"OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY"
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JANUARY
1, 1699 --Scotland. “I had more than an ordinary measure of
God’s presence and help in preaching. In the morning in secret, I was in
earnest in God for it, but had a temptation to think that God would leave me
which did perplex me sore. When I was coming home from the sermons, Satan
fell to afresh again, the contrary way, tempting me to pride. It came three
times remarkably on me, and was as often repelled by that word, “What hast
thou that thou has not received?’”—from the Diary, of Thomas Boston
1, 1743 --Pennsylvania. The magistrates of Philadelphia has ordered Count
Nicholas Von Zinzendorf to surrender the records and communion vessels
belonging to the Lutherans, and today, after attempting to gather together
the various German religious groups, he leaves the city and the country.
1, 1748 --Scotland. John Colquhoun is born at Luss in
Dunbartonshire. His father is a farmer. Soon after his conversion, he will
walk nearly fifty miles to purchase a copy of Thomas Boston’s book, The
Four-Fold State. People will be willing to walk a distance of a hundred
miles to hear him, as a pastor of God’s Word, preach on the Lord’s Day.
1, 1756 --France. A Huguenot worship service is held in the neighborhood of
Nismes. The assembly has scarcely been constituted by prayer when the alarm
is given that soldiers are upon them! The youngest and most agile make their
escape by climbing the surrounding rocks. Among those who escape is Jean
Fabre, a silk merchant. Hearing his father has been made a prisoner, he
returns and with earnest tears and prayers asks that his seventy-eight year
old father be released and replaced with himself. The offer is accepted.
He is first imprisoned at Nismes, and is prevented from seeing any friends
including the young lady he was shortly to marry. When he is transferred to
Montpelier, he will be judged and sentenced to the galleys for life. With no
prospect of ever being released, he will become seriously ill. He will next
be sent to Toulon where he will be placed among criminals and chained to one
of the worst. At last, he will become accustomed to the rags, the dirt, and
the vermin, and the abominable speech.
The young lady to whom he is engaged is given a desirable offer of marriage.
Her friends will encourage her to accept as will Jean Fabre’s father who is
now stricken with paralysis. Already poor and unable to provide for himself
and a daughter, he urges her to give up his son who is hopelessly imprisoned
for life. When the young man is consulted, seeing no prospect of release, he
urges her to do the same.
She will yield, and the day of her marriage will be set; but at the last
moment, she will relent. Her faithfulness and love for the heroic galley
slave remains unshaken, and she resolves to remain constant to him, and to
remain unmarried forever, if she must.
After being a galley slave for six years, Jean Fabre will be given a
temporary liberty. But even then, he must move in concealment; neither can
he marry since he has not been discharged. His father has long since been
dead; and after years of harsh treatment, and after much social pressure, he
is exonerated and given his freedom, and the long-separated sweethearts will
be united in marriage.
1, 1809 --Burma. William Carey opens the chapel at
Serampore.
1, 1855 --Scotland. On the first page of the New Testament
he begins to use today, Brownlow North writes, “B. North, a man whose sins
crucified the Son of God.” He will become a fervent revivalist of the Free
Church of Scotland and will be greatly used in the revival in Ireland in
1859 and in that of Scotland the following year.
1, 1946 --Japan. The Emperor of Japan formally declares in an edict, “I am
not a living deity.” It is a blow to the Japanese state religion of
Shintoism which has taught that the emperor is the incarnation of the Sun
Goddess.