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John Brown Finds a Wife
May 1
The mid-1680s is remembered as the Killing Time in Scotland. Royal regiments martyred Scottish Presbyterians at will. Despite the danger, Presbyterian John Brown fell in love with Isabell Weir. He proposed to her, but warned that he would one day seal his testimony with blood. Isabell replied, “If it be so, I will be your comfort. The Lord has promised me grace.” They were married in a secret glen by the outlawed minister, Alexander Peden. “These witnesses of your vows,” said Peden, beginning the illegal ceremony, “have come at risk of their lives to hear God’s word and his ordinance of marriage.” The vows were spoken, then Peden drew Isabell aside, saying, “You have got a good husband. Keep linen for a winding-sheet beside you; for in a day when you least expect it, thy master shall be taken.”
The Brown home soon included two children. It was happy, filled with prayer and godly conversation. Fugitive preachers were hidden and cared for there. But on May 1, 1685 John rose at dawn, singing Psalm 27, to find the house surrounded by soldiers. The family filed onto the lawn. The commander, Claverhouse, shouted to John, “Go to your prayers; you shall immediately die.” Kneeling, John prayed earnestly for his wife, pregnant again, and for his children. Then he rose, embraced Isabell, and said, “The day is come of which I told you when I first proposed to you.”
“Indeed, John. If it must be so, I can willingly part with you.”
“This is all I desire,” replied John. “I have no more to do but to die.” He kissed his children, then Claverhouse ordered his men to shoot. The soldiers hesitated. Snatching a pistol, Claverhouse placed it to John’s head and blew out his brains. “What thinkest thou of thy husband now, woman?” he snarled. Isabell, fixing Claverhouse in her gaze, told him she had never been so proud of him. Claverhouse mounted his horse and sped away, troops in tow. Isabell tied John’s head in a napkin and sat on the ground weeping with her children until friends arrived to comfort them.
Armies may surround me, but I won’t be afraid;
War may break out, but I will trust you.
I ask only one thing, Lord:
Let me live in your house every day of my life
To see how wonderful you are
And to pray in your temple.
Psalm 27:3,4

A Trumpet’s Voice
May 2
Giffordgate, Scotland, outside Haddington, was an ardently Catholic village containing several churches, two monasteries, an abbey—and a farming couple named Knox who reared a child named John. The lad excelled at Haddington Grammar School where his teacher proclaimed him the most brilliant pupil he had ever had. John entered the University of Glasgow, then St. Andrews University, where the gusts of the Reformation tugged at his Catholic heart.
Knox spent the next 20 years as a village priest and college lecturer. Then one day, listening to a Mr. Williams preach Reformation truth, he was struck as with an arrow. Soon thereafter he “cast anchor” by faith in Christ alone. His Reformation ideas put him at risk, and for years he alternated between flight and imprisonment (once chained to the oars of a galley ship). He finally settled down in relative safety on the Continent where he studied, wrote, discussed, and kept an eye on his native land.
In 1559 he sensed it was time to return. England’s Queen Mary had been replaced by the more Protestant Elizabeth, and the groups of Protestant refugees in Europe were abuzz with excitement. Protestants began streaming back into England, and in late April Knox himself set sail for Scotland, determined to “blow the Lord’s trumpet” gallantly.
He landed on May 2, 1559 to find a nation on the knife edge of chaos. Mary of Guise, queen regent and mother of young Mary, Queen of Scots, was railing against Protestants. Civil war was threatening. Knox’s presence and preachments so inspired the people that the English ambassador reported, “The voice of one man is able in one hour to put more life in us than five hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears.”
The government fought Protestants tooth and nail until June 10, 1560, when the queen regent died. The Treaty of Edinburgh temporarily ended the conflict, and the Reformation took hold. More storms lay ahead, and the aging Knox grew surly. But he managed to lead a bloodless revolution in Scotland and establish the faith of a nation.

