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MAY

 30, 1574 --France. Charles IX, the Catholic king of France who instigated the massacre of St. Bartholomew in which eighty to one hundred thousand French Protestants were massacred, is suffering with an horrible disease which has ravaged his frame, has become silent, morose, irritable, and gloomy, secluding himself from all society. A bloody sweat, oozing from every pore bloodies his bedclothes. His occasional outcries of remorse and his aspects of misery have driven all from his room but those compelled to render him service.
     He groans and weeps incessantly, exclaiming, “Oh, what blood! Oh, what murders! Alas, why did I follow such evil counsels?” He continually sees the specters of the slain with ghastly, gory wounds stalking about his bed; and demons of hideous appearances carrying weapons of torture, and armed with horrid malice, are waiting impatiently to seize his soul the moment it passes from his body.
     As the Cathedral bell tolls the hour of twelve, the nurse attending him with two other watchers hears the dying monarch sighing and moaning, then convulsively weeping. Gently, the nurse approaches his bedside and draws aside the curtains. The king turns his dim and despairing eyes upon her and cries out, “Oh, my nurse! My nurse! What murders have I committed! Great God! Pardon me—Pardon me!”
     A convulsive shuddering for a moment agitates his frame, his head falls back upon his pillow, and the wretched man dies at the age of twenty-four, expressing satisfaction he has left no heir to live and suffer in a world so full of misery.
     Ironically, his doctor and nurse are both Huguenots!

30, 1635 --Czechoslovakia. The Peace of Prague is concluded between the Elector of Saxony, and Ferdinand II. The Elector has served as ally to Sweden during the Thirty Years’ War, and has abandoned them following their defeat in the Battle of Nordlingen. By this treaty, all mediate foundation, cloisters and estates confiscated by Protestants prior to the Treaty of Passau in 1552 remains in their hands, but immediate endowments and all possessions confiscated after that Treaty is to be left for forty years. Providing that no other adjustment should be made prior to the expiration, no other adjustment is to be made: they will remain in the same status they were found on November 27, 1627.
     Full amnesty is pledged between the Emperor and the Roman Catholic estates on one hand, and the electoral Saxony and the states adhering to the Augsburg Confession on the other –from 1630, Bohemia, the Palatinate, and some lords, counts, and princes excluded. On June 12, 1635 the Peace will be extended over all Germany, but the restriction of amnesty, the declaration of war by France against Spain and Austria, as well as the new advantages gained by the Swedes will prevent the cessation of hostilities.

30, 1640 –Belgium. At Antwerp, Peter Paul Rubens dies when gout reaches his heart. His Christian paintings have likely been the result of his upbringing, for before his birth his family had been exiled from Spanish dominated Flanders, and had sought refuge in Germany after his father’s name appeared on a list of Calvinists.

30, 1778 –France. Francois Marie Arouet De Voltaire dies. A noted infidel who espoused Deism has made the comment, that if there were no god, it would be necessary to invent Him.
     Samuel Smiles observes a great work has been in the process of publication under the editorship of Jean le Ronc d’Alembert and Denis Diderot to which Mr. Voltaire, Jean Jaques Rousseau and others have contributed. It is to be a description of the entire circle of human knowledge; the intent of which is to be the utter subversion of religion. It is entitled, “The Encyclopedia.”
     Mr. Voltaire has stated his belief that Christianity will die out in a matter of years, but within one hundred years, his home will be the scene of an establishment for the distribution of Scriptures.
     He has denied the existence of Hell and the Deity of Christ; consequently, having been taken ill, he resorted to the use of opium and has taken too large a dose. Summoning his physician, he addresses him, “Doctor, I will give you all I have to save my life six months.” His doctor replies, “You can not live six hours.” “Then,” cried the philosopher, “I shall go to Hell and you will go with me.” Again, he cries, “I am abandoned by God and man! I shall go to Hell! O Christ, O Jesus Christ!”

30, 1821 –Burma. “I am now called in Divine Providence to be a mourner again having lately experienced the greatest domestic loss that a man can sustain;” so writes William Carey. “My dear wife was removed from me by death on Wednesday morning, May 30th, about twenty minutes after midnight.”

      Within a year after his first wife’s death, Mr. Carey had married Miss Charlotte Emelia Rumohr. “I believe we had as great a share of conjugal happiness as ever was enjoyed by mortals. She was eminently pious and lived near to God. The Bible was her daily delight, and next to God, she lived only for me. Her solicitude for my happiness was incessant . . .. Till her death, she supported several blind and lame persons by a monthly allowance . . .. My loss is irreparable, but I dare not but perfectly acquiesce in the Divine will . . .. I have no domestic strife to reflect upon and add bitterness to affliction. She was ready to depart . . .. She suffered no long or painful affliction . . ..”
 

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