"OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY"
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NOVEMBER
5, 1605 --England. Certain Roman Catholic incendiaries
have connived a plot to blow up the house of Parliament in an attempt to
destroy the king, the lords and the Commons on its opening today. The
plan has been to overthrow the government in favor of Romanism. Robert
Catesby, John Wright and Thomas Winter planned it originally in 1604,
but Thomas Percy and Guy Fawkes were soon added as were several others
at a still later date, among whom are Everard Digby, Francis Tresham,
and Ambrose Rookwood.
In December last year, the building adjoining
Parliament house was rented in Mr. Percy's name, and the conspirators
began excavating a passage from their cellar. In March, the conspirators
having bored half way through the nine foot thick wall, rented the
cellar immediately under the House of Lords where they stored thirty-six
barrels of powder and covering them with stones and iron bars, and
placing lumber upon all.
Due to his coolness, Mr. Fawkes was entrusted with the
task of lighting the powder, however, ten days ago, Lord Monteagle, a
Catholic friend of several of the conspirators received an anonymous
warning not to attend the opening session of Parliament. He showed it to
Lord Salisbury who notified the king. Yesterday the Lord Chamberlain
while making a search of Parliament noticed a suspicious abundance of
fuel in the cellar occupied by Mr. Fawkes. Last night the cellar was
searched and the powder discovered. Mr. Fawkes was arrested as he was
returning from a midnight conference with Mr. Percy. Under torture, he
confesses.
On November 9th and on January 27, 1606, all the
conspirators will be condemned to be drawn, hanged and quartered. On
January 21st, Parliament will set apart November 5th as a day of
national thanksgiving.
5, 1688 --England. Revolution breaks out. Its chief causes are: 1.) The
growing defiance of Protestantism to the Church of England; 2.) The
king's disregard for the Constitutional powers of Parliament; 3.) The
king's recent imprisonment in the Tower of London of seven bishops who
refused to have James' "Second Indulgence" read in their churches; 4.)
And the birth of a son in June to the king and Queen which cast fear in
the hearts of the people there would be a succession of Roman Catholic
monarchs.
As William, Prince of Orange, a Dutch Calvinist, and an
avowed Protestant, has married Mary, daughter of James, Duke of York,
and later James II king of England, he is invited by English noblemen to
take the English throne. Today he lands at Tor Bay, and James II flees
to France. William and Mary arrive in London and are proclaimed joint
monarchs but only after assenting to the Declaration of Rights on
February 13, 1689.
5, 1783 --Connecticut. Timothy Dwight is ordained as pastor of the
Greenfield congregation in Fairfield.
5, 1846 --Oregon. Mr. Marcus Whitman writes, " ...It is well to be awake
on all important points of duty and truth, but it can do no good to be
ultra on any of these points. Why part friends for an opinion only, and
that too, when nothing is to be gained for truth or principle, and much
lost of confidence, love, usefulness, enjoyment and interest?
"Why trouble those you cannot convince with any
peculiarity of your own sentiment, especially if it is likely to debar
you from the opportunity of usefulness of them. By one part, that is,
you complain of not being perfect and pray for more sanctification. Now,
brother, let that suffice that as long as you have to pray for
sanctification, you are not perfect, and that as long as you live you
will pray for it and then conclude you will be perfect when 'this mortal
shall put on immortality and this corruption shall have put on
incorruption,' and not till then; and let us cry, 'Grace, grace unto
it.' ...
"And now for 'Millerism.' I was in Boston when the
former time came for the end of the world, but I did not conclude that
as the time was so short I would not concern myself to return to my
family. But I did conclude that inasmuch as you had adopted such
sentiments you were not prepared for any work calling for time in its
execution, and thinking the work of time so short with you that it would
be in vain to call forth any principle to your mind that would involve
length of time for its execution, I was contented to pass you in
silence. For to my mind, all my work and plans involved time and
distance, and required confidence in the stability of God's government
and purpose to give the heathen to His Son for an inheritance, and among
them those uttermost parts of the earth for His possession.
"I had adopted Oregon as my country, as well as the
Indians for my field of labor ... Now mark the difference between you
and me. Twice that time, you have allowed yourself to be laid aside from
the ministry, and have parted with tried friends for an opinion only,
and that opinion has done you nor no one else any good. Within the same
time, I have returned to my field of labor and in my return brought a
large immigration of about one thousand individuals safely through the
long and the last part of it an untried route to the western shores of
the continent. Now that, they were once safely conducted through, three
successive immigrations have followed after them, and two routes for
wagons are now open into the Willamette valley. Mark, if I had been of
your mind I should have slept, and now the Jesuit Papists would have
been in quiet possession of this the only spot in the western horizon of
America not before their own. They were fast fixing themselves here and
had we missionaries had no American population to come in to hold and
give stability, it would have been but a small work for them and the
friends of English interests which they had so fully avowed to have
routed us, and then the country might have slept in their hands forever.
"Time is not so short but it is quite important that
such a country as Oregon should not on the one hand fall into the
exclusive hands of the Jesuits, nor as the other, under the English
government. In all the business of this world we require time, and new
let us redeem it, and then we shall be ready, and our Lord will not come
upon us unawares.
"This is a country requiring devoted, pious laborers in
the service of our Lord . . .. Nor should men or piety and principle
leave it all to be taken by worldlings and worldly men.
" ...The Indians are doing very well we think in their
way and their habits of civilization. A good attention is paid to
religious instruction. Morning and Evening worship is quite general in
their lodges, and a blessing is regarded as being a duty to be asked
upon taking food . . .. "