Sound the trumpet on Zion! Call the people together. Show your sorrow by going without food. Make sure that everyone is fit to worship me. Joel 2:15

To Serve the Armies
May 3
Before the Civil War, few chaplains served with American armies. But on May 3, 1861, the Southern Congress approved Bill 102, stating, “There shall be appointed by the President chaplains to serve the armies of the Confederate States during the existing war.” On May 3, 1862, Rev. A. C. Hopkins, Presbyterian pastor from Martinsburg, West Virginia, joined them, commissioned as chaplain of the Second Virginia Regiment.
Hopkins wasted no time. On May 16 he led the men in a day of fasting and prayer. Two days later he conducted Sunday services at Mossy Creek. The ensuing week found him consumed by the wounded, dying, and dead.
During the Seven Days’ Battle near Richmond, he marched all day in the hot sun and spent a sleepless night ministering to the wounded and dying. The next morning, attempting to preach to his men on the line, he collapsed, strength gone. He was carried to the rear to recover, but when he returned to the front ten days later, he learned that his best friends were dead. Hopkins sank into despondency. Heavy losses at Malvern Hill further drained him, and Hopkins felt he could no longer continue.
He retreated for a season of intense prayer, and soon Bible classes were organized and flourished. Evangelists visited the brigade, and religious services were followed by group discussions, prayer meetings, and baptisms. Large sums were raised to provide Christian literature for ravaged cities. Generals and officers were saved, and prayer meetings were conducted three times daily.
In all, between 100,000 and 200,000 Union soldiers and approximately 150,000 Southern troops were converted during the Civil War revivals. Whole armies on both sides became vast fields, ready for harvest. And many of the soldiers who perished went to heaven through the efforts of chaplains like Rev. A. C. Hopkins, who continued hard in service until the bitter end.
With the Civil War, chaplains earned a lasting place with American troops around the world.
Don’t be afraid! I am with you. From both east and west I will bring you together. I will say to the north and to the south, “Free my sons and daughters! Let them return from distant lands. They are my people—I created each of them To bring honor to me.” Isaiah 43:5-7


Weak Lungs
May 4
Sickness proved a blessing for W. Robertson Nicoll, for it determined his career and ministry. He was born in 1851 with weak lungs. His mother, brother, and sister died from tuberculosis. He was raised by his father, Pastor Harry Nicoll, whose church numbered 100 souls—but whose library numbered 17,000 books.
Inheriting his dad’s love for literature, Robertson began a weekly column for the Aberdeen Journal. He started pastoring, but doctors told him his lungs were too weak for preaching. He contracted typhoid and pleurisy, resigned his church, and retreated to his books. Here Robertson found his calling.
He was already editing a magazine called The Expositor, and in 1886 he began The British Weekly. It became a leading Christian journal in Britain. He then started The Bookman, and two years later The Woman at Home appeared in magazine stalls. While editing his four periodicals, Robertson began publishing books (he read two books a day throughout his life). The Expositor’s Bible, a series of 50 volumes, was released between 1888 and 1905. Then The Expositor’s Greek New Testament appeared. Robertson persuaded Alexander Maclaren to issue his expositions; then he found and developed other writers. In all, Robertson edited hundreds of titles and wrote 40 books of his own. He became the most prolific and respected Christian journalist in the English-speaking world.
In 1909, while being knighted, he said, “I never contemplated a literary career. I had expected to go on as a minister, doing literary work in leisure times, but my fate was sealed for me.” His illness forced him to do much of his work propped in bed amid the clutter of newspapers, books, pipes, and cigarette ashes. His cats purred nearby, and he always kept a fire burning, claiming that fresh air was the devil’s invention. His library contained 25,000 volumes, including 5,000 biographies. “I have read every biography I could lay my hands on,” he said, “and not one has failed to teach me something.”
Sir W. Robertson Nicoll died on May 4, 1923. Among his last words were, “I believe everything I have written about immortality!”

