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DECEMBER

8, 1807 --India. William Carey's wife is removed by death. "She had been in a state the most distressing for the past twelve years . . .. She was attacked with a fever which terminated in about a fortnight."

8, 1840 --England. David Livingstone is commissioned as missionary to South Africa. Because he refuses to allow any but true believers to be part of his church, his congregation will remain very small. The Boers keep him under surveillance to see the natives obtain no firearms, but Mr. Livingstone will trade freely. The result will be a raid by the Boers of the native capital where Mr. Livingstone will make his headquarters, and his mission station will be destroyed. But Mr. Livingstone, his wife and child will be away at the time.

8, 1854 --Italy. Pope Pius IX decrees the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

8, 1864 --Italy. Pope Pius IX issues the Syllabus of Errors, an Index of eighty heresies the Roman Church condemns. It is divided into ten sections and are summarized as follows:

The First condemns Pantheism, Naturalism and Absolute Rationalism.
The Second condemns Moderate Rationalism.
The Third condemns Indifferentism and Latitudinarianism.
The Fourth condemns Socialism, Communism, Secret Societies, Bible Societies and other "pests of this description."
The Fifth condemns errors concerning the Church and her rights.
The Sixth condemns errors concerning Civil Society.
The Seventh condemns errors of Natural and Christian Ethics.
The Eighth condemns errors concerning Christian Marriage.
The Ninth condemns errors respecting the temporal power of the Pope.
The Tenth condemns errors of Modern Liberalism. Among the errors condemned are the principles of civil and religious liberties, as well as the separation of Church and State.

     The Syllabus asserts the Infallibility of the Pope, the exclusive right of Romanism to recognition by the civil government, the unlawfulness of all other religions other than the Roman Catholic, the complete independence of the Papal hierarchy, the powers of the Roman Church to coerce and enforce, and its supreme control over public education, science and literature.
     The Pope also issues the encyclical "Quanta Cura" with the Syllabus. The encyclical denounces religious and political liberalism; it rejects the principle of "separation of Church and State", and condemns political theories as "Socialism and Communism" which consider the family to be an arbitrary creation of Civil Law, and would give the State full authority to limit and regulate the activity of the Church, especially in the realm of education. Freemasonry is also condemned.

9, 1531 --Switzerland. With the death of Ulrich Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger is faced with preserving the Reformation in Switzerland. Today, he is chosen pastor of the Grossmunster to succeed the man of God. Already a controversy has arisen between those who desire peace at any price with the enemies of the Reformation, and the decision of the Evangelical Party to prohibit pastors from touching on political issues in their sermons. Ready for peace, he nevertheless refuses to be silent where politics are connected with the Church.

9, 1594 --Sweden. In the city of Stockholm, Gustavus Adolphus is born. He is the eldest son of King Charles and Christina of Holstein. In 1611, Sweden will be "a beaten, impoverished and insignificant" country that "lay almost unregarded on the periphery of the Protestant world." But in 1632, King Gustavus will raise his country to a first-class nation giving "the law to Germany, bullying Richelieu, dominating the Baltic and by standing at the head of Lutheran Europe."

9, 1608 --England. On Bread Street, in Cheapside, London, John Milton is born. Early in life he will go blind, but he will leave behind him such Christian classics as Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Sampson Agonistes, as well as assorted other works, He will also become Secretary to Oliver Cromwell.
 

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"I am afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of Hell unless they labor diligently in explaining the Holy Scriptures engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not unceasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt."

-Martin Luther-





 

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