1 April

This is the day that … ARTHUR WALKINGTON PINK was born, in Nottingham, England, in 1886.   Early in his life he became involved in Theosophy, even becoming one of their chief speakers.

But conversion – based on Proverbs 14:12 – broke the bondage of this cult and set his feet in a new direction. Influenced by Moody and Sankey’s 1880 British tour, Arthur Pink enrolled in the Moody Bible Institute, Chicago.  Six weeks later he “dropped out”, telling a lecturer that he felt he was “wasting his time”.

There followed various pastorates – he moved some 16 times between 1910 and 1940 – preaching and studying the Word of God.

He bade farewell to the dispensational theology of Moody Bible Institute and became adamant in his Calvinistic viewpoint.  He also harshly criticised the Scofield Bible.

During a stay in Australia he ministered with the Baptist Union of New South Wales, until they asked that he state his views at a special Ministers’ Fraternal meeting on 8 September, 1925.   This resulted in a “unanimous resolve” that Pink was out of Baptist circles!  (Reformation Today, August, 1972).

Eventually he moved to the Isle of Lewis, at the northern tip of Scotland, and died there on 15 July, 1952.

For 30 years he had written, and published, Studies in the Scriptures – a monthly magazine with less than 1000 regular readers.

His volumes on Genesis, Exodus, Elijah and Elisha, and the Sovereignty of God, are still widely read.  Iain Murray has penned Pink’s biography (Banner of Truth Pub.), and many of his books are still in print.

Warren Wiersbe writes:  “He was not a great theologian, and some of his exegesis was weak, but it is impossible to miss the author’s love for Christ…” (Good News Broadcaster, December, 1983).

 

 

2 April

 

This is the day that … WILLIAM HOLMAN HUNT was born in Cheapside, London, in 1827.  By the time he was four he was “begging for a brush and some paints” … and his love for art never faded.

Among his masterpieces is The Light of the World (painted in 1853), which hangs in Keble College Chapel, Oxford, and The Scapegoat (1854), which was actually painted near the shores of the Dead Sea.

 

His Shadow of Death (1869) depicts the Lord Jesus in His youth, stretching after a hard day’s work in the carpenter’s shop, and Mary, peering around the door, sees His shadow, in the shape of a cross.

Holman Hunt died in 1910.

 

 

 

3 April

This is the day that …WILLIAM PATTESON NICHOLSON was born in 1876, in Ulster, Northern Ireland, to a godly mother and an evangelistic Presbyterian preacher. 

At the age of 16 he followed his father’s earlier profession and became a merchant seaman.  He traversed the globe and was, on one occasion, shipwrecked.  Many of these days “before the mast” became anecdotes in his sermons years later.

Back home in Bangor, as he sat at the breakfast table, at about 8.30 a.m. on 22 May, 1899, God met him.  His spiritual condition bore in upon him and he realised that it was “Christ or Hell.  I came to Jesus as I was,” he writes, “guilty, worn and sad, and accepted Him as my personal Saviour.  All my guilt and gloom vanished like the early dew and the morning cloud  … I was born of God.  Hallelujah!”  (The Evangelist, by W.P. Nicholson, page 12).

‘W.P.’ became one of Christendom’s most unique evangelists.  After some training at Glasgow Bible Training Institute, and joining the Chapman-Alexander evangelistic team, he was ordained as an evangelist by the Carlisle Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church at the age of 38 years, although, as one writer has it, “he began to weep and sing and rejoice like any old-fashioned Free Methodist!”

Sometimes unconventional in his pulpit style, he nevertheless preached the old-time gospel with a powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit.  He travelled the world 10 times, including a visit to Australia, sharing the Upwey Convention platform with Dr Graham Scroggie, during Christmas/New Year 1934-35.  “That man,” said Dr Scroggie, “is filled with vulgarity and the Holy Spirit, and how a man can be filled with both at the same time I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” adds A. Lindsay Glegg.  “‘W.P.’ shocked many with his rough tongue, but it was no use trying to change him.  My wife and I did our best with, I’m afraid, no success, but still the people came and many were converted.”   Lindsay Glegg remembers the time ‘W.P.’ stayed in his home for 10 days.  “He was up at 6 a.m., but rarely appeared before noon;  he spent hours wrestling with God in prayer.  My wife would take up his breakfast and leave it outside his bedroom door, but it was rarely taken in” (Four Score … and More, by A.L. Glegg, page 40).  On one occasion, “unconsciously, agonizing in prayer, he ripped the sheets into shreds.”!  (page 41).

Truly a remarkable evangelist!  Ian Paisley has penned a 30-page booklet concerning this “unpredictable man.”  He tells of a drunk who disturbed a meeting where ‘W.P.’ was preaching.  The evangelist left the pulpit, grabbed the fellow by the scruff of the neck, and pitched him out the church door.  A woman criticised his action:  “Mr Nicholson, the Saviour would not have done that.”  “No,” said Nicholson, “He would have cast the devil out of the man.  I cannot do that, Madam, so I did the second best thing.  I cast the devil out – and the man as well…” (Nicholson, by I. Paisley, pages 24-25).

Just one quote from ‘W.P.’ himself, from his book On Towards the Goal, a series of messages given at the Bangor Easter Convention, 1925:  “I do not know anyone in the world that I know better than the Lord.  I do not know my wife or mother the way I know the Lord.  I do not know the best friends I ever had the way I know the Lord.  We walk together, my Lord and I, because we are in fellowship, and there is nothing I have but is His.  All my sins were made His one day, and all my joys are His now.  Glory to God, we laugh together …” (pages 24-25).