“Rain and snow fall from the sky. But they don’t return without watering the earth That produces seeds to plant and grain to eat. That’s how it is with my words. They don’t return to me without doing everything I send them to do.” Isaiah 55:10,11

Justinian and Jesus
May 5
The fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries rumbled with prolonged controversy about the nature of Christ, and numerous councils convened to grapple with this issue. The Council of Nicaea in 325 said that Christ was fully divine. Fifty years later, the Council of Constantinople proclaimed Christ fully human. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 formulated the famous creed that Christ is “truly God and truly man … two natures without confusion, without change, without division, or without separation. … ”
On this day in Christian history, May 5, 553, another council was convoked, this one by Emperor Justinian in Constantinople. Justinian, brilliant and tireless, longed to be religious. He spent many nights in prayer and fasting, and endless days in theological study. He built the fabulous cathedral of Hagia Sophia and spoke longingly of a unified church.
But Justinian was also vain, ambitious, ostentatious, and easily influenced. His beautiful wife Theodora, daughter of a bear trainer, was ruthless, and she played him like a marionette. Unable to understand the two natures of Christ, she held the Monophysite view—that Jesus had no human nature but possessed only a divine nature, clothed somehow in human flesh. At the Council of Constantinople, Justinian, manipulated by his wife, issued a decree favorable to the Monophysites.
Pope Vigilius had refused to attend the council due to fear for his safety and because of the preponderance of Eastern bishops. In Rome he received news of the council’s actions with disdain but eventually accepted its decisions as unimportant. Monophysite views, however, continue to this day in Abyssinia, Syria, and in the Coptic church of Egypt.
And Justinian? He eventually became a full-fledged heretic, preaching that the body of Christ, being incorruptible, could not have experienced suffering and death. He died in 565, unrepentant, at age 83, his later years darkened by perpetual disasters.
Healthy Christianity demands both a correct theological knowledge of Christ and a personal knowledge of the Savior through faith and obedience. Justinian grappled with the former, never arrived at the latter, and makes us wonder what the Lord thinks of his title in history—Justinian the Great.
In the beginning was the one who is called the Word. The Word was with God and was truly God. From the very beginning the Word was with God. And with this Word, God created all things. Nothing was made without the Word. John 1:1-3a

Sacked Again
May 6
In 1523 Giulio de’ Medici became Pope Clement VII. Martin Luther was causing problems at the time; but portents soon appeared of greater distresses to come. On April 8, 1527, as Clement blessed a crowd of 10,000, a fanatic in leather loincloth mounted a nearby statue, shouting, “Thou bastard of Sodom! For thy sins Rome shall be destroyed. Repent and turn thee!” Not quite a month later, on fog-shrouded May 6, 1527, a vast army of barbarians burst through Rome’s walls and poured into the city. They had been sent—but were no longer controlled—by Emperor Charles V. By the time the troops reached Rome, they were hungry, unpaid, shoeless, reduced to tatters, and rabid.
The defending Roman and Swiss guards were annihilated. The barbarians pillaged, plundered, and burned with abandon. They entered hospitals and orphanages, slaughtering the occupants. Women of every age were attacked; nuns were herded into bordellos; priests were molested. The banks and treasuries were looted, the rich flogged until they turned over their last coin. Fingernails were ripped out one by one. Children were flung from high windows. Tombs were plundered, churches stripped, libraries and archives burned. Priceless manuscripts became bedding for horses. Drunken soldiers strutted around in papal garments, parodying holy rites. Within a week, 2,000 bodies were floating in the Tiber and nearly 10,000 more awaited burial. Multitudes perished. Rats and dogs eviscerated the bloating, fetid corpses that piled up in the city.
Pope Clement had barely made it into the safety of the Castle of St. Angelo, and from its towers he helplessly watched the ravaging of his city. “Why did you take me from the womb?” he wailed. “Would that I had been consumed.”
As news spread over Europe, Protestants interpreted the sack of Rome as divine retribution, and even some Catholics agreed. “We who should have been the salt of the earth decayed until we were good for nothing,” wrote Cardinal Cajetan, Luther’s contestant at Augsburg. “Everyone is convinced that all this has happened as a judgment of God on the great tyranny and disorders of the papal court.”

