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JUNE

14, 1662 --England. At the age of fifteen, Sir Henry Vane, Jr. espoused Puritanism. In 1635, in order to enjoy greater freedom of worship, he immigrated to Massachusetts where he became Governor of the colony. He attended the Westminster Assembly and there argued vehemently for full liberty of conscience for all religions. His opposition to a state church has been unrelenting and has thereby lost cost him his influence with the Presbyterians. His position has led him to protect Mrs. Anne Hutchinson.
      Mr. Vane has maintained the cause of popular liberty with undaunted firmness even to the shunning of every man who has courted the returning king. He has fallen from the affections of the English people since they have fallen from the jealous care of their liberties. For when Unitarians were persecuted for blasphemy, Mr. Vane acted as their advocate. He has pleaded for the liberty of Quakers imprisoned for their convictions as well. As a legislator, he has demanded justice be extended in behalf of Roman Catholics. When Presbyterians, though his enemies, were excluded from the House of Commons, he excluded himself. And it was due to the influence of Mr. Vane, the English Navy became efficiently organized. He has steadily resisted the usurpation of Oliver Cromwell declaring it “no small grief that the evil and wretched principles of absolute monarchy should be revived by men professing godliness.”
      Mr. Vane has played a considerable role in the overthrow of the monarchy, though he, refused to take the Oath approving the king’s execution, the Monarchy at the Restoration has refused to include his name in the Act of Indemnity. Charles II has promised that Mr. Vane should not be put to death, and today he is brought to trial in which he blatantly denies the imputation of treason and defends the right of Englishmen to be governed by successive representatives. He speaks not for his own life but for the honor of the martyrs for Liberty who are already in their graves, and for the liberty of England, for the interest “of all posterity in time to come.”
     When he asks counsel, the solicitor cries, “who will dare to speak for you, unless, you can call down from the gibbet the heads of your fellow-traitors?”
     “I stand single,” replies Mr. Vane, “yet being thus left alone, I am not afraid in this great presence to bear my witness to the glorious cause, nor to seal it with my blood.”
      His enemies clamor for his life.
      “Certainly,” the king writes, “Sir Henry Vane is too dangerous a man to let live, if we can honestly put him out of the way.” But when it is found he cannot honestly be put out of the way, the solicitor still insists, “he must be made a sacrifice.”
     Yesterday, the day before his execution, his friends were admitted to his prison and he cheered them by discoursing on the doctrines of Death and Immortality. “Why should we fear Death?” he asks. “I find it rather shrinks from me than I from it.”
     His children gathered about him, and he consoled them by admitting, “The Lord will be a better father to you;” “be not troubled, for I am going home to my Father.” His farewell counsel was, “Suffer anything from men rather than sin against God.”
     After his family left he declared his life to be willingly offered to confirm the wavering and convince the ignorant in the defense of popular liberty. “I leave my life as a seal to the justness of that quarrel. Ten thousand deaths rather than defile the chastity of my conscience; nor would I, for ten thousand worlds, resign the peace and satisfaction I have in my heart.”
     Today as Mr. Vane and the procession move through the streets to the place of execution, men from the windows and tops of houses pour out prayers for him. Some shout, “God go with you.” Upon arriving on the scaffold, he is observed by his intrepid spirit, and seeks to awaken a love for liberty in the hearts of his countrymen, but his voice is over-powered by trumpets; Though unable to bear testimony to his principles, he is not disconcerted by the rudeness. He reminded those around him he had “foretold the dark clouds which were coming thicker and thicker for a season;” but that it was “most clear to the eye of his faith” a better day would dawn in the clouds.
     “Blessed be God,” he exclaims as he bares his neck for the axe, “I have kept a conscience void of offence to this day, and have not deserted the righteous cause for which I suffer.” The righteous cause was civil and religious liberty. He is the first martyr in history to the principle of the paramount power of the people. He is beheaded on Tower Hill, London.
     In his work, The Retired Man’s Meditations, or The Mystery and Power of Godliness, he states his belief in the coming of a real theocracy on earth in which Christ will reign for a thousand years as a temporal ruler and the saints will have the power of the keys.
     After this millennium, Satan will be let loose to war against human nature. At the end of the war and after the saints have been transported to Heavenly mansions, the final judgment will take place.

14, 1683 --Germany. Bartholomew Ziegenbalg is born. He, together with Henry Plutschav, will become the first German Protestant missionary to India. They will be selected by the King of Denmark to spread the Gospel in the Danish possessions there.

14, 1785 --England. William Carey appears before the church and having given a satisfactory account of the work of God upon his soul, he is admitted as a member.”

14, 1954 --Washington, D. C. Congress adopts the motto, “One nation under God” as part of the pledge of Allegiance to the American flag.

 

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