And I don’t think he was exaggerating.

W.P. Nicholson died in 1962.

 

 

4 April

 

This is the day that … CHARLES SIMEON was converted, in the year 1779, at the age of 20.  Charles Simeon was born in Reading, England, in 1759, and educated at King’s College, Cambridge.  It was during those student days he found it compulsory, under penalty of expulsion, to attend the Lord’s Supper!!

Not a Christian at this time, nevertheless the Spirit of God moved upon his conscience, and he purchased a book – Bishop Wilson’s The Lord’s Supper – and found himself “much interested” in the story of the Scapegoat (Leviticus 16).

 

“Suddenly,” says Mr Simeon, “the thought rushed to my mind:  ‘What!  May I transfer all my guilt to another?  Has God provided an offering for me that I may lay my sins on His head? Then, God willing, I will not bear them on my soul one moment longer’.”  (Quoted from A Casket of Cameos, by Dr F.W. Boreham, page 246).

It was Easter Sunday, 4 April, 1779.

From thence Simeon applied himself to the study of theology, became minister of Holy Trinity, Cambridge, for 54 years – and is looked upon as one of the great evangelical Anglicans the church has ever known.

 

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5 April

 

This is the day that … HENRY HAVELOCK was born in 1795, in Bishop Wearmouth, England.

So serious minded was he as a lad that his school friends called him “Phlos” - an abbreviation for ‘Philosopher’.  But there were others who taunted him with cruel jibes – “Methodist”, “hypocrite”, for it was known that he prayed and read the Scriptures daily, as his godly mother had taught him so to do.

For a while he went on to study law, and then at the age of 20 we find him entering “The Rifle Brigade” of the British Army.

By this time his faith had lapsed, even bordering on Unitarianism.  But mid-Atlantic, on his way to India in 1823, he is befriended by Lieutenant James Gardner, “a humble, unpretending man, just twenty-one.”  And a Christian.

He loans Havelock the Life of Henry Martyn – missionary hero of the C.M.S. - and The Force of Truth by well-known Bible commentator, Thomas Scott.  And Gardner’s gentle testimony led him to the Saviour.

On 8 February, 1829, he married Hannah Marshman, daughter of one of the great Baptist missionaries to that land, a co-worker with William Carey.

It was 23 years before promotion came his way – first to Captaincy, then Major in 1843, Lieutenant Colonel in 1844, and eventually Brigadier-General in 1857.  During this time his Christian convictions and witness remained steadfast. 

 

On Sundays “a flag would fly over his tent” as an indication that he was at prayer and others were invited to join him.  The influence spread through his battalion until they were known as ‘Havelock’s Saints’!

It was in 1857 the Indian Mutiny took place – thousands of rebels demanding “the extermination of every European in India” (Brave Lives and Noble, page 283).

Havelock, with 1000 troops, marched to Lucknow to rescue the besieged Britishers – 1,700 of them, including women and children.  “The advance to Lucknow forms one of the most stirring chapters in our military annals” … ‘Havelock’s Saints’ “earned a hundred V.C.’s!” (1000 Heroes, by A. Mee, page 565).

He arrived on 25 September and held out against the 10,000 rebels until Colonel Campbell’s Highlanders arrived, and Lucknow was saved.  But two months later Sir Henry Havelock died.  To Sir James Outram he had said:  “For more than forty years I have so ruled my life that when death came I might face it without fear.”   And to his son, also wounded and needing care, Havelock had said:  “Come, my son, and see how a Christian can die”  (Modern Christian Biography, page 220;  Way to Glory, by J. Pollock, page 252).

 

 

6 April

 

This is the day that … EDMUND HAMILTON SEARS was born in 1810, in Massachusetts, USA.

It is his great Christmas hymn that merits him a place in our book.  In 1846 he wrote :

 

          It came upon a midnight clear,

          that glorious song of old,

          From angels bending near the earth

          to touch their harps of gold…

 

Against a background of “his fellow citizens killing Mexicans that they might enslave more Negroes, and the Civil War looming on the horizon”, Sears struck a message of hope and peace.

 

          For, lo, the days are hastening one

          by prophet bards foretold,

          When with the ever-circling years

          comes ’round the age of gold;

          When peace shall over all the earth

          its ancient splendours fling,

          And the whole world gives back the song

          which now the angels sing.

 

Whilst most of today’s congregations would sing this, thinking of the Lord’s Return and the glory that will follow, such was not the meaning of the author.

Rev. E.H. Sears was pastor of a Unitarian Church that looked for the triumph of Christ’s teachings in the here and now.  It is doubtful that he even believed in the Second Coming. Some books quote him as saying that he wrote “I believe and preach the Divinity of Christ” – but what he meant by ‘divinity’ and what we mean by it could be two different things.

Not only was he a Unitarian pastor of various churches (1859-1870), but he also held to the curious occultic teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg!

Edmund Sears died on 14 January, 1876, in Massachusetts.

 

 

7 April

 

This is the day that … WILLIAM GRIMSHAW died in 1763, in Yorkshire, England. At the age of 18 he had entered Christ’s College, Cambridge, and taken ‘holy orders’ to become a Church of England clergyman.