My eyes are red from crying, my stomach is in knots, and I feel sick all over. My people are being wiped out, and children lie helpless in the streets of the city. Those who pass by shake their heads and sneer As they make fun and shout, “What a lovely city you were, the happiest on earth, but look at you now!” Lamentations 2:11,15

I Must Tell Jesus
May 7
Many New Testament promises have corresponding verses in the Old Testament that reinforce their power. When Peter, for example, said, “God cares for you, so turn all your worries over to him” (1 Peter 5:7), he was but restating David’s words in Psalm 55:22: “Our Lord, we belong to you. We tell you what worries us, and you won’t let us fall.”
Elisha A. Hoffman loved those verses. He was born May 7, 1839 in Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania. His father was a minister, and Elisha followed Christ at a young age. He attended Philadelphia public schools, studied science, then pursued the classics at Union Seminary of the Evangelical Association. He worked for 11 years with the association’s publishing house in Cleveland, Ohio. Then, following the death of his young wife, he returned to Pennsylvania and devoted 33 years to pastoring Benton Harbor Presbyterian Church.
Hoffman’s pastime was writing hymns, many of which were inspired by pastoral incidents. One day, for example, while calling on the destitute of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, he met a woman whose depression seemed beyond cure. She opened her heart and poured on him her pent-up sorrows. Wringing her hands, she cried, “What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?” Hoffman knew what she should do, for he had himself learned the deeper lessons of God’s comfort. He said to the woman, “You cannot do better than to take all your sorrows to Jesus. You must tell Jesus.”
Suddenly the lady’s face lighted up. “Yes!” she cried, “That’s it! I must tell Jesus.” Her words echoed in Hoffman’s ears, and he mulled them over as he returned home. He drew out his pen and started writing, I must tell Jesus! I must tell Jesus! / I cannot bear my burdens alone; / I must tell Jesus! I must tell Jesus! / Jesus can help me, Jesus alone.
Hoffman lived to be 90, telling Jesus his burdens and giving the church such hymns as What A Wonderful Savior, Down at the Cross, Are You Washed in the Blood?, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, and a thousand more.
The Scriptures say, “God opposes proud people, but he helps everyone who is humble.” Be humble in the presence of God’s mighty power, and he will honor you when the time comes. God cares for you, so turn all your worries over to him. 1 Peter 5:5b-7

Fighting Fundamentalist
May 8
When theological liberalism invaded America in the early 1900s, an army of fundamentalists rose to defend the faith. Many were wise soldiers of the cross, but some were … well, overzealous.
J. Frank Norris grew up in a dilapidated shack in Texas. His father, an alcoholic sharecropper, beat him. He was converted as a teen, his mother telling him he was “someone of great worth who would be a leader of men.” Entering Baylor University, he dismayed classmates by predicting he would one day “preach in the greatest pulpit in the world.”
He was contentious. One day prankish students released a howling dog during chapel, and President O. H. Cooper, losing his temper, hurled the animal from the third-floor window. Norris notified the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and led a student protest, resulting in Cooper’s resignation.
Following graduation, Norris pastored Fort Worth’s First Baptist Church, soon making it the largest Protestant church in America. In 1935 he accepted Temple Baptist Church in Detroit and pastored both churches simultaneously, shuttling 1,200 miles between them for the rest of his life. He became one of America’s best-known preachers, his voice flooding airwaves, his articles filling publications. He was everywhere.
And he was contentious everywhere. Once from his pulpit he censured Fort Worth’s Catholic mayor. The following Saturday while Norris was preparing his sermon, a friend of the mayor called on him. Soon four shots rang out and the visitor fell dead. Norris was released on bond that afternoon. He immediately revised his sermon, and the next day all Fort Worth came to hear him preach from Romans 8:1—If you belong to Christ Jesus, you won’t be punished. His trial preoccupied the nation, the jury finally declaring he had shot in self-defense.
Norris continued his combative ministry, winning souls, defending orthodoxy, fighting vice, attracting and repelling listeners. On May 8, 1947, editor Ralph McGill of the Atlanta Constitution wrote, “The Rev. J. Frank Norris and others like him, is one good, sound reason why there are 50,000,000 Americans who do not belong to any church at all.”
Norris died of heart failure shortly afterward, and only heaven knows whether he did more harm or good.
I am not trying to please people. I want to please God. Do you think I am trying to please people? If I were doing that, I would not be a servant of Christ. Galatians 1:10

