"OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY"

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NOVEMBER
 

5, 1605 --England. Certain Roman Catholic incendiaries have connived a plot to blow up the house of Parliament in an attempt to destroy the king, the lords and the Commons on its opening today. The plan has been to overthrow the government in favor of Romanism. Robert Catesby, John Wright and Thomas Winter planned it originally in 1604, but Thomas Percy and Guy Fawkes were soon added as were several others at a still later date, among whom are Everard Digby, Francis Tresham, and Ambrose Rookwood.
     In December last year, the building adjoining Parliament house was rented in Mr. Percy's name, and the conspirators began excavating a passage from their cellar. In March, the conspirators having bored half way through the nine foot thick wall, rented the cellar immediately under the House of Lords where they stored thirty-six barrels of powder and covering them with stones and iron bars, and placing lumber upon all.
     Due to his coolness, Mr. Fawkes was entrusted with the task of lighting the powder, however, ten days ago, Lord Monteagle, a Catholic friend of several of the conspirators received an anonymous warning not to attend the opening session of Parliament. He showed it to Lord Salisbury who notified the king. Yesterday the Lord Chamberlain while making a search of Parliament noticed a suspicious abundance of fuel in the cellar occupied by Mr. Fawkes. Last night the cellar was searched and the powder discovered. Mr. Fawkes was arrested as he was returning from a midnight conference with Mr. Percy. Under torture, he confesses.
     On November 9th and on January 27, 1606, all the conspirators will be condemned to be drawn, hanged and quartered. On January 21st, Parliament will set apart November 5th as a day of national thanksgiving.

5, 1688 --England. Revolution breaks out. Its chief causes are: 1.) The growing defiance of Protestantism to the Church of England; 2.) The king's disregard for the Constitutional powers of Parliament; 3.) The king's recent imprisonment in the Tower of London of seven bishops who refused to have James' "Second Indulgence" read in their churches; 4.) And the birth of a son in June to the king and Queen which cast fear in the hearts of the people there would be a succession of Roman Catholic monarchs.
     As William, Prince of Orange, a Dutch Calvinist, and an avowed Protestant, has married Mary, daughter of James, Duke of York, and later James II king of England, he is invited by English noblemen to take the English throne. Today he lands at Tor Bay, and James II flees to France. William and Mary arrive in London and are proclaimed joint monarchs but only after assenting to the Declaration of Rights on February 13, 1689.

5, 1783 --Connecticut. Timothy Dwight is ordained as pastor of the Greenfield congregation in Fairfield.

5, 1846 --Oregon. Mr. Marcus Whitman writes, " ...It is well to be awake on all important points of duty and truth, but it can do no good to be ultra on any of these points. Why part friends for an opinion only, and that too, when nothing is to be gained for truth or principle, and much lost of confidence, love, usefulness, enjoyment and interest?
     "Why trouble those you cannot convince with any peculiarity of your own sentiment, especially if it is likely to debar you from the opportunity of usefulness of them. By one part, that is, you complain of not being perfect and pray for more sanctification. Now, brother, let that suffice that as long as you have to pray for sanctification, you are not perfect, and that as long as you live you will pray for it and then conclude you will be perfect when 'this mortal shall put on immortality and this corruption shall have put on incorruption,' and not till then; and let us cry, 'Grace, grace unto it.' ...
     "And now for 'Millerism.' I was in Boston when the former time came for the end of the world, but I did not conclude that as the time was so short I would not concern myself to return to my family. But I did conclude that inasmuch as you had adopted such sentiments you were not prepared for any work calling for time in its execution, and thinking the work of time so short with you that it would be in vain to call forth any principle to your mind that would involve length of time for its execution, I was contented to pass you in silence. For to my mind, all my work and plans involved time and distance, and required confidence in the stability of God's government and purpose to give the heathen to His Son for an inheritance, and among them those uttermost parts of the earth for His possession.
     "I had adopted Oregon as my country, as well as the Indians for my field of labor ... Now mark the difference between you and me. Twice that time, you have allowed yourself to be laid aside from the ministry, and have parted with tried friends for an opinion only, and that opinion has done you nor no one else any good. Within the same time, I have returned to my field of labor and in my return brought a large immigration of about one thousand individuals safely through the long and the last part of it an untried route to the western shores of the continent. Now that, they were once safely conducted through, three successive immigrations have followed after them, and two routes for wagons are now open into the Willamette valley. Mark, if I had been of your mind I should have slept, and now the Jesuit Papists would have been in quiet possession of this the only spot in the western horizon of America not before their own. They were fast fixing themselves here and had we missionaries had no American population to come in to hold and give stability, it would have been but a small work for them and the friends of English interests which they had so fully avowed to have routed us, and then the country might have slept in their hands forever.
     "Time is not so short but it is quite important that such a country as Oregon should not on the one hand fall into the exclusive hands of the Jesuits, nor as the other, under the English government. In all the business of this world we require time, and new let us redeem it, and then we shall be ready, and our Lord will not come upon us unawares.
     "This is a country requiring devoted, pious laborers in the service of our Lord . . .. Nor should men or piety and principle leave it all to be taken by worldlings and worldly men.
     " ...The Indians are doing very well we think in their way and their habits of civilization. A good attention is paid to religious instruction. Morning and Evening worship is quite general in their lodges, and a blessing is regarded as being a duty to be asked upon taking food . . .. "

 

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