During his first pastorate – “where he amused himself with rural sports … jolly, careless and ready for a game or a match or a day with the dogs (hunting)” – William Grimshaw preached a “barren orthodoxy”.  But after four years of marriage his wife died and he was led to think of things eternal.

He tells of a curious vision that he saw whilst officiating in his church … God the Father and God the Son “in a heated dispute” as to what to do with the godless vicar.  The Father said he should be damned but the Son “thrust His hands and feet through the ceiling (of the church)” and Grimshaw saw the “nail prints and from them poured fresh blood” (The Evangelical Renewal, by S. Baring-Gould, page 268;  John Wesley, by C. Vulliamy, page 191).

Thus it was, at the age of 28, Grimshaw became an evangelical preacher of the old-time gospel.

In the village of Haworth he attacked the sin of the inhabitants like a modern-day John the Baptist.  Before the Sunday service he would go out and round up shirkers with a riding crop (Dictionary of the Christian Church, page 438).  Sometimes he would “prowl around his parish disguised as an old woman to detect evil doers” (S. Baring-Gould, page 268). During his ministry “sin was checked.  Sabbath-breaking became unfashionable, immorality was greatly restrained.  Multitudes were converted.  Oftentimes over 1,200 communicants observed the Lord’s Supper” (Biblical Evangelist, February, 1983, page 5).

“A tough evangelist of the stirring, manly sort, thinking it shameful to keep silence while so many had never heard, or never felt, the Word of God.  He is one of the monuments of Methodism,” says C. Vulliamy, page 293.

“A faithful minister of Christ”, wrote Charles Wesley, in October, 1746.  And Wesley had such a high opinion of him that he was appointed leader of the great Methodist movement if the Wesley brothers preceded him in death.  But it was not to be.  On 7 April, 1763, William Grimshaw passed to his Heavenly Home.

On his deathbed William Grimshaw spoke to a fellow clergyman:  “My last enemy is come!  The signs of death are upon me.  But I am not afraid.  No!  No!  Blessed be God, my hope is sure and I am in His hands” (Christian Leaders of the 18th Century, by Bishop J.C. Ryle, page 130).  His last words were:  “Here goes an unprofitable servant”.

 

 

8 April

 

This is the day that … FREDERICK BROTHERTON MEYER was born, in London.  The year was 1847.  Born to godly parents, from his earliest years he believed that some day he would preach the Word.

He would play ‘church’- preaching in his childish way to brothers and sisters – and the story is on record of a housemaid, hearing one of those ‘sermons’, being convicted of her need of Christ and going on from that moment to become a Christian shortly afterwards (Great Evangelical Preachers, by J. McGraw, page 129).

His 20 years’ ministry at Christ Church in Lambeth, England, saw the congregation grow from 100 to 2000.

 

Helpful books flowed from his pen, most of which are still in print.  He travelled extensively as a convention speaker.  A. Lindsay Glegg says of him:  “Dr Meyer was a saint, and looked like one, with his quiet manner and his gentle voice.  One’s life was enriched by being in his presence.”  He also tells of the postcard received from the dying Meyer.  With shaky hand this man of God had written, “I have raced you to Heaven, I am just off – see you there.  Love, F.B. Meyer” (Four Score … and More, by A.L. Glegg, page 32).

Thus it was at the age of 82 years, this dear servant of God went to his eternal Home.

 

 

9 April

 

This is the day that … JOSEPH PARKER was born in Northumberland, England, in 1830.  Reared by godly parents, he wrote:  “I seriously believed that if I had touched a (playing) card or a box of dice there might have been murder under our roof!” 

By the age of 18 he was preaching the old-time Gospel “on the saw-mill on the village green,” and he tells us that he hurled upon the 100 rustics who assembled, “all the thunderbolts of an outraged Heaven!”  Married at the age of 22, he became assistant to Dr John Campbell at Whitefield’s Tabernacle, Moorfields.

There was a five-year ministry in Banbury, 11 years at Manchester, and 33 years at the City Temple in London.

“Through all his career,” writes W. Robertson Nicoll, “Dr Parker was firmly and consistently evangelical …” (Princes of the Church, page 177).

His 1000 sermons through the whole Bible were later printed in 25 volumes (The People’s Bible), and copies may still be found in second-hand shops!

He preached extemporaneously to thousands every Sunday and Thursday.  He was an orator par excellence.  And he was also a law unto himself.  “He was not only minister of the church, but also its treasurer and deacons!” (Preachers I Have Heard, by A. Gammie, page 39).

His magnificent hymn is found in but a few hymnbooks:

 

          God holds the key of all unknown

                    and I am glad.

          If other hands should hold the key

          or if He trusted it to me

                    I might be sad …

 

Joseph Parker died (“ascended” is what the brass tablet said on his coffin) on 28 November, 1902.

 

 

10 April

 

This is the day that … WILLIAM BOOTH was born, in 1829.

In his massive 987-page biography, Harold Begbie claims that he was “one of the most signal figures in human history.”   Amen!  But when that little tot arrived in a humble, poor cottage in Nottingham, England, the parents never dreamed what lay in store for their baby son.

Before he died his name would be a household word around the world.  Royalty would be delighted to meet him.  Sixty-five thousand would file past his coffin in silent tribute;  thousands more around the world would thank God for this grand old warrior of the cross, William Booth. 

