Joy Horn with notable dates for the year ahead
EVENTS
Early in the year 664, the Synod of Whitby was held, summoned by the king of Northumbria. As a result, the ‘Celtic churches’, established through monks of Iona and Lindisfarne, accepted the practices of the ‘Roman churches’. This brought administrative advantages and theological dangers.
John Knox, the great Scottish Reformer, was born in 1514. A man of tremendous courage and a powerful preacher, he survived two years as a French galley slave to become a key figure in the formation of the Reformed Church of Scotland.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term ‘Puritan’ was first used in 1564 as a term of scorn for those who wanted a fuller reformation of the Church of England, getting rid of medieval ceremonies.
Bernardino Ochino, an Italian Reformer, died of the plague towards the end of 1564 in Moravia, aged 77. A Franciscan friar, and later head of the strict Capuchin order of friars, his discovery of justification by faith led to persecution and a wandering life for him.
In 1714, the Lutheran missionary Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg’s Tamil New Testament was printed in Tranquebar, the first part of the Bible to be translated into an Indian language.
Krishna Pal was born in 1764. In 1800, he became the first convert from Hinduism as a result of William Carey’s work at Serampore in NE India. He became an evangelist.
David Morgan, a principal evangelist of the 1859 Revival in Wales, was born in 1814 at Melin Bodcoll, near Yspyty Yswyth, Cardiganshire, the son of a miller and joiner.
The American Baptist Missionary Board was set up in 1814, arising out of the work of Adoniram and Ann Judson in Burma, and proved an effective force for missions.
The Evangelisation Society was founded in 1864, following the 1859 Revival, through the work of Brownlow North and Lord Radstock, and with the personal support of D.L. Moody. It has supported over 1,400 evangelists, but now provides grant funding for evangelistic projects.
Following the ejection of all missionaries from China, the China Inland Mission was renamed the Overseas Missionary Fellowship in 1964, and membership was opened to Asian nationals. Today it has about 1,100 workers from more than 25 countries.
NOTABLE BOOKS
The Scottish Psalter was published in Edinburgh in 1564 for the use of the newly-established Church of Scotland. It was based on the psalter used in John Knox’s congregation in Geneva since 1556, but the 51 psalms in that book were now augmented to 150, with single-part melodies. It remained in regular use until it was replaced in 1650.
John Newton’s An Authentic Narrative, telling of his life and conversion while on a slave-trading boat, was published in 1764. Newton’s biographer Jonathan Aitken says that it was such a powerful and successful book because it combined ‘an adventure story, a love story and a spiritual story, woven together with extraordinary imagery’.
JANUARY
7 John Stott spoke to a record attendance at the Islington Clerical Conference in 1964 on ‘The Individual Christian and the
Joy Horn with a bumper year for Christians to remember
Fullness of the Holy Spirit’. To the many who were looking for guidance on the charismatic movement, he maintained that the baptism of the Spirit necessarily accompanies conversion.
13 James Melville died in 1614, aged 58. A leader of the young Church of Scotland, he died in exile at Berwick-on-Tweed for opposing King James I and VI’s plans to change the church.
23 Hywel Harris, evangelist and principal founder of Welsh Calvinistic Methodism, was born at Talgarth, Brecon, in 1714. His home at Trefecca became a training centre.
FEBRUARY
28 Robert Haldane was born into an ancient Scottish family in 1764. He sold his Stirlingshire estate for Christian causes and was active in evangelism in Switzerland and France.
MARCH
15 Leon Morris, Australian New Testament scholar and teacher, was born at Lithgow, New South Wales, in 1914. Warden of Tyndale House, Cambridge, for four years, he was principal of Ridley College, Melbourne, 1964–79. He is remembered for his Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (1955) and for many Bible commentaries.
MAY
The Conventicle Act of 1664 forbade religious meetings of more than five people, if not according to the Book of Common Prayer. This was aimed at the pastors who had been ejected from their churches in 1662, and their congregations. Richard Baxter, for example, was sent to prison. It was finally rescinded in 1689.
2 Robert Hall was born in 1764 at Arnesby, Leicestershire. He became the influential minister of Harvey Lane Baptist chapel, Leicester, where he also supported distressed stocking workers in the town.
8 The first Anglican Bishop of Calcutta (responsible for all of India and Burma) was consecrated at Lambeth in 1814, as a result of the efforts of William Wilberforce and his Clapham friends. Previous Anglican missionary work had been by chaplains of the East India Society, such as Henry Martyn.
