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MAY

 17, 1510 --Italy. Sandro Botticelli dies and is buried in the Church of the Ognissanti, Florence. His paintings attest to the fact he has been profoundly affected by the preaching of Savonarola.

17, 1575 --England. In his hasty flight after Mary’s accession to the throne, Matthew Parker fell from his horse sustaining permanent injuries. He was allowed to remain in hiding. He has written the prefaces for the Old and New Testament in the “Bishops’ Bible,” and has served as Archbishop of Canterbury. Once, his enemies tried to kill him. Today he dies.
In the next century, the Puritans will satisfy their vengeance upon him by disinterring his remains.

17, 1644 --England. Fast days have been frequently appointed for the Westminster Assembley of Divines. On these days religious services are conducted during the day without interruption. Today is just such a day. The devotions last from nine o’clock in the morning until five o’clock this afternoon. Samuel Baillie, of Scotland declares this the sweetest day he has experienced in England.

17, 1760 --Canada. William Pitt will write his wife in June, “Join, my love, with me, in most humble and grateful thanks to the Almighty. The siege of Quebec was raised on the seventeenth of May, with every happy circumstance. The enemy left their camp standing and abandoned forty pieces of cannon. Swanton arrived there in the ‘Vanguard’ on the fifteenth, and destroyed all the French shipping, six or seven in number. Happy, happy day! My joy and hurry are inexpressible.”

17, 1766 --England. John Grimshaw, son of the renowned preacher, William Grimshaw, dies. He has survived his father only three years and till then had lived a careless and intemperate life. When he visited his father on his deathbed, he was told to take care what he did because he was not fit to die. The words of his dying father sunk into his heart, and after his father’s death, John used to ride a horse that belonged to him. One day, a man stated, “I see you are riding the old parson’s horse?” “Yes,” John replied: “once he carried a great saint, and now he carries a great sinner.”

17, 1794 --Switzerland. Frederic Monod is born. In Geneva, Robert Haldane will be one of his teachers. As a result, he will become an avid advocate for Separation of Church and State. He will found the “Free Evangelical Church.”

17, 1806 --India. Henry Martyn, only two days in Calcutta, writes in his Journal, “I almost think that to be prevented going among the heathen as a missionary would break my heart.”

18, 1213 --England. The Pope has placed the country of England under interdict, and King John is forced with the impending invasion of the French under a false pretender to the crown. Coupled with the weight of his “sins,” the king today surrenders England and Ireland “to God and the Pope.” He recovers them as Papal feudatory on condition he agrees to pay annual feudal rent to the See of Peter at the rate of seven hundred marks for England, and three hundred marks for Ireland. He must still humble himself before Archbishop Stephen, and make restitution to the Roman clergy in the form of a heavy sum of money for damages they incurred during his “persecutions.”

18, 1588 --France. A plot by loyal Catholics to seize Henry III has nearly succeeded. The king has now brought into Paris four thousand Swiss troops as an additional bodyguard. Under the influence of the League led by Henry Guise, the city of Paris has risen in revolt. Today is known as the “day of Barricades,” but the king is trapped. Before he is permitted to flee the city, he yields to the demands of Henry Guise. He agrees first, to publish the decrees of the Council of Trent; second, to admit the Inquisition; third, to execute Huguenot prisoners, and fourth, to remove all Army officers whom loyalty to the Pope is dubious.

18, 1631 --Massachusetts. In Boston, the General Court meets. Today it is “ordered and agreed, that for the time to come, no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same.”
     Isaac Backus states, “this people brought two other Principles with them from their native country, in which they did not differ from others; which are, that natural birth and the doings of men can bring children into the Covenant of Grace; and that it is right to enforce and support their own sentiments about religion with the magistrate’s sword.”
      For four centuries, Europe maintained heresy should be punished by death. In Spain, more people were burned for their opinions than Massachusetts then contained inhabitants. Under Charles V, in the Netherlands alone, the number of those hanged, beheaded, buried alive, or burned for religious opinion was fifty thousand: so says Father Paul. The whole carnage, says Grotius, included not less than one hundred thousand; and skeptics themselves have admitted to twenty thousand.
 

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