Converted at the age of 15, he embraced the Wesleyan doctrine of Holiness, and soon became one of their local preachers.

It was on his 33rd birthday that he fell in love with Catherine Mumford.  By this time he was a full-time pastor – and she was one of the congregation.  They married on 16 June, 1855, and she soon became a vibrant co-worker.

The Methodists refused to release him for an itinerant evangelistic ministry, so William resigned.  With his beloved wife at his side, they blazed a trail across England in pursuit of souls – first with the Methodist Church for 14 years, and then as superintendent of the “Christian Revival Association”, an organisation that was later to change its name to “The Salvation Army”.

Despite hostility from mobs and churches alike (Lord Shaftesbury called Booth the “Anti-Christ” – Echoes and Memories, by Bramwell Booth, page 40), yet thousands were converted.  “Go for souls, and go for the worst,” was his advice to the men and women who sallied forth to rescue the devil’s captives.

J. Evan Smith, for many years Booth’s private secretary, writes:  “The secret of William Booth’s success was his burning passion for the souls of men.  The centre and citadel of his power was the strength of his love for souls.  He had an unshakeable confidence in God’s ability to save the worst”  (Booth the Beloved, page 90).

Something of this grand old warrior’s burden for souls can be seen in his words spoken to his son.  The operation had been a failure and the old General learned that he was blind.  “Well, Bramwell,  I’ve done what I could for God and for the people with my eyes – now I shall do what I can for God and for the people without my eyes!” 

General Booth “lay down his sword” – as the Salvation Army puts it – on 20 August, 1912.

 

 

11 April

 

This is the day that … HENRY CRESWICKE RAWLINSON was born in Oxfordshire, England, in 1810.  He became a member of the British diplomatic service, lived in Baghdad … and dabbled in archaeology.

His deciphering of 1,200 lines of writing found upon the Behistun Rock was a major break-through in unlocking the ancient Babylonian script.

For four years (1835-1839) Rawlinson had clambered up and down this 1,700 feet high isolated rock … and there, 400 feet above the ground, “standing on a narrow ledge about a foot wide with the aid of ladders from below and swings from above, he made squeezes of the inscriptions” (Halley’s Bible Handbook).

The Afghan war delayed his studies … then he went back to Baghdad where he was appointed British Consul … and where he continued to scale and examine the Behistun inscription.

“Often in the intense heat he worked in a summer house at the bottom of the garden, a pet lion lying at his feet and a water-wheel from the river Tigris pouring water over the roof to keep it cool.”

In 1846 he presented his findings to the Royal Asiatic Society.  The cuneiform symbols had finally yielded their secrets.  Now Bible scholars began to read the ancient monuments and see what light they shed upon the Holy Scriptures.

Rawlinson died in 1895, and has since been known as the “Father of Assyriology”.

 

 

12 April

This is the day that … SAMUEL ZWEMER was born, in 1867.

 

He was the 13th child of Adrian and Katherine Zwemer, Dutch folk who had emigrated to America 18 years earlier.  Adrian was pastor of a Reformed Church in Michigan.        

In 1890 Samuel himself was ordained, and the following year ventured forth to Arabia as a missionary.

On 18 May, 1896, in Baghdad, he married Amy Wilkes, a Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.) worker.  The C.M.S. were not overjoyed about this, however, and required Amy to repay the cost of her journey to the field.  Samuel did so – and thereafter joked that he had ‘purchased’ his wife in accordance with Arab custom!

His ministry among Muslims earned him the title “The Apostle to Islam” – and for 40 years he edited a magazine devoted to evangelising those people.   Fifty books came from his pen. 

In 1937 his wife died.  Three years later (at the age of 73) he married Margaret Clarke, “considerably younger”, who had worked as his secretary.  She died 10 years later, whilst he lived on another two years, passing to his Reward on 2 April, 1952, at the age of 85.

 

 

13 April

 

This is the day that … JOSEPH BARBER LIGHTFOOT was born in Liverpool, England, in 1828.  He was to become one of Anglicanism’s most notable bishops – W. Robertson Nicoll describes him as “pre-eminently the scholar of the Church of England” (Princes of the Church, page 22).

The Dictionary of English Church History speaks of his “profound learning and matchless lucidity of exposition” (page 328), whilst Warren Wiersbe approvingly quotes The Times newspaper that stated, “He was at once one of the greatest theological scholars and an eminent bishop.  It is scarcely possible to estimate adequately as yet the influence of his life and work” (Listening to the Giants, page 52).

After graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge, he was ordained to the priesthood, and eventually became Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral.  In 1879 he was appointed Bishop of Durham.

We are told that he was a gifted linguist – fluent in six languages and able to use six more.

His ‘sons’ – men training for ordination – breakfasted with him regularly before listening to his lectures and advice for ministry. 

His commentaries on Galatians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon “ought to be in every minister’s library”, says Warren Wiersbe.  And he was one of the scholars who translated the New Testament for the Revised Version (1870-1884).  (Spurgeon said that this translation was “strong in Greek but weak in English”.)

Bishop J.B. Lightfoot died in Bournemouth on 21 December, 1889.

 

[This Bishop Lightfoot is not to be confused with John Lightfoot, also an English divine – a member of the Westminster Assembly in the 17th century.]

 

 

14 April

 

This is the day that … KATHERINA VON BORA escaped!  It was 1523.

