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MAY

 27, 1564 --Switzerland. John Calvin dies in Geneva. He has been heard to utter, “It is enough that to Christ I live and die.” Poor in life, he leaves behind one hundred and seventy dollars and his Institutes of the Christian Religion, which he wrote at age twenty-six, and did not feel it needed any change, when he was fifty-five years old. His theology has been feared as the “Creed of Republicanism”, and his followers are pursued as the sect of rebellion.
     He has introduced singing into worship in the Reformed Churches in Geneva.

27, 1792 --France. The revolutionary government of France passes a bill directing at the request of twenty active citizens of a canton the direction of a department should see to the deposition of nonjuring priests as instigators of sedition. The apparent justification of the law lies in the fact there have been rumors that under the act of suppressing a conspiracy in the department of Tarn there is a plot to kill the Calvinists there.

27, 1945 --Mexico. Last year the Catholic archbishop of Mexico issued a harsh pastoral letter to all priests declaring, “We oppose the continual extension of the Protestant campaign,” and called upon priests to extirpate the “hellish serpent” of Protestantism.
     Today in the city of Santiago, the Catholic priest leads an attack on the homes of the two Protestant preachers. The pastors are hanged and quartered, following which their homes are dynamited.

28, 1665 --Massachusetts. Thomas Gould of Charlestown has become convinced infants have no right to be baptized, and has refused to present his child for baptism. As a result he has been censured in the church and prosecuted in the courts. As some Baptists have come out of England and covenanted together with him, today they form a Baptist church here, with Mr. Gould as their pastor. After being fined and imprisoned on several occasions, Mr. Gould will be banished together with two other of the church leaders, but refusing to exile themselves, they will be jailed for nearly a year.

28, 1741 --Massachusetts. Roy Edward Holyoke, President of Harvard College addresses the annual ministers’ convention in Boston. Referring to Mr. George Whitefield, and Mr. Gilbert Tennent, he declares, “Those two pious and valuable men of God, who have been lately laboring more abundantly among us, have been greatly instrumental in the hand of God to receive this blessed work; and many, no doubt, have been savingly converted from the error of their ways, and many more have been in some measure roused from their lethargy.” Then he confesses, “Alas, how was I deluded with show and appearance!”

 28, 1781 – Virginia. The winter of 1777 was one of great distress for the army of George Washington camped at Valley Forge for they have not had enough clothes to cover their nakedness, nor blankets enough to lie upon, nor tents enough to shelter them. Sorely lacking shoes, their marches could be traced by their trails of blood, which oozed from their feet onto the snow and ice. They were as often without provisions as with them. On the 23rd of December, he wrote, “For the want of a two day’s supply of provisions, ... men are confined to hospitals, or in farmers’ houses for want of shoes. We have this day no less than two thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight men in camp unfit for duty, because they are barefoot and otherwise naked . . ..    Although they (gentlemen) seem to have little feeling for the naked and distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and from soul I pity those miseries which it is neither in my power to relieve or prevent.”
      In February 1778, it was reported his men were dying for lack of straw or materials to raise them from the cold, wet earth. In numerous, crowded hospitals, the sick could not receive proper care. Men, without murmuring, yoked themselves to little carriages of their own making, or loaded their fuel and provisions on their backs. Sometimes fuel was lacking, when, for want of shoes and stockings, they could not walk through the snow to cut it in the neighboring woods. Some brigades had been four days without meat. For days together, the army was without bread. Desertions were frequent. There was danger the troops would perish from famine or disperse in search of food. Yet Washington declared, “No person ever heard me drop an expression that had a tendency to resignation. The same principles that led me to embark in the opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain operate with additional force at this day; nor is it my desire to withdraw my services while they are considered of importance to the present contest. There is not an officer in the service of the United States that would return to the sweets of domestic life with more heartfelt joy than I should, but I mean not to shrink in the cause.”
     From White Plains, New York, he wrote in 1778, “After two years’ maneuvering and the strongest vicissitudes, both armies are brought back to the point they set out from, and the offending party at the beginning is now reduced to the use of spade and pickaxe for defense. The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.” The governor of Connecticut expressed his confidence saying, “The veil of ordinary events covers the hand of the Supreme Disposer of them, so that men overlook His guidance. In the view of the series of marvelous occurrences during the present war, he must be blind and infatuated who doth not see and acknowledge the Divine ordering thereof.”
      The state of affairs in Virginia is now so critical as to endanger the cause of freedom. Richard Henry Lee declares, ‘Wanting a rudder in the storm, the good ship must inevitably he cast away;” and he has proposed to the statesmen of Virginia to invest General Washington with “dictatorial powers.” Thomas Jefferson has coolly reasoned, “The thought alone of creating a dictator is treason against the people; is treason against mankind in general, giving to their oppressors proof of the imbecility of republican government in times of pressing danger. The government, instead of being braced and invigorated for greater exertions under difficulties, would be thrown back.” As governor of Virginia, speaking for its people and representing their distresses, he has written to Mr. Washington: “Could you lend us your personal aid? It is evident from the universal voice, that the presence of their beloved countryman would restore full confidence, and render them equal to whatever is not impossible. Should you repair to your native state, the difficulty would then be how to keep men out of the field.”
      These words will sink deeply into Washington’s mind.

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