A Formidable Caravan
May 9
Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf has been called the “rich young ruler who said YES.” Born into one of Europe’s leading families, he gave his life to Christ, established a Christian community at his Herrnhut estate, and oversaw the sending of the first missionaries in Protestant history. Then late in life, Zinzendorf married his beloved Anna.
Three years later his strength ebbed. He pushed himself to finish some writing projects, but he noticed that Anna, too, was growing weaker. On Sunday, May 4, 1760 they attended church together, but with difficulty. Anna returned to her bed. The next day Nikolaus was unable to eat much lunch, and he complained of thirst. He visited Anna’s sickbed, then fell into bed himself. Speech became difficult, and it grew apparent he and Anna were both dying in rooms next to each other.
On May 8 David Nitshmann visited them. Nikolaus roused himself, reminisced, and said, “Did you suppose in the beginning, that the Savior would do as much as we now really see in the various Moravian settlements, amongst other denominations, and amongst the heathen? I only entreated of him a few firstfruits, but there are now thousands. Nitshmann, what a formidable caravan from our church already stands around the Lamb.”
At midnight he was seized by a coughing spasm, and at 9 o’clock the next morning, May 9, 1760, he told his son-in-law, John Watteville: “My dear John, I am about to go to the Savior. I am ready. I am resigned to his will, and he is satisfied with me. … I am ready to go to him. Nothing more stands in my way.” His eyes lingered another hour, then they closed. Watteville began praying, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace. The Lord bless thee, and keep thee. … The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace.” At the word “peace” Zinzendorf stopped breathing.
When Anna was told, she said, “I have the happiest prospect of you all. I will soon be going to him.” She watched his burial from her window, then thirteen days later joined him.
Now the time has come for me to die. My life is like a drink offering being poured out on the altar. I have fought well. I have finished the race, and I have been faithful. So a crown will be given to me for pleasing the Lord. 2 Timothy 4:6-8a

Knights of the Temple
May 10
When the Crusades made it possible for medieval Christians to again visit the Holy Land, the question of security arose. How could pilgrims be safe from banditry? In 1118 Hugh de Payens, a knight of Campagne, joined eight others in a solemn vow to protect European travelers, thus organizing the “Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon.” Hugh obtained church sanction, and the Templars, as they were called, grew quickly in influence and wealth. They purchased property and set up an organization across Christendom. They acquired castles and became an elite military force coveted and often hired by rulers. As their wealth increased, they established financial institutions in Paris and London.
In 1305 Philip the Fair of France, eyeing their wealth, used a disgruntled knight to bring charges against the order. The initiation rites involved blasphemy and homosexuality, it was claimed. The Templars, it was alleged, in secret admission ceremonies forced recruits to deny Christ, to spit on the cross, and to kiss the posteriors and navels of fellow knights. On the night of October 13, 1307 (“the accursed day”), all the Templars in France were rounded up and arrested. Philip used torture to obtain confessions, and many died in agony. Pope Clement was persuaded to disband the Templars and expand the persecution across Europe.
But Paris remained the center of suffering, and on May 10, 1310 54 knights were burned alive in one mass inferno. Thirty-six more died under torture, four more were burned a week later, and hundreds perished in prison. The twenty-second (and last) grand master of the order, Jacques de Molay, was reserved for burning another day. On the eve of March 12, 1314 he was led in front of Notre Dame and tied to the stake. According to sources, while the flames were shooting around him, he summoned the pope and king to meet him at the judgment within a year.
Pope Clement died a few weeks later of a loathsome disease, and Philip, 46, perished in a hunting accident within six months.

