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JUNE

4, 1249 -- Egypt. Louis IX of France in fulfillment of a vow he has made while on his sick bed has undertaken a crusade. In August last year, he sailed for Cyprus the rendezvous of the Crusaders. An army of forty thousand has gathered. He has waited for spring and today lands at Damietta, which he enters without a battle. He will defeat a Mohammedan army, but advancing up the Nile he will meet stout resistance from the Saracens. In their retreat the king, along with his entire army are taken captive. They will be set free only after paying a large ransom. He will sail for Acre with only six thousand men remaining of his army.
     In 1270, he will lead another crusade to Tunis landing in July at Carthage. A pestilence will break out in his army and Louis himself will succumb. His son, Philip III, will make peace with the Emir, and will return to France carrying the ashes of his father.

4, 1639 --Connecticut. A Puritan colony has sprung up at New Haven under the guidance of John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton. After a day of fasting and prayer, Mr. Davenport has stated their frame of government would be based upon a simple “plantation covenant” that “all of them would be ordered by the rules that the Scriptures held forth to them.”
     Today, their constituent assembly is held in a barn, and here it is resolved that the Scriptures are the perfect rule of a commonwealth; and that church members only should be free burgesses. A committee of twelve is selected to choose seven men, qualified for the great task of organizing the government. Mr. Eaton, Mr. Davenport and five others will be “the seven pillars” for the new “House of Wisdom” in the wilderness.
      On August 23rd, the “seven pillars” will assemble. Mr. Davenport will charge the governor in the words of Moses, to judge righteously—“the cause that is too hard for you bring it unto me, and I will hear it.” Thus New Haven adopts the Word of God for its statute book and the elect for its freemen. The colonists prepare for the Second Coming of Christ, which they confidently expect.

4, 1674 --Scotland. The Privy Council is to consider a letter from Charles II requiring his councilors to use more diligent endeavors for the apprehension and trial of field preachers and of those landlords who are ring leaders in the conventicles. Mrs. Janet Livingstone, wife of Mr. John Livingstone, with fourteen other ladies read their petition to the Lord Chancellor requesting him to grant liberty to the threatened ministers to “lawfully and without molestation exercise their holy function as the people should in an orderly way call them.” Their petition is ignored.

4, 1768 --Virginia. In Spotsylvania, John Walker, Lewis Craig and James Childs are dragged before the magistrates and indicted as “disturbers of the peace” because of their preaching. Such persecution of the Baptists has aroused the sympathy of Patrick Henry who has decided to defend these men. The following is Mr. Henry’s speech in their defense:
     “Three Baptist preachers were brought to trial for preaching. The indictment brought against them was ‘for preaching the Gospel of the Son of God,’ contrary to the statute in that case provided, and therefore, disturbers of the peace.
     “The clerk was reading the indictment in a slow and formal manner, and he pronounced the crime with emphasis. “For preaching the Gospel of the Son of God,’ when a plain-dressed man dismounted his horse, entered the courthouse, and took his seat within the bar. He was known to the court and lawyers but a stranger to the mass of spectators who had gathered on the occasion. This was Patrick Henry, who, on hearing of the prosecution, had ridden some fifty to sixty miles, from his residence in Hanover county to volunteer his services in the defense of the prisoners. He listened to the further reading of the indictment with marked attention, the first sentence of which that had caught his ear, was ‘For preaching the Gospel of the Son of God.’
     “When the indictment had been read, and the prosecuting attorney had submitted a few remarks, Henry arose, stretched out his hand and received the paper, and then addressed the court:
     “May it please your worship: I think I heard read by the prosecutor as I entered this house, the paper I now hold in my hand. If I have rightly understood, the King’s attorney of this colony has framed an indictment for the purpose of arraigning and punishment by imprisonment, three inoffensive persons, before the bar of this court, for a crime of great magnitude—as disturbers of the peace. May it please the court, what did I hear read? Did I hear it distinctly or was it a mistake of my own? Did I hear an expression, as if a crime, that these men, whom your worships are about to try for a misdemeanor, are charged with—what?” and continuing in a low, heavy tone, ‘For preaching the Gospel of the Son of God!’
     “Pausing, amidst the most profound silence and breathless astonishment of his hearers, he slowly waved the paper three times around his head, then lifted up his hands and eyes to Heaven, with extraordinary and impressive energy, he exclaimed, ‘Great God!’ The exclamation—the action—the burst of feeling from the audience were all overpowering. Mr. Henry resumed:
      “’May it please your worship: In a day like this, when truth is about to burst her fetters; when mankind are about to be raised to claim their natural and inalienable rights; when the yoke of oppression which has reached the wilderness of America, and the unnatural alliance of ecclesiastical and civil power is about to be dissevered, at such a period when Liberty—liberty of conscience—is about to awake from her slumberings and inquire into the reason of such charges as I find exhibited here today in this indictment.’
      “Another fearful pause, while the speaker alternately cast his sharp, piercing eyes on the court and the prisoners, and resumed: ‘If I am not deceived, according to the contents of the paper I now hold in my hand, these men are accused of ‘preaching the Gospel of the Son of God’—Great God!’ Another long pause, during which he again waved the indictment around his head, while a deeper impression was made on the auditory. Resuming his speech: ‘May it please your worship: there are periods in the history of man when corruption and depravity have so long debased the human character that man sinks under the weight of the oppressor’s hand and becomes his servile—his abject slave; he licks the hand that smites him; he bows in passive obedience to the mandates of the despot, and in this state of servility he receives his fetters of perpetual bondage. But may it please your worship, such a day has passed away! From the period when our fathers left the land of their nativity for settlement in these American wilds—for Liberty—for civil and religious liberty—for liberty of conscience—to worship their Creator according to their conceptions of Heaven’s revealed will, from the moment they placed their feet on the American continent, and in the deeply imbedded forests sought an asylum from persecution and tyranny—from that moment despotism was crushed; her fetters of darkness were broken, and Heaven decreed that man should be free—free to worship God according to the Bible. Were it not for this, in vain have been the sufferings and bloodshed to subjugate this new world, if we, their off-spring, must still be oppressed and persecuted. But may it please your worships, permit me to inquire once more: For what are these men about to be tried? This paper says, ‘For preaching the Gospel of the Son of God!’ Great God! For preaching the Saviour to Adam’s fallen race!’
      “After another pause, in tones of thunder, he inquired: ‘What Law Have They Violated?’ Then, for the third time, in a slow dignified manner, he lifted his eyes to Heaven, and waved the indictment around his head. The court and the audience were now wrought up to the most intense pitch of excitement. The face of the prosecuting attorney was pale and ghastly, and he appeared unconscious that his whole frame was agitated with alarm; and the judge, in a tremendous voice, put an end to the scene, now becoming extremely painful, by the authoritative command: ‘Sheriff, discharge those men!’”

4,5, 1890 --Ohio. In the city of Dayton, a called convention of two hundred pastors and young people’s society workers of the United Brethren in Christ organize the Young People’s Christian Endeavor Union of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ.

 

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