital has been established; 5.) The First Newspaper in the Vernacular of the People has been established; 6.) The Scriptures have been translated into forty languages and Dialects; and 7.) A Bible School has also been established at Serampore, which Mr. J. B. Myers declares had one prominent feature: “ ...its unsectarian character, the right of conscience being most carefully respected.”
    He dies quoting,

 “A wretched, poor, and helpless worm,
On Thy kind arms I fall.”

9, 1847 --Scotland. William Chalmers Burns sails for China. He is the first missionary to China sent by the English Presbyterian Society. Adopting Chinese dress, he will become one of the most respected missionaries of all times. He will translate John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress into Chinese.

10, 1190 --Turkey. In Pisidia, Frederick I, known as Barbarossa, or “Red Beard”, is drowned while crossing a river, leading his men in the Third Crusade. King Richard I, “the Lion-Hearted”, of England, and Philip II of France, and Frederick of the Holy Roman Empire have taken the sign of the cross to rid the “Holy Sepulchre” of the cursed Moslem infidels. In 1184, Frederick Barbarossa pledged the support of the secular arm for the suppression of heresy.”

10, 1610 --Virginia. Captain John Smith wrote, “We had daily common prayer morning and evening, every Sunday two sermons, and every three months Holy Communion till our minister died: but our prayers daily, with an hourly on Sundays we continued two or three years after, till more preachers came.” Such was the beginning of the Jamestown colony. But, having left more than four hundred and ninety people in the colony, it will require only the space of six months for indolence, vice and famine to reduce the number to sixty. These have become so feeble and dejected that if delay had waited ten days longer, all must have perished. But today, the restoration of the colony is begun.
     A deep sense of the infinite mercies of Providence has revived hope in the colonists who have been spared by famine, and the emigrants who have been shipwrecked and yet preserved, and the new-comers who have found wretchedness and want where they have expected abundance. “It is,” they said, “the Arm of the Lord of Hosts Who would have His people pass the Red Sea, and the wilderness, and then possess the land of Canaan.” “Doubt not,” say the emigrants to the people back in England, “God will raise our state and build his Church in this excellent clime.”
     At least once, King James will send over convicts, and at least once the city of London will send over a hundred homeless children from its streets.

10, 1642 --Ireland. The first presbytery consisting of five chaplains and four elders is formed at Carrickfergus. Ministers have been sent over from Scotland.

10 - September 22, 1692 --Massachusetts. The witchcraft trials are at their height. During these days, twenty people will be executed, fifty-five others will be tortured into confession of falsehood, and one hundred and fifty others will be confined to prison with two hundred more accused or suspected. Cotton Mather will write a tract in which he will express great thankfulness so many witches have met their just doom while Judge Sewell will publicly confess:

      “Samuel Sewell, sensible of the reiterated strokes of God upon himself and family; and being sensible, that as to the guilt contracted upon the opening of the late Commission of Oyer and Termines at Salem (to which the order for this Day relates) he is, upon many accounts, more concerned than any that he knows of, desires to take the blame and shame of it, asking pardon of men, and especially desiring prayer that God, who has an unlimited authority, would pardon that sin and all other his sins ....” So stated Samuel Sewell, Judge of Massachusetts Supreme Court. It was uttered during a fast day service in the old South Church. Judge Sewell rose, while Rev. Samuel Willard, his pastor, read this confession from the pulpit.

11, 1525 --Germany. Martin Luther marries Catherine Von Bora. Pomeranus blesses this union that is witnessed by Lucas Cranach the celebrated painter. She will make a blessed home for the reformer and a child will be born in about a year’s time. He affectionately refers to her as “Katie, my rib!” but in times of her self-exertion, he addresses her as “Sir Kate!” Melancthon is not present.
     “The greatest gift of God,” he later declares, “is a pious, amiable spouse who fears God, loves his house, and with whom he can live in perfect confidence.”

11, 1559 –Scotland. John Knox has made known his intention of preaching in the Cathedral of St. Andrews today. Archbishop Hamilton is aghast knowing the abilities of the reformer as a preacher and yesterday hurried from Falkland twenty miles away with three hundred armed men boasting that most of the cannon balls will alight on Knox’s nose. Friends of the reformer have urged the preacher to abandon his intentions.
      Today, despite his military aid, the Archbishop hastily returns to Falkland.

11, 1569 --France. On June 9th, Count Palatine Wolfgang gained a victory against French Roman Catholic forces. Today, he is united with Huguenot forces under Gaspard Coligny, but illness and fatigue have completely exhausted him and he dies in only a few hours.
     On June 8, 1571, Huguenot leaders will write his sons, that next to God, they owe to Count Wolfgang, their lives, estates, honor and religious freedom.

11, 1744 --Connecticut. At age twenty-six, David Brainerd is ordained by a presbytery to the Gospel ministry. He is sent to a mission among the Indians.

 

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