I saw a great white throne with someone sitting on it. … I also saw all the dead people standing in front of that throne. Every one of them was there, no matter who they had once been. Several books were opened, and then the book of life was opened. The dead were judged by what those books said they had done. Revelation 20:11,12

The New Rome
May 11
Early Christianity developed several centers of gravity. The first was Rome, home of Catholic Christianity (and from it, Protestantism). Another came to be Constantinople, source of the Eastern or Orthodox branches of the church.
Constantinople was born in 324 when Emperor Constantine, believing the future lay in the East rather than the West, decided to move his capital from Rome to Byzantium, a site on the eastern flank of Europe, astride the Bosporus. He led his aides, engineers, and priests on a march around its harbor and hills, tracing the boundaries of his envisioned capital. He imported thousands of workers and artisans to build its walls, buildings, palaces, squares, streets, and porticoes. He placed sculptures in the parks and fountains in the forums. Before long there was a fabulous hippodrome, a prized university, five imperial palaces, nine palaces for dignitaries, 4,388 mansions, 322 streets, 1,000 shops, 100 places of amusement, splendid baths, magnificent churches, and a swelling population. It was a city that shimmered in the sunshine.
The New Rome was dedicated as capital of the Eastern Empire on May 11, 330. Paganism was officially ended, Christianity was embraced, and the bishop (or patriarch) of Constantinople rivaled the bishop of Rome. Here the world’s most beautiful church was built—the Church of Holy Wisdom, St. Sophia.
For 1,000 years, Constantinople preserved the Eastern Roman Empire (also called the Byzantine Empire). Christianity moved along parallel tracks, Catholic and Orthodox. The pope and the patriarch rivaled each other, then rejected each other. The greatest division in Christianity was not the Reformation in 1517, splitting Catholics from Protestants, but the Great Schism in 1054, splitting apart the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity. From Constantinople came great Eastern Orthodox families of the church, such as the Russian and Greek Orthodox traditions.
In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottomans. The Church of St. Sophia was converted to a mosque, then to a museum. Constantinople is now called Istanbul, and Turkey, once the bastion of Christianity, is the largest “unreached” nation on earth.
All of you nations, come praise the Lord! Let everyone praise him. His love for us is wonderful; His faithfulness never ends. Shout praises to the Lord! Psalm 117:1,2


The Shoemaker’s Book
May 12
William Carey was born in a forgotten village in the dullest period of the dullest of all centuries. His family was poor, and he was poorly educated. A skin affliction made him sensitive to outdoor work, so he apprenticed to a nearby shoemaker. When he didn’t do well at cobbling, he opened a school to supplement his income. That didn’t go well either. He married, but his marriage proved unhappy. A terrible disease took the life of his baby daughter and left Carey bald for life. He was called to pastor a small church, but he had trouble being ordained because of his boring sermons.
Not a likely prospect to become the “Father of Modern Missions.”
But when Carey borrowed a copy of Captain Cook’s Voyages, the famous sailor’s journals gripped him, and he started thinking of overseas evangelism. On the wall of his cobbler’s shop he hung a homemade map of the world, jotting down facts and figures beside the countries. And he began to feel that something should be done to reach the world for Christ.
Until then most Protestants believed the Great Commission had been given only to the original apostles. Carey insisted it was binding on all succeeding generations of Christians, an idea that brought scorn from many preachers. He was called a “miserable enthusiast,” and at one Baptist meeting Dr. John C. Ryland, the man who had baptized him, said, “Young man, sit down! When God pleases to convert the heathen, he’ll do it without consulting you or me.”
The rebuke moved Carey to write a book, published on May 12, 1792: An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to use means for the Conversion of the Heathens in which the Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success of Former Undertakings, and the Practicability of Further Undertakings, are Considered.
Despite its unwieldy title, this 87-page book became a classic in Christian history that deserves a place alongside Luther’s Ninety-five Theses in its influence on subsequent church history. It led to the formation of a missionary society, funds being collected in a snuff box. The proceeds were used to send Carey to India, launching the modern era of missions.
Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world. Matthew 28:18-20

