"OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY"
-117-
MAY
16, 1583 --Czechoslovakia. The dissolute king
Wenceslaus has chosen St. John of Nepomuk to be the spiritual guide of
his pious wife, Johanna. But becoming jealous over the influence of her
confessor, he endeavors by cajolery and then by threats to obtain
information committed to him. John has remained firm amid inhuman
treatment. Therefore the outraged king has ordered the confessor to be
cast into the Moldau River. It will be carried out in the evening after
dark.
16, 1416 --Bohemia. Jerome of Prague, a disciple and fellow-laborer with
John Huss, is condemned. The stake is planted, the faggots are prepared,
and the officers lead him to the pile. He is mounted on a bench that the
assembly might hear him. He gives expression to his sorrow at having in
a moment of fear given his approval to the burning of John Huss. He
further declares his sentence to be wicked and unjust like that
inflicted upon that holy man. “In dying,” he declares, “I shall leave a
sting in your hearts and a gnawing worm in your consciences. And I cite
you all to answer to me before the Most High and Just Judge within an
hundred years.”
16, 1726 --France. A General Synod of Huguenots is held in a small
valley of Viverais.
16, 1855 --Massachusetts. Dwight Lyman Moody has been awakened to his
need of salvation. He has become anxious about himself; and sees himself
a sinner. Sin has become detestable to him and holiness desirable. He
thinks he is repentant and has purposed to give up sin. He feels
dependent upon Christ for his forgiveness, and loves the Scriptures and
to pray. He desires to be useful and to be “religiously educated,” and
is not ashamed to be known as a Christian. He is eighteen years of age.
16, 1905 --Australia. Margaret Whitecross, Mrs. John Paten, dies. She is
his second wife.
16, 1966 --Russia. Five hundred Baptists representing one hundred and
thirty towns demonstrate before the Communist Central Committee building
in Moscow. Last year, a letter was sent to Mr. Leonid Brezhnev, the
Chairman of a Committee drafting a new federal constitution, protesting
the Soviet anti-religious legislation as being against Lenin’s original
position favoring separation of Church and State and the right of
believers to worship and propagate their faith. “Each person,” Lenin
stated, “must have complete freedom not only to observe any faith but
also to propagate any faith ... None of the officials should even have a
right to ask anyone of his faith: this is a matter of conscience and
nobody should dare to interfere in this field.” Lenin reversed this
position by tricky qualifications, and Mr. Brezhnev ignored the letter.
The demonstration has therefore been called today and is unprecedented
in the history of Russian Communism.
Letters presented today at the main doors of the
building call for a stop to government interference in church matters
and the release of persons imprisoned for the faith. They further call
for the rights of citizens to teach and to receive instruction in the
Christian faith.
The crowd is told to send in ten leaders and the rest
to disperse. They remain, however, to pray for their brethren. Suddenly
a fleet of buses appears and the police move in attacking the peaceful
demonstrators. The demonstrators lifting their voices in singing a hymn
can be heard above the shouting and fighting of the police.
On May 19th, Georgi Vins, a Russian Baptist, will walk
into the Committee building as Representative of the “Council of
Churches” inquiring as to the whereabouts of the arrested demonstrators.
Police will arrest him as he attempts to leave and will charge him with
organizing “religious instruction for children” though he is “well aware
of the ideology that dominates our society—one that has nothing in
common with religion.”
On June 10, 1978, he will be brutally beaten before
being thrust into an underground isolation cell. However, on account of
international concern for the preacher, Mr. Vins will be released as
part of a prisoner exchange, and he will be welcomed into the United
States.
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“God lets Rogues rule for the people’s Sin.”
-Martin Luther