The Bible often tells us to remember the Lord's dealings in the past, so that we might have light on the present. As we enter a new year, it is good to recall evangelical history.
GENERAL
The monastery of Iona was sacked by Viking raiders in 802. It had been founded by Columba, whose monks evangelised much of Scotland and northern England.
Jan Hus, the Bohemian reformer, a follower of John Wycliffe, was appointed rector or curate of the Bethlehem Chapel, Prague, in 1402, and began an influential preaching ministry - a century and more before the Reformation.
Christ's Hospital and some 35 other grammar schools were founded in the name of King Edward VI in 1552.
Thomas Cranmer completed the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI, a more strongly Reformed publication than the First, in 1552.
Nahum Tate, author of 'While shepherds watched their flocks', was born in 1652.
The Camisards, Protestant peasants of the Cévennes, France, rebelled in 1702, in protest against forcible conversions to Roman Catholicism, torture and killings, carried out on the instructions of the government of Louis XIV.
Jonathan Edwards's book, Misrepresentations Corrected and Truth Vindicated, was published in 1752.
James Fegan, philanthropist, and founder of Dr. Fegan's Homes for Children, was born in 1852.
David Livingstone embarked in 1852 on an expedition to explore the Zambezi (until 1856).
The Convocation of the Church of England, dormant since 1741, was revived in 1852 through the efforts of Bishops Samuel Wilberforce and Henry Phillpotts.
The Girls' Life Brigade was founded in 1902.
Kathleen Kenyon excavated the site of Jericho in 1952.
EVENTS
January 16
Eric Liddell, athlete and Olympic gold medal winner, and missionary to China, was born in 1902.
January 20
A.B. Davidson, Scottish Old Testament scholar, died in 1902.
January 21
Adolphe Monod, French Protestant leader, was born in 1802.
February 24
Gladys Aylward, independent missionary to China, famed for leading 100 children to safety during the Japanese invasion, was born in 1902.
March 19
Ned Bernard Stonehouse, US Presbyterian New Testament scholar, was born at Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1902.
March 20
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, with its stories of Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox, was published in 1852, and proved a potent factor in the struggle against slavery in the southern states of the USA.
March 29
John Lightfoot, biblical and rabbinic scholar, member of the Westminster Assembly, was born in 1602.
April 1
William Bagshawe, the 'Apostle of the Peak', who was one of those ejected in 1662, died in 1702, aged 74, and was buried at Chapel-en-le-Frith.
April 3
Joseph Irons, hymnwriter and pastor of Grove Chapel, Camberwell, died in 1852.
April 30
Mildred Cable, pioneer missionary to the Gobi Desert, died in 1952.
May 27
Peter Marshall, minister of New York Avenue Presbyterian church in Washington 1937-49 and chaplain to the United States Senate, was born in Scotland in 1902.
June 6
Philip Doddridge, theologian and writer, was born in 1702. His Academy in Northampton trained many dissenting ministers.
July 6
The Emperor Maximilian I founded Wittenberg University in 1502. Martin Luther was transferred here from Erfurt in 1511 and Wittenberg became the cradle of the Reformation.
July 15
A.W. Pink, author of The Sovereignty of God and other titles, died in 1952.
September 21
Girolamo Savonarola, Italian reformer, was born in 1452. He denounced the corruption in the Church and State in Florence, brought about considerable moral reform, but was eventually burnt as a heretic.
September 30
The composer Charles Villiers Stanford, one of those responsible for the resurgence of English church music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was born in 1852.
October 17
J. Oswald Sanders, missionary statesman of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship and Bible teacher, was born at Invercargill, New Zealand, in 1902.
October 18
John Kensit, Secretary of the Protestant Truth Society and campaigner against ritualism, died in 1902.
November 6
Ralph Erskine, Scottish Seceding minister and friend of George Whitefield and Isaac Watts, died at Dunfermline in 1752.
November 18
In the bull Unam Sanctam of 1302, Pope Boniface VIII asserted the superiority of the Pope's spiritual authority over secular princes.
November 28
Joseph Parker, Congregational minister at Poultry Street and the City Temple, died in 1902.
December 20
Martin Luther's wife, Katharine von Bora, a former nun, died in 1552.
December 23
John Cotton, Puritan minister and author, died in 1652.
December
William Perkins, Puritan preacher and writer, died in 1602 and was buried in Great St. Andrew's Church, Cambridge, where crowds of university members and townspeople had flocked to hear him and a whole generation of students had been influenced by him.
