February 7
543 Benedict of Nursia visits his twin sister Scholastica, who was about to die. As per the description of Pope Gregory I, Scholastica requested her brother to stay beside her till her last moment. Benedict refuses. As Scholastica goes into deep prayer, a severe thunderstorm comes on the land and Benedict cannot leave. She dies three days later, in the presence of her brother.
1497: Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican monk, and his followers burn the works of art in Florence. He preached the destruction of secular art and culture.
1528: Bern, the strongest region (canton) in southern Switzerland those times, officially embraces the Protestant faith due to the influence of the Swiss reformers Ulrich Zwingli and John Oecolampadius.
1546: German reformer Martin Luther consoles his wife Kate in a letter, eleven days before his death,: “I have a better Caretaker than you and all the angels. He it is who lies in a manger …but at the same time sits at the right hand of God, the almighty Father. Therefore be at rest.”
1569: Philip II, king of Spain, decrees the establishment of the Inquisition in Lima, of which the main victims were Jews.
1649: The British Parliament ratifies the Westminster Confession, the reformed confession of faith, which had been accepted by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland the previous August. Many protestant churches in the world have accepted this confession as their central doctrine.
1672: Solomon Stoddard becomes the pastor of Northampton Church, Massachusetts. His so-called “Halfway Covenant” made him famous, which allows people who are unsure of their salvation to partake of the Communion.
1832: Birth of Hannah Whitall Smith, American Quaker evangelist and devotional author. Her best seller ‘The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life’ (1875) is still in print!
1856: Rev. Daniel Bliss lands in Syria where he worked as a missionary for around fifty years, seven years as preacher and the rest as an educator.
1869: Connecticut Congregational clergyman Samuel Wolcott, upon returning home from a YMCA evangelistic service, wrote the following missionary hymn: “Christ for the World We Sing.”
1916: The Orthodox monk Hermogenes is tonsured at the Belogorsk monastery; he was assassinated by Bolsheviks two and half years later.
1938: Martin Niemoller, Lutheran pastor, is put on trial by the Nazis because of his outspoken opposition to their policies and is pushed into a concentration camp.
1947: Peter Marshall, U.S. Senate Chaplain, authored the prayer: “We want to do right, and to be right; so start us in the right way, for Thou knowest that we are very hard to turn.”
1977:Â Martyrdom of seven white Roman Catholic missionaries, including four nuns, at the hands of Rhodesian terrorists, at St. Paul’s Mission, Musami. The black Christians and staff are ignored.
Edited by:Â T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org