"OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY"
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MAY
7, 1794 --France. Robespierre, who has declared the true
priest of the “Highest Being” is Nature, whose temple is the Universe,
and whose worship is Virtue, prevails upon the Convention to formally
declare, “The French people acknowledges the existence of a Supreme
Being and the immortality of the soul; it recognizes that the worthy
worship of Him is the fulfillment of man’s duties, the first of which
are the detestation of faithfulness and tyranny, the punishment of
tyrants and traitors, and the support of the unhappy; festivals shall be
appointed with the object of bringing mankind again to the thought of
the Deity.”
7, 1887 --Missouri. Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther dies in St. Louis.
His firm Lutheran orthodoxy and resistance to the rationalism that has
prevailed and his hopeless endeavors to reform the moral and spiritual
life of his congregation has led him to found the Missouri Synod.
In 1853, in order to give Lutherans a trustworthy text
of Luther’s translation of the Scriptures, he founded the St. Louis
Bible Society; and has remained President until his death.
8, 589 --Spain. The Third official Synod of Toledo degrades the State to
the place of servitude to the Church and exalts the higher clergy to
princes and transforming the national synods into diets of the realm in
which bishops have the decisive voice.
8, 1079 --Poland. Stanislaus, bishop of Cracow has boldly denounced the
cruelty and licentiousness of Boleslas II, and has finally been forced
to excommunicate him. In blind rage, the king murders Stanislaus while
he is celebrating mass.
8, 1685 --Scotland. At the insistence of James VII of Scotland, later
James II of England, the Scottish Parliament passes an act, to punish
with death and confiscation of all property those detected preaching in
a conventicle or attending such preaching. Thus he begins the cruel
persecutions against the Scotch Presbyterians equaled only by Louis XIV
and his cruelties against the Huguenots.
8, 1816 --New York. Sixty representatives for thirty-five local and
state Bible societies meet to establish without delay, a general Bible
institution for the circulation of the Holy Scriptures without note or
comment. Jedidiah Morse and Lyman Beecher are present. Elias Boudinot,
the Revolutionary War statesman will be chosen president of the American
Bible Society. Mr. Boudinot retired from active service in 1805 to
devote himself to the study of the Word of God. He will be guided by the
thought, “the grace of God is not confined to sect or party.” During
this first year, it will distribute over six thousand copies of the Word
of God and in its fifth year, it will send out over forty-three thousand
copies.
8, 1827 -- England. At Bedfordshire, Leigh Richmond dies. He is the
author of The Dairyman’s Daughter, The Negro Servant and
The Young Cottager. These tracts will be collected to form
The Annals of the Poor.
9, 1672 --England. John Bunyan is licensed to preach. A member of
Bunyan’s congregation by the name of Josiah Roughead, has purchased a
barn in an orchard where people can be fed the Word of God.
9, 1687 --England. Matthew Henry is ordained to the Gospel Ministry. One
night he will be robbed and will pray that very night, “I thank Thee,
first, because I was never robbed before; second, because although they
took my purse, they did not take my life; third, although they took my
all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, and
not I who robbed.”