The Protestant Reformation was under way, and a letter reached Martin Luther that nine nuns wanted to leave the convent in Torgau, Germany – could he help them?  So Luther arranged for his friend, Leonard Koppe, to deliver smoked herrings to the cloister … and according to W. Peterson, those nuns hid themselves in the empty barrels (Martin Luther Had a Wife, page 21).   J.H. Alexander might be more accurate (I hope so!) when he says the escapees were hiding behind the barrels.

In any case, three of the nuns returned to their parents’ homes, Luther found husbands for the others … except Katherina Von Bora.  He married her himself – on 13 June, 1525.  She was 26 and he was 42.

“Before I married,” Luther later wrote, “no-one had made my bed up for a year.  The straw was rotting from my sweat.” Now that had to change.  Katie, he tells us, even gave him a pillow!

It was a happy marriage – though the Reformer did say on one occasion that if he ever married again, “I would hew me an obedient wife out of stone.”  But when he spoke of Paul’s epistle to the Galatians he called it “my Katherina Von Bora”, for it was the portion of Scripture closest to his heart.

Six children were born in the Luther household.  And Katherina (“Kitty, my Rib”, he sometimes called her) died in 1550, four years after her famous husband (some books say 1552).

Her last words were, “I will stick to Christ as a burr to a top coat”.

 

 

15 April

 

This is the day that … LEILA NAYLOR was born in Ohio, USA, in 1862.  She married Charles Morris in 1881, and together they became active in the Methodist Episcopal Church (“Episcopal” because Methodists in the USA had bishops).

Ten years later she began writing gospel songs, keeping a writing pad handy in the kitchen as she went about her daily chores.

When her eyesight began to fail, at the age of 51, her son erected a huge blackboard, 28 feet long, with music staff lines upon it.

Altogether about 1000 gospel songs came from her talented pen:  The Stranger of Galilee;  The Fight is On;  Nearer, still Nearer;  and the great Second Coming hymn, What if it were Today?   The favourite Elim chorus, No. 25, Sweeter as the Days go by, also came from her pen.

For most of these, Mrs Morris composed the tune as well as writing the words.

She died on 23 July, 1929.

 

 

16 April

 

This is the day that … GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL was born in 1865, in New York State. Her father was a Presbyterian minister, and her mother had achieved some fame as an author.

On a Remington typewriter (a new invention at the time), Grace was soon churning out her novel, A Chautauqua Idyll, which was accepted by the publisher, the first of over 100 books to come from her fertile mind – and most of them are still in print over half a century later.  They are romantic novels with a strong Christian emphasis, emphatic in their faithfulness to Scripture. 

Her biography, by Robert Munce, was published in 1986.

A certain 19 year-old student wrote in his journal, on 8 February, 1931:  “Read Grace Livingston Hill’s ‘The Witness’, and it shook me to the core.”  That student was Francis Schaeffer, who was destined to be come one of Christendom’s leading apologists.

And Dr J. Dwight Pentecost testified that Mrs Hill “was instrumental in setting the course of my entire ministry…” (Confident Living, May, 1987).

Grace Livingston Hill died on 23 February, 1947, in Philadelphia, USA

 

 

17 April

 

This is the day that … ADAM CLARKE was married, in 1788. Born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, about 1760, he was converted in his late teens by a Methodist layman … travelled to England, and handed himself over to Wesley.

In his first year this ‘boy’ preacher delivered 506 sermons “and a great number of public exhortations, which he did not class as sermons.”  In 1786 he was sent to France, for he was skilled in the French language, and many, many others.

Back in England he married Miss Mary Cooke – “through their lives they were supremely happy” – and six sons and six daughters were born.

By 1806 he was elected president of the Methodist Conference, and again, a second time, in 1814.

Best remembered for his massive Bible Commentary – despite a few oddities of interpretation … e.g. Eve was tempted by an orangoutang – Adam Clarke was one of John Wesley’s right hand men.

Commenced 27 years earlier, his Commentary, finally completed on 18 March, 1825, on his knees (!), entitles Adam Clarke to be ranked “among the chief of expositors, a prince among commentators”, said C.H. Spurgeon.  

Dr Clarke died of cholera on 26 August, 1832. 

 

 

18 April

 

This is the day that … General Jimmie Doolittle’s Squadron bombed Tokyo, in 1942.  Sixteen B25 North American bombers rested on the deck of “USS Hornet” until – at 3.15 a.m. - the alarm was given.  Battle stations!  So it was the first bombing of Japan’s capital city took place.  But B25 number 16 ran out of fuel and the crew bailed out over enemy occupied territory.

JACOB DE SHAZER tells how he and his buddies were captured, “imprisoned, beaten and half-starved”.  Three fellow crewmembers were executed, and a fourth died of “slow starvation”.

De Shazer asked a guard if he might have a Bible.  The request was granted.  “I eagerly read its pages.  Chapter after chapter gripped my heart,” he later wrote.

 

And then, on 8 June, 1944, “God gave me grace to confess my sins to Him … and He saved me for Jesus’ sake.”

After the war, home in America, De Shazer entered Seattle Pacific (Bible) College, and returned to Japan as a missionary!

One of his first meetings was in the largest auditorium in Osaka – 4000 crowded inside and 3000 listened outside – and Jacob De Shazer (who had once bombed Tokyo), and Mitsuo Fuchida (who once bombed Pearl Harbour), testified together of their common love for the One Who had reconciled them to God … and each other.

