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Famous books

The final Latin version of Calvin’s Institutes was published in 1559. The six chapters of the first edition (1536) had now become 80, assembled in four books. This has been called ‘the most influential theological work of the Protestant Reformation’, but it is nevertheless accessible, interesting and inspiring to the 21st-century general reader.

C.I. Scofield’s dispensational, pre-millennial Bible was published in 1909, and gained a wide circulation.

The 1859 Revival

Throughout the year 1859, the churches in Wales experienced an awakening, especially during the preaching visits of Humphrey Jones and David Morgan. By the end of the year, about 110,000 had been converted and added to the churches.

February

1 George Beverly Shea, gospel singer with Billy Graham, was born at Winchester, Ontario, Canada, in 1909. He popularised the song, ‘How great thou art!’ and composed the tune for ‘I’d rather have Jesus’.

7 In 1859, Albert Midlane, who was in business as an ironmonger at Newport, Isle of Wight, and active in Sunday School work, wrote the hymn, ‘There’s a friend for little children’, for which he is chiefly remembered. Set to music by Sir John Stainer, it became immensely popular, and was translated into more than 50 languages.

27 The same Albert Midlane died at Newport in 1909, having written more than 1,000 hymns.

March

9 John Venn was born in Clapham in 1759. As rector of Clapham from 1792, he was involved in the work of the ‘Clapham Sect’, which included his parishioners William Wilberforce, the Thorntons and Zachary Macaulay, and became one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society.

24 Richard Wurmbrand was born in Bucharest in 1909 into a German Jewish family. Converted to Christianity when he was 27, he was imprisoned for 14 years by the Communists, much of the time in solitary confinement and with torture, for resisting their attempts to control the church in Romania.

April

7 Joseph Spiers, founder of the Children’s Special Service Mission, died in 1909, aged 72. On Llandudno beach in 1868, moved by the spiritual need of children who knew only a formal religion, he started to create Bible texts out of white stones on the sand and to tell children stories. From this incident, beach missions trace their origin.

20 George Frederick Handel died in 1759. Although his oratorios on biblical subjects were originally written as a way of getting round the prohibition of opera in Lent, many of them were dramatic and moving portrayals. Messiah is the most performed choral work in history.

22 In 1509, the brilliant and handsome Henry VIII came to the throne at the age of 17. Although he was given the title of ‘Defender of the Faith’ by the pope, he presided over the separation of the church in England from papal control, and in doing so brought to the fore convinced Reformers.

May

The ‘1859 revival’ began in Ulster, developing out of a prayer meeting by four young men at the Old Schoolhouse, Kells, Co. Antrim. By May 1859, 100 prayer meetings were being held each week, and there was a steady flow of conversions at services attended by 1,000 families.

2 John Knox returned to Scotland in 1559 after virtually 13 years’ absence, and was welcomed as the unquestioned leader of the Reformation there.

8 In 1559, Queen Elizabeth I signed the Act of Uniformity, passed by Parliament, which annulled Mary I’s legislation restoring Roman Catholic practices, and commanded the use of the 1559 Prayer Book. It was a compromise settlement, which regulated the Church of England for the next 90 years.

June

3 Morgan Llwyd died in 1659, aged 40. A Puritan, he ministered in Wrexham and his book, The Three Birds, is considered a Welsh classic. It expresses his burning desire for people in Wales to accept the gospel.

22 The 1559 Book of Common Prayer was issued for use as a service book in the Church of England. This was in the main the work of Cranmer, as in the Prayer Book of 1552, but by this date some of those who had been exiled to the Continent during the reign of Mary were beginning to question having a liturgy that did not leave room for extempore prayer.

July

10 John Calvin, French Reformer and leading thinker of the Reformation, was born at Noyon in 1509.

August

16 The foundation stone of the Metropolitan Tabernacle was laid in Southwark in 1859. The powerful biblical preaching of Charles H. Spurgeon had filled New Park Street Chapel to overflowing, and more space was needed. The new building was designed to accommodate 6,000.

24 William Wilberforce was born in Hull in 1759. An MP from the age of 21 and converted at 25, he spent his life in the long struggle for the abolition first of the slave trade and then of slavery itself, within the British dominions.

31 Jonathan Evans, who wrote the hymn ‘Hark the voice of love and mercy’, died at Foleshill, Coventry, where he was pastor, in 1809. In his youth he had worked in a ribbon factory in Coventry.

September

1 Simeon Stylites, the most famous of the ‘pillar hermits’, died in 459 on the platform of his 60-foot high pillar near Antioch in Syria, aged 69. People of his day found this extreme form of asceticism very attractive, although to us it seems eccentric and a misunderstanding of worldliness.

7 Robert Estienne, scholar and printer, died at Geneva in 1559, aged 56. He printed editions of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament, and was responsible for the verse division of the New Testament, still followed today.

10 Stacey Woods, student evangelist and founder of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), was born in Bendigo, northern Victoria, Australia, in 1909. His global vision inspired many outstanding Christian leaders of the 1960s and 1970s from around the world.

24 Charles Simeon was born at Reading in 1759. Converted soon after entering King’s College, Cambridge, he became vicar of Holy Trinity, Cambridge, at 23, and in a ministry there of over 50 years, exerted an enormous influence over successive generations of undergraduates.

October

W.P. Nicholson, a fiery Ulster evangelist of the 1920s and 1930s, died this month in a Cork hospital in 1959, when he became ill on a transatlantic liner.

It was said that his preaching produced either revival or a riot. He conducted a memorable mission for the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union in 1926.

1 John Angell James died in 1859, aged 74. A notable Congregationalist minister at Carrs Lane, Birmingham, he played a part in founding the Evangelical Alliance, and was succeeded in his church by R.W. Dale.

25 In 1659, Nicholas Brady was born in Bandon, Co. Cork. With Nahum Tate, he published A New Version of the Psalms of David, which was often bound with the Book of Common Prayer and in use for about 200 years. Their hymn, ‘Through all the changing scenes of life’, is still sung.

Christian anniversaries in 2009