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SEPTEMBER
 

20, 1520 --Germany. Argula Yon Stauff, on the ground no one has protested against the forcing of Mr. Seehofer to deny the Gospel, today addresses a protest to the Rector and to the University of Ingolstadt. When the religious edict of Bavaria is passed in March 5, 1522 against all Lutheranism, she will declare "one must bow to Authority, but concerning the Word of God neither Pope, Emperor, nor Prince has the right to command."

20, 1792 –France. The Revolutionary Assembly passes a decree transferring the registry of births, marriages and deaths from the church to the civil authorities.

20, 1870 --Italy. Victor Emmanuel marches into Rome supported by the vote of the people, and makes it the capital of a free and united Italy. He confines the Pope to the Vatican and to a purely ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
     Though after centuries of persecution by the Church of Rome, among these troops is a Waldensian colporteur who carries with him copies of St. Paul's epistle to the Romans.

20, 1871 --Melanesia. John Coleridge Patteson is murdered on the island of Nukapu. As bishop of Melanesia for the Church of England, he spoke twenty-three dialects and reduced to writing and grammar several languages. He has translated the Gospels of Luke and John into the Mota tongue.
     But slave traders have been busy kidnapping the islanders to be sent to plantations in Queensland and Fiji, and have recently killed five natives. Mr. Patteson, now aware of the feeling of revenge among the inhabitants here, has landed, and has been immediately murdered.

20, 1977 --Uganda. General Idi Amin bans twenty-seven religious organizations working within Uganda, while allowing Moslems, Anglicans, Roman Catholics and the Uganda Orthodox to continue functioning.

21, 1452 --Italy. Girolamo Savonarola is born in Ferrara. God will use him as His instrument to bring revival to the opulent city of Florence and from there to the countryside. His cry is "Jesu Christo al nostero sino salvatro" --"Jesus Christ is our King and Saviour."

21, 1522 --Germany. Concerning the Word of God, Martin Luther has preached, "Let this single book be in all tongues, in all hands, before all eyes, and in all hearts." "Reason thinks," he has said, ‘Oh, if I could only hear God once, to hear Him I would run to the end of the world . . ..' Listen, then O man, my brother! ... God, the Creator of Heaven and earth is speaking to you." He has affirmed he would not live in Paradise without the Word of God, and with it, he could live well enough in Hell.
     Today, his German translation of the New Testament will appear in print.

21, 1558 --Germany. Charles V, Emperor of Germany has been faced with three main weak-nesses in European politics. First, is the growth of the Ottoman Empire, which in 1529 was extended to Vienna. Second is the disunity of the German princes each of whom insists upon having his own army, currency, customs and duties. And third, is the low moral code in the homes of both secular and ecclesiastical princes. Germany will not be united until the 19th century in the time of Bismarck.
     Tonight, vowing he will mount his horse in the blood of Lutherans, Charles will hemorrhage and strangle in his own blood. He has succeeded Ferdinand and Isabella as king of Spain, and in a royal patent issued for land in the New World, he has charged, "You are bidden to attract the natives to receive preachers who shall inform and instruct them in the affairs of our holy Catholic faith that they may become Christians," adding, "Our principal intent in the discovery of new lands is that the inhabitants and natives thereof, who are without the light of the knowledge of faith may be brought to understand the truth of our holy Catholic faith, and that they may come to the knowledge thereof and become Christians and be saved."

21, 1697 --Netherlands. The Dutch village of Ryswick, located two miles south of the Hague, is the scene of a peace treaty which ends the war against England, the war which was begun by Louis XIV of France in 1688 in an effort to return James II as Rom-an Catholic king to his throne in England. Today Louis XIV will acknowledge William II of Orange as the legitimate king of England. He will no more seek to restore James II to the English throne. However, on the death of James II, he will recognize James III, his son, as the legitimate king of England.

21, 1782 --Pennsylvania. Congress authorizes the first printing of the Bible in English in the United States. Only thirty-two copies of Robert Aitken's Bible are known to exist.

21-23, 1848 --Germany. The first German Evangelical Church diet has powerfully aroused the spirit of repentance and faith, and having awakened hundreds of Evangelicals to new efforts in Christian living has stirred the roots of Germany.

 

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