 

 

19 April

 

This is the day that … JOHN HALES was born in Bath, UK, in 1584. He was a leading Church of England theologian, “one of the best Greek scholars of his day” … and a thorough going Calvinist.  So much so, he was invited to share in the Synod of Dort (1618-1619), a gathering of Reformed (Calvinistic) theologians who opposed the Remonstrants (or Arminians … those who opposed some of Calvin’s distinctive teachings).

The differences were vigorously debated, and the Arminians were condemned as teachers of heretical doctrine.

But John Hales weighed the debate carefully in his mind.  Had Christ accomplished salvation for the elect only by His death – or did He provide salvation for all mankind … if they chose to believe in Him?

And he who had come to the Synod a convinced Calvinist changed his mind – “as he says in one of his own vivid phrases, ‘I bade John Calvin goodnight’.” (Arminianism. by A. Harrison, page 90).

John Hales returned to England and was made Prebendary of Windsor by Archbishop Laud.  But when he refused to acknowledge the Commonwealth “he was deprived of his living, fell into poverty and had to sell his library!” (Dictionary of Literary Biographies, page 298).

John Hales died in Eton on 19 May, 1656.

 

 

20 April

 

This is the day that … SAMUEL POLLARD was born in 1864.  The place was Cornwall, where his father pastored a Bible Christian Church.

Converted at the age of 11, he came under the influence of Pastor F.W. Bourne (who wrote the life story of Billy Bray), and it was during this time he felt led into missionary service.

At the age of 22 he sailed for Shanghai and there worked with the China Inland Mission.  At the age of 36 he married Emma Hainge, also working with C.I.M.  “There was much opposition.  As they passed along the street men would spit upon the ground, and women would hold their noses…” (Twelve Mighty Missionaries, by E. Enock, page 62).

But on 12 July, 1904, “the great harvest began”.  Ministry among the Miao people saw startling results.  A continuous stream of people came to his door that they might hear the Good News. Persecution broke upon the new-born Church.  On one occasion “Pollard was beaten nearly to death”, and spent two months in hospital as a result.  On recovering, he turned his attention to translating the Scriptures into the Miao language.  This necessitated inventing a script – for they had no written language – and teaching them to read.

The New Testament in Miao was eventually published by the British and Foreign Bible Society.

When he died at the age of 51 (17 September, 1915), 1,200 mourners gathered at the burial service. In the June, 1996, issue of the magazine, Pray for China, Tao Yumi, who 60 years earlier had been a pupil in the school Pollard had established, was quoted as saying:  “We were slaves before he came.  He taught us everything.”  And the article adds  “in July, 1995, the Communist authorities restored his (Pollard’s) grave, and declared the site a national monument”!

 

 

21 April

 

This is the day that … WILFRED GRENFELL experienced his ‘ice-pan’ adventure, in 1908.  The story of this remarkable life commences near Chester, England, where he was born in 1865.

At the age of 20 he attended a tent meeting run by Moody and Sankey, and Moody’s common-sense – when a platform guest was “coagulating a prayer” (Moody, by J. Pollock, page 275:  “Let us sing a hymn while our brother finishes his prayer,” said Moody!) – led to Grenfell’s conversion.

 

After graduating in medicine he joined the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen – and for the rest of his life he worked around Labrador…

The story of his meeting his wife-to-be on the deck of the “Mauretania”, as he was returning to his mission field from England, is worth telling.

“Within a few hours (of meeting her) he proposed.  ‘But you don’t even know my name!’ she protested.  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he replied.  ‘I know what it’s going to be’!” (Arrows of Desire, by Dr F.W. Boreham).

It was that same year that the “ice-pan” adventure occurred – on Easter Day! The request had come from 100 kilometres southward for Grenfell to amputate a leg.  He hitched his team of huskies to the sled – “Moody, Watch, Sly, Doc, Brin, Jerry, Sue and Jack … as beautiful beasts as ever hauled a komatik over our northern barriers,” he wrote.

But as they were crossing a huge ice-pan, it suddenly broke loose from the mainland.  “The piece of frozen snow on which we lay was so small that it was evident we must all be drowned if we were forced to remain on it as it was driven sea-ward into open water.”  He continued that darkness was falling and “there was not one chance in a thousand of my being seen …”  The temperature was dropping rapidly.

Grenfell knew that if he could survive the night, a rescue party might find him next morning.  But could he survive in that cold?  “I saw that I must have the skins of some of my dogs if I were to live the night without freezing …”  Three dogs were slain, and Grenfell huddled in their fur until next morning, when a rescue took place.

For days, he tells us, he had painful reminders “in my frozen hands and feet.”  But he fully recovered and continued his medical missionary work.

“In our hallway stands a bronze tablet,” he writes, “to the memory of three noble dogs – Moody, Watch, Sly – whose lives were given for mine on the ice – 21 April, 1908.

One cannot but think of Another – the Lamb of God – Whose “life was given for mine” … that first Easter Day.

 

 

22 April

 

This is the day that … ELIJAH COLEMAN BRIDGMAN was born in Massachusetts, in 1801.  He was to become the first missionary sent to China by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (A.B.C.F.M.).  It was this Board that had also sent Adoniram Judson to India – America’s first foreign missionary.

