February 9
1555: Former Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester John Hooper (who was deprived of his see due to his marriage) and Dr. Rowland Taylor, a prominent Theologian, are burned at the stake as heretics under Queen Mary Tudor.
1619: Lucilio Vanini, a famous philosopher and physician, an atheist and libertine who had circulated pantheistic views and addressed nature as a goddess, is punished for the same by the authorities in Toulouse, France, who cut out his tongue and then strangled and burned him.
1815: Death of Claudius Buchanan in England. As chaplain and educator he was well known in India. He contributed much to the advancement of the gospel and took steps to free missionaries from the control of the East India Company.
1839: Robert Murray McCheyne, Scottish clergyman, reflected in a letter:” ‘In spiritual things, this world is all wintertime so long as the Savior is away.”
1849: Following the success of Mazzini and his followers, Pope Pius IX has to flee from Rome; An Italian assembly passes a law to deprive the pope of his temporal powers.
1881: Death of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, whose writings were filled with Christian values and who often included Christian characters and themes in them.
1930: Frank Laubach, American pioneer linguist and missionary, states in a letter: “The sense of being led by an unseen hand which takes mine, while another hand reaches ahead and prepares the way, grows upon me daily.”
1943: Alexander Solzhenitsyn is arrested for criticizing Stalin and charged with conspiracy to overthrow his communist regime. He was sent to the Gulag where he finds faith.
1948: Peter Marshall, U.S. Senate Chaplain, confessed: “We are tempted to despair of our world. Remind us, O Lord, that Thou hast been facing the same thing in all the world since time began.”
1949: Cardinal József Mindszenty is sentenced by the communist government in Hungary, who had accused him of treason because he resisted the attempt to secularize the Catholic schools.
Edited by: T. Chempilayil MCBS
Courtesy: www.studylight.org