15 Frederick S. Arnot, pioneer Brethren missionary, died, aged 56, at Johannesburg in 1914. Inspired by David Livingstone, from the same home town of Glasgow, he established a chain of mission stations in central Africa.
24 John Calvin died in Geneva in 1564, aged 54, the greatest thinker of the Reformation and ‘a seminal figure in European history’ (Alister E. McGrath).
JUNE
5 C.H. Spurgeon’s sermon ‘Baptismal Regeneration’ was preached in 1864 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. His assertion that ‘baptism without faith saves no one’ was an attack on Church of England teaching in the Prayer Book service for Baptism and in the Catechism, and aroused a great controversy.
22 Matthew Henry died at Nantwich, Cheshire, aged 56, in 1714. His seven-volume Commentary on the Bible has influenced evangelical expository preaching ever since.
23 The Dutch Reformed pastor and missionary John Herman Bavinck died, aged 69, in 1964. After ministering to a Dutch expatriate congregation in Bandung, Indonesia, he became a missionary to Javanese people and, from 1939, Professor of Missions in the Netherlands and an active member of the anti-Nazi underground. He wrote an influential Introduction to the Science of Missions in 1960.
24 Samuel Marsden, Australian pioneer missionary to the New Zealand Maori, was born in 1764.
28 Frederick W. Faber was born at Calverley, West Yorkshire, in 1814. Influenced at Oxford by John Henry Newman, he followed him in becoming a Roman Catholic, and was a founder of the Brompton Oratory in London. He wrote many hymns, of which ‘My God, how wonderful thou art’ and ‘Souls of men, why will ye scatter’ used to be part of the repertoire of many Protestant churches.
29 Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a former slave and the leader of the Niger Mission, was consecrated the first black African bishop in 1864. He faced difficulties with European missionaries, who opposed African leadership.
JULY
The Great Fire of Rome happened in AD 64. Some Roman historians blamed its outbreak on the emperor Nero, but he made the Christians scapegoats. Many were killed by gruesome methods that aroused sympathy for them. It is probable that the apostles Peter and Paul died during this persecution.
23 The Irish-born Gilbert Tennent, one of the leaders of the Great Awakening in colonial America, died at Philadelphia in 1764. A colleague of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, he preached a memorable sermon in 1740, ‘On the Danger of an Unconverted Ministry’.
SEPTEMBER
In late September 1964 Michael Harper, a former curate of John Stott at All Souls, Langham Place, London, set up the Fountain Trust to promote charismatic renewal. Through its conferences and publications (such as Renewal magazine) it had considerable influence until its voluntary dissolution in 1980.
25 William Romaine was born in 1714 at Hartlepool, Co. Durham. Bishop Ryle called him ‘the fourth spiritual hero of the 18th century’ after Whitefield, Wesley and Grimshaw. His ministry was based in London, in particular for 29 years at St. Ann, Blackfriars.
OCTOBER
3 Lieutenant-General Sir William Dobbie died in Kensington in 1964, aged 85, after a distinguished career in the British Army from the Boer War to World War II. His was the signature on the ceasefire telegram sent to all troops to end the fighting in November 1918, and he was Governor of Malta, responsible for its courageous defence against the Germans in 1941–2. A member of the Christian Brethren, he was outspoken in his convictions, and his autobiography was titled A Very Present Help (1945).
5 Thomas Charles of Bala died in 1814, aged 59. A Welsh Methodist leader, he set up a system of ‘circulating schools’ to educate children. He brought the desperate need for Bibles in Welsh to the attention of the Religious Tract Society in 1802, and this led to the formation of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
DECEMBER
16 George Whitefield was born in 1714 at Gloucester, where his parents ran the Bell Inn. Converted while at Oxford, he became the supreme preacher of the 18th century, travelling throughout Britain and visiting the American colonies seven times. Opposition by church authorities led to his preaching outdoors, where his remarkable voice carried his words to thousands of listeners.
28 Mary Lewis, better known as Mary Jones, died aged 80, at Bryncrug, Merioneth-shire, in 1864. As a teenager, the daughter of weavers, she worked and saved for six years to buy a Bible in the Welsh language, then walked barefoot over the mountains from Llanfihangel-y-Pennant to Bala to buy one of the rare copies from Thomas Charles. Bible Society, with its aim of making Bibles available in all languages, traces its origin to this incident.