 

Mainly Congregationalist in its denominational make-up, the A.B.C.F.M. later embraced other denominations – until about 60 years later when “denominations came to feel they could operate more effectively with separate organisations … and left the A.B.C.F.M. with Congregationalists as its chief supporters” (Encyclopaedia of Modern Christian Missions, page 655).

Elijah Bridgman trained at Andover Theological College and then sailed for China on 14 October, 1829.  Here he met up with London Missionary Society worker, Robert Morrison, China’s pioneer missionary.

Bridgman devoted a year to conquering the Cantonese language – later writing a 730-page manual on it! (Dictionary of the Christian Church, page 155). He edited a monthly magazine, Chinese Repository, designed to awaken the interest of the Christian world to the spiritual needs of that vast land.

In 1836 he commenced translating the Scriptures into Cantonese, but this task was suspended when the tragic “Opium War” broke out (1839-1842).  But by 1845 the Chinese Emperor pronounced an edict permitting missionary work. The same year Elijah Bridgman married Miss Eliza Gillett. Together they continued to serve the Lord, “on one occasion nearly sacrificing their lives to an infuriated mob” (Great Missionaries, page 102).

Failing health led to Dr Bridgman’s death on 2 November, 1861, and his wife temporarily returned to America. Then, at the age of 59, and alone, she returned to the mission at Peking, where she and her late husband had laboured.

Just a decade later she, too, passed into the presence of her Lord, on 10 November, 1871.

 

 

23 April

 

This is the day that…SARASVATI RAMABAI was born in the forests of Southern India to Brahmin parents. It was 1858. By the age of 12 years she had committed to memory 18,000 verses from the Hindu scriptures (Famous Missionaries, Famous Missionaries, by J.C. Lawson, page 53).

Visiting Calcutta in 1878 the educational leaders bestowed upon her the title “Pandita”, meaning “Learned” – the first woman in the world to have received such an honour.

 

But further study of the Hindu writings – and the realisation that they held “little or no hope of salvation” for women – led her to turn her attention to investigate Christianity. Widowed, the mother of a small child, she visited England and was impressed by Anglican “Sisters of the Cross”, and their devoted Rescue Mission work. In 1883 Pandita Ramabai was baptised into the Church of England.

Eight years later she chanced upon the book, From Death to Life by Rev. William Haslam – and to quote Pandita Ramabai:  “I read the account of his conversion and work for Christ.  Then I began to consider where I stood and what my actual need was…  I took the Bible and read.   One thing I knew by this time, that I needed Christ, not merely His religion” (Pandita Ramabai, by H. Dyer, page 35).

So this brilliant Indian lady came to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus, returned to her native land and, in 1896, commenced the Mukti Mission.  “Mukti” means “Salvation”, and from that centre the old time gospel was faithfully proclaimed to thousands of women and children.

In 1905 “a Holy Ghost revival swept over Mukti and hundreds of girls and some boys were gloriously saved” (Herald of Hope, by John Ridley, December, 1959).

Before her death on 5 April, 1922, Pandita Ramabai had translated the Bible into the Marathi language.

 

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24 April

 

This is the day that … AUGUSTINE was baptised by Bishop Ambrose of Milan, in the year 387.   It was Easter Sunday.  “Augustine of Hippo … is one of the central pillars on which our entire Western civilisation is built…” (Christian History Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3).  His “massive intellect” shaped Western theology (Latourette).  His “significance in the church is difficult to overestimate!” (Christianity Today, December, 1987).  Such quotations could be multiplied.

His Confessions are regarded as a classic among Christian literature.  Roman Catholicism regard him as one of their ‘saints’, whilst many a Protestant finds his theology embedded in Augustine’s writings.

He waged war – verbally and with his pen – against pagans, astrologers, Manichees, Donatists, Pelagians, Arians, Apollinarians, and a host of other beliefs that opposed the Christian faith.

“One statistician counted in his writings 13,276 quotations from the Old Testament … and 29,540 from the New Testament!”  (And that was before the days of Cruden’s Concordance!)

One may not agree with all of Augustine’s teaching;  nevertheless his impact on the church (one way or another) merits him a place in our book.

 

 

25 April

 

This is the day that … “ROBINSON CRUSOE” was published, in 1719.

Based loosely on the real life adventures of one Alexander Selkirk, Daniel Defoe penned this best seller – at the age of 54, in poor health and confined to this bedroom - which became one of the world’s greatest adventure stories. 

In today’s reprint much of the religious element has been omitted, but in the original version Defoe “produced one of the world’s wisest and most tolerant books in the whole field of applied Christianity.”  In the original preface to his work Defoe tells us that, whilst historically basing much of his research on the life of Selkirk, yet at the same time he was revealing something of his own spiritual pilgrimage through his writing.Defoe records his castaway’s conversion, of his leading Man Friday to faith in Christ, and of his constant calling upon the Lord in times of trouble.

Crusoe’s eventual rescue by a Spanish galleon posed problems … “I had rather be delivered up to savages and be devoured alive, than fall into the merciless claws of the priests, and be carried into the Inquisition…”

Thus it was in thousands of Christian homes, that the adventures of Robinson Crusoe became Sabbath afternoon reading material. 

Adam Clarke, Wesleyan commentator par excellence, tells how he “learned more of his duty to God, his neighbour and himself from Robinson Crusoe than from all the books except the Bible that were known in his youth.”

Daniel Defoe had been born into a non-conformist family, and in later life displayed fanatical anti-High Church views.  Romanism likewise was anathema to him.

