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A day to remember - Anniversaries for 2003

Joy Horn tells us when we should be commemorating John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards and others

Anniversaries for 2003
General

Robert Estienne, the leading printer in Geneva at the time of the Reformation, was born in 1503. He printed Bibles in French, using roman type rather than the heavy 'Black Letter' type, which made for greater ease of reading, and from 1551 introduced the practice of numbering individual verses, which has been followed in English translations.

Lilias Trotter, missionary to Algeria, was born in London in 1853. A gifted painter and sensitive writer, she formed the Algiers Mission Band (now Arab World Ministries).

The Japan Evangelistic Band was founded in 1903.

Watchman Nee (Nee Shu-Tsu), leader of the 'Little Flock' churches, in China, was born in 1903. He was arrested by the Communist authorities in 1952 and died in prison in 1972.

Notable books

The first English translation of Thomas a Kempis's 'The Imitation of Christ' was published in 1503.

The final volume of J.H. Merle d'Aubigne's 'Histoire de la Reformation du XVIe siecle' was published in 1853. Part of it was published in English by the Banner of Truth in 1962 as The Reformation in England, and is still in print.

The one-volume IVP New Bible Commentary was published in 1953. With wide sales, it reached the shelves of a whole generation of Christians.

Billy Graham's 'Peace with God' was published in 1953.

The film of Lloyd Douglas's popular Christian novel 'The Robe' was released in 1953 - the first film in cinemascope.

Month by month

January 21: John Livingstone, a leader of the Scottish church in the time of Charles I, was born at Kilsyth in 1603.

January 29: John Ryland, one of the founders of the Baptist Missionary Society, was born in Warwick in 1753. He acted as Secretary of the Society 1815-25, and was minister of Broadmead Baptist Church in Bristol. He wrote some excellent hymns, seldom sung today.

February 5: Gilbert Tennent, Presbyterian minister in New Bruns-wick, N.J., was born in County Armagh, Ireland, in 1703. His close friend George Whitefield said of him: 'He is a Son of Thunder and I find does not fear the faces of men.' His preaching led to the conversion of many thousands, especially in 1739-40.

March 24: Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603. She had pursued a 'middle course' in religious matters, while not possessing strong beliefs herself. This had given the country stability, while failing to satisfy many.

April: the Millenary Petition, so-called because about 1,000 clergy of the Church of England supported it, was presented to the new king, James I, in 1603, urging changes in the structure of the Church, and the removal of superstitious practices.

April 28: Fred Mitchell, the much-loved U.K. Home Director of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF), was killed in the Comet air crash in 1953 outside Calcutta, on his return from Singapore Council meetings at which it had been de-cided to pray for an additional 225 workers.

May 29: the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 brought an end to the Eastern part of the Roman Empire, and led to Greek scholars and manuscripts coming to Western Europe.

June 3: the Open Air Mission was founded in 1853 as an evangelistic agency.

June 17: John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was born in 1703. After his experience in 1738, when his heart was 'strangely warmed' and he 'felt he did trust Christ, Christ alone, for salvation', he travelled prodigious distances on horseback, preaching the Gospel and organising societies to build up believers.

July 4: John Frith, a Protestant martyr, was born at Westerham, Kent, in 1503. He helped William Tyndale in translating the New Testament, and was burnt at Smithfield in 1533 for denying that purgatory existed or that the bread and wine at the Lord's Supper turned into the body and blood of Jesus.

July 6: the young Protestant king Edward VI, who seems to have been a genuine believer, died in 1553, aged 15. His reign saw the Reformation advanced, under Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, with English Bibles freely printed and the Prayer Books of 1549 and 1552 setting forth a biblical form of worship and doctrine.

July 12: Thomas Guthrie, a Scottish minister and social reformer, was born in 1803. Based at Old Greyfriars, Edinburgh (and later at Free St. John's), he especially promoted Ragged Schools. His 'Manse Fund' of 1843 raised within a year an enormous sum for the 474 ministers who had sacrificed home for conscience in joining the Free Church.

July 16: Hilaire Belloc, author and poet, died in 1953. A protagonist of Roman Catholicism, and to some extent of Christianity more generally, he is now remembered principally for his delightful Cautionary Tales and other satirical verses. He said of himself:
When I am dead,
I hope it may be said:
'His sins were scarlet,
but his books were read.'

August 20: Bernard of Clairvaux, founder of the Cistercian Order, died in 1153. His hymn 'O sacred head, sore wounded' is still widely sung.

September 7: William Knibb, Baptist missionary to Jamaica, was born in 1803. He was a tireless champion of the Blacks, both as slaves and after Emancipation, when he endeavoured to settle them on their own land.

September 12: James Hudson Taylor sailed to China in 1853 to begin his pioneer missionary work there.. Twelve years later he founded the China Inland Mission, based on the principle that he had proved-'God's work, done in God's way, will not lack God's supplies'.

September 13: Bishop Hugh Latimer was sent as a prisoner to the Tower of London in 1553. This was an alert to Protestants that the new queen, Mary I, intended to put pressure on them, and many began to leave England for the Continent, especially Geneva and Zurich.

October 5: Jonathan Edwards, the greatest theologian and evangelist in 18th-century America, was born in 1703. It was under his powerful preaching that the 'Great Awakening' began at Northampton, Massachusetts.

December 11: Charles Haddon Spurgeon, then aged 19, preached for the first time at New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, London, in 1853. He was called there as pastor the following spring, and the great growth of the congregation necessitated the building of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1859.

December 16: Oliver Cromwell was made Lord Protector in 1653.

December 27: Thomas Cartwright, one of the early English Puritans, died in 1603. One of those who believed that the Church of England under Queen Elizabeth I needed to be more thoroughly reformed according to biblical principles, he suffered the loss of his professorship at Cambridge, had to spend many years abroad, and was imprisoned in the Fleet Prison for a time.

Joy Horn