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OCTOBER
 

16, 1495 --Italy. Pope Alexander issues a second papal brief prohibiting Savonarola to preach.

16, 1521 --Germany. George of Saxony writes to Duke John, the Elector's brother, "Some deny the immortality of the soul. Others, and they are monks, drag the relics of St. Anthony with tinkling bells and swine, and cast them into the mire. And all this comes of Luther's doctrine! Entreat your brother, the Elector, either to punish the impious authors of these innovations, or publicly to declare what his ultimate intentions are. The whitening of our locks warns us that we are drawing near the last stage of life, and urges us to put an end to all these evils."

16, 1555 --England. When Henry VIII divorced Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn, Mr. Hugh Latimer wrapped a copy of the Scriptures and sent it to the king with this inscription, "Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge." For this he is a marked man.
      Nicholas Ridley has been responsible for the changing of Thomas Cranmer's views on the Lord's Supper and has assisted Mr. Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury in writing the Forty-one Articles which will be reduced to Thirty-nine Articles. He has ordered the destruction of all altars throughout the diocese and has replaced them with wooden tables. He has himself pulled down. He has himself pulled down the altar in St. Paul's cathedral and has changed the position of the Communion Table to no longer face Eastward. He has also preached in a sermon that both Mary Tudor and Elizabeth were illegitimate, and therefore on September 30th Archbishop Pole convicted and condemned Mr. Ridley to the flames. Mr. Ridley is Bishop of London.
      Last night, he spoke to some friends with whom he ate. "I mean to go to bed, and by God's will, to sleep as quietly as ever I did in my life."
      Today at Oxford, Mr. Hugh Latimer and Mr. Nicholas Ridley are led to "The Ditch" against Balliol Hall and are tied to a wooden stake to be burned to death. "In all ages, God has had His own manner, after His secret and unsearchable wisdom, to use His elect; sometimes to suffer them to drink Christ's cup," says Mr. Ridley. " ...Yet the Lord is all one towards them no less ... No man can take us out of the Father's hand."
      From his jail, Mr. Cranmer watches as Mr. Latimer and Mr. Ridley embrace each other, kneel in prayer and kiss the stake. Mr. Ridley is promised his life if he will recant, but the man of God answers, "So long as breath is in my body, I will never deny my Lord Christ and His known truth." He gives his clothes to the bystanders.
      The sight of the stake makes Mr. Ridley tremble, "Be of good cheer, brother Ridley, and play the man," says Mr. Latimer. "We shall light such a candle in England today as will never go out!" Witnesses will declare that Mr. Latimer seemed to embrace the flames.
     The flames burn slowly and Mr. Ridley suffers greatly until they reach a bag of gun-powder which his brother-in-law has tied about his neck to hasten his end. Mr. Cranmer, panic-stricken, will write seven recantations, the last on the morning of March 21, 1556 before he himself is taken out and burned at the stake. He will first be taken to the church where he will hear a sermon given in which it is declared he must be burned. But when he is called upon to give his recantation, he rejects all his recantations declaring he wrote them from fear of death. He will die one of History's most heroic deaths.

16, 1790 --Wales. As a child of three years, Daniel Rowlands narrowly escaped death when a large stone fell down the chimney on the very spot where he had been sitting only two minutes before. Had he not providentially moved, it would have killed him.
     Today he dies at age seventy-seven. His son writes, "My father made the following observation in his sermons two Sundays before his departure. He said, 'I am almost leaving, and am on the point of being taken from you. I am not tired of work but in it. I have some presentiment that my Heavenly Father will soon release me from my labors, and bring me to my everlasting rest. But I hope He will continue His gracious presence with you after I am gone.'"

16, 1812 --Armenia. Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia dies at Tocat where his remains lie buried. He is thirty-one years old. Having read the Diary of David Brainerd he devoted his life to the mission field. After reading the Letters of William Carey, he felt sensible of God's calling to India and Burma.
     He translated the New Testament and Psalms into Persian. Anxious to present a copy to the Shah of Persia, he set out to secure a letter of introduction for Sir Gore Ouseley, the British Minister. His body racked with fever, he was forced to leave it with Sir Gore who will later place it in the hands of the Shah and then see it printed. He dies on the way to Constantinople.
     “What do I not owe the Lord for permitting me to take a part in the translation of His Word! Never did I see such wonders, and wisdom and love in the Blessed Book as since I have been obliged to study every expression.”

16, 1847 --Alabama. The Methodist evangelist Sam Jones is born in Oak Bowery.
 

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