 

 

26 April

 

This is the day that … MARCUS DODS Jnr died, in 1909. He was born at Northumberland in Scotland, where his father, Marcus Dods (senior) was a Presbyterian minister.

Young Marcus followed in his footsteps, pasturing, and later teaching in New College, Edinburgh.  It was here, in 1890, that charges of heresy were brought against him (and dismissed) for denying the inerrancy of Scripture.  One delightful story concerning him comes from The Speaker’s Bible (Romans, Vol. 2, page 143).  There we read of his long Saturday walks with Alexander Whyte, a fellow Presbyterian clergyman, and of their discussion.  “Whatever we started off with in our conversations” said Whyte, “we soon made across country, somehow, to Jesus …”

Marcus Dods was 75 at the time of his death.

 

 

27 April

 

This is the day that … ANNE ROSS COUSIN was born in 1824, in Hull, England. Her father, who was a surgeon in the British Army, died when she was only three years old. In the years that followed she became an expert pianist, and began writing hymns.

In 1847 she married a Presbyterian minister.  She died on 6 December, 1906.

Among her contributions to hymnody is:

 

          O Christ, what burdens bowed Thy head;

          Our load was laid on Thee;

          Thou stoodest in the sinner’s stead;

          Didst bear all ill for me …

 

Known as Substitution, this hymn was included in the Sankey Hymnbook (No. 128), Sankey himself composing the melody. It is also of interest that William Barclay, in his Testament of Faith (page 52), quotes this hymn and denies the truths it contains.

Mrs Cousin’s other magnificent hymn was originally a 19 stanza (152 lines) poem based on the dying words of Rev. Samuel Rutherford, “Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land”.  This saintly 17th century Presbyterian had been imprisoned during the reign of Charles II.  But from that cell there flowed letters so full of Christ that they have become classics of Christian literature.

 

And the hymn?

 

          The sands of time are sinking,

          The dawn of Heaven breaks;

          The summer morn I’ve sighed for,

          The fair sweet morn awakes.

          Dark, dark hath been the midnight;

          but dayspring is at hand.

          And glory, glory dwelleth

          in Immanuel’s land.

 

 

28 April

 

This is the day that … ANTHONY ASHLEY-COOPER, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, was born in London in 1801. He was to become the “outstanding Christian layman of the 19th century,” writes J.C. Pollock in his magnificent biography of this man of God.

Born into aristocracy, young Lord Ashley had his course in life moulded by a godly housekeeper, Maria Mills. When he entered parliament in 1826 he brought his strong evangelical convictions to bear on a variety of social evils.  Child labour … cruelty to workers … “in the mines and the factories, in the prisons and asylums, among the waifs of the cities and the toilers on the rural farms, he effected reforms by which life was simply transfigured.  Existence for countless thousands was scarcely tolerable until he came to their relief.  He revolutionised the whole industrial world” (Dr F.W. Boreham).

Lord Shaftesbury became president of the British and Foreign Bible Society and worked alongside such other evangelical bodies as the London Missionary Society and the Church Missionary Society.

At his death, on 1 October, 1885, thousands lined the streets to pay their final respects as the funeral cortege made its way to St Giles’ Church.

The Temperance Society Band played Safe in the Arms of Jesus, and in that vast crowd there were none that doubted that was true of “the poor man’s Earl” – the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury.

 

 

29 April

 

This is the day that … JOSEPH HENRY GILMORE was born in Boston, USA, in 1834. At the age of 28 he was ordained to the Baptist ministry, later becoming professor of “logic, rhetoric and English literature” at the University of Rochester, New York.

It was when he was 28 – speaking at a mid-week meeting on Psalm 23 – that he jotted down the words of the hymn for which he is remembered:

 

          He leadeth me!  O blessed thought,

          O words with heavenly comfort fraught.

          Whate’er I do, where-e’er I be,

          still ’tis God’s hand that leadeth me….

 

The four stanzas he then handed to his wife, and some months later she sent it to the Watchman and Reflector, a Christian magazine. It was first printed on 4 December, 1862, under the pseudonym, Contoocook.  Nobody, today, knows why (Companion to the Baptist Hymnal, page 85)!

But there’s more!  Composer of gospel melodies, William Bradbury, set the poem to music in 1864, and it was not until the following year, when he was preaching at the Second Baptist Church, Rochester, New York State, that Joseph Gilmore found it in the hymnal (Companion to Hymns, page 314)!

Joseph Gilmore died in Rochester on 23 July, 1918.

 

 

30 April

 

This is the day that … THOMAS BINNEY was born in 1798, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. The author of Great Modern Preachers (1875) (a curious volume where the author’s name is nowhere mentioned), Thomas Binney is described as “one of the greatest non-conformist preachers of these 40 years …” (page 81).

For 40 years he pastored the Weigh House Chapel (Congregational) in London … “his powerful preaching making it one of the most influential churches in the United Kingdom” (Famous Birthdays, by G. Powell, page 61).

Twice he was elected president of the Congregational Union.  He wrote 50 books … and pioneered liturgical services, introducing anthems and chants into non-conformist churches …

One of his hymns is still found in today’s hymnals:

 

          Eternal Light!  Eternal Light!

          How pure the soul must be,

          When, placed within Thy searching sight

          it shrinks not, but with calm delight

          can live, and look on Thee.

 

Dr Thomas Binney died in 1874.

 

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