The Boy Preacher
May 13
Fifteen-year-old David Marks, eyes blurred with tears, left home with a dollar in his pocket to preach the gospel. The “boy preacher” soon created a stir in the American northeast, and he kept going for the next 25 years. He rode one horse 19,000 miles, preached to thousands, organized churches throughout New England, published books, wrote articles, taught school, and worked diligently in opposition to slavery and in support of foreign missions. Then he died from sheer exhaustion at age 40.
Just before sunset on May 13, 1828, Marks rode into the little town of Ancaster, Ontario, announcing he would preach in seven minutes in the park. A small crowd gathered, and he asked if anyone had a text he would like to hear preached. A man mockingly said, “Nothing!”
Marks immediately began preaching on “nothing.” God created the world from “nothing,” he said. God gave us laws in which there is “nothing” unjust. But, Marks continued, we have broken God’s law and there is “nothing” in us to justify us. There will be “nothing” to comfort sinners in death or hell. But, while Christians have “nothing” of their own in which to boast, we have Christ. And in him, we have “nothing” to cause us grief, “nothing” to disturb our peace, and “nothing” to fear in eternity.
Finishing his sermon, Marks mounted his horse and traveled to the next village. But some time later he returned to Ancaster. This time a larger group assembled, and the meeting house was opened to him. David preached “something” to them. He said there is “something” above all things. There is “something” in man designed to live forever, but there is also “something” in us that makes us unhappy. There is “something” about the gospel that reverses our unhappiness, “something” that gives us hope. There is “something” that will disturb the impenitent in death, but “something” resides in Christians that the world can’t understand, and “something” in eternity to give us everlasting joy.
All that from an uneducated young circuit rider, his mind filled with Scripture and his heart full of Christ, who had “something” to say—and “nothing” to fear.
I am sure that nothing can separate us from God’s love. … Nothing in all creation can separate us from God’s love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord! Romans 8:38,39


A Light to the Gentiles
May 14
John Berridge expected to follow his father into livestock, but he could never learn the ropes. His frustrated dad finally said, “John, I find you cannot form any idea of the price of cattle, and I shall have to send you to college to be a light to the Gentiles.” Thus John went to Cambridge, then entered church work, but without personally experiencing the gospel.
His preaching was striking, his life upright, his energy boundless, his ministry worthless. His message, devoid of the death and resurrection of Christ, was like a solar system without the sun. For years he thrashed around brilliantly, but fruitlessly.
In 1755 he became vicar in out-of-the-way Everton, and there at age 42 he finally agonized about his own soul. “Lord,” he began crying, “if I am right, keep me so; if I am not right, make me so, and lead me to the knowledge of the truth in Jesus.” One morning sitting before an open Bible these words flashed to mind: “Cease from thine own works; only believe.” He immediately started preaching salvation by grace through faith alone. Soon one of his parishioners visited him. “Why, Sarah,” he said, “What is the matter?”
“I don’t know,” said the woman. “Those new sermons! I find we are all lost now. I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep. I don’t know what will become of me.” Others echoed the same cry. Berridge’s church soon swelled with villagers giving their lives to Christ. People flocked from all parts, and the buildings proved too small. On May 14, 1759 Berridge began preaching outdoors. “On Monday,” he wrote, “we called at a farmhouse. After dinner I went into the yard, and seeing nearly 150 people, I called for a table and preached for the first time in the open air. We then went to Meldred, where I preached in a field to about 4,000 people.”
His remaining 30 years found him preaching the gospel in season and out, indoors and out. He never married, always resided alone, and remained in rural parishes until his death at age 77 in 1793. He was the Whitefield of the English countryside.
God treated me with kindness. His power worked in me, and it became my job to spread the good news. I am the least important of all God’s people. But God was kind and chose me to tell the Gentiles that because of Christ there are blessings that cannot be measured. Ephesians 3:7,8

The Prodigal
May 15
“The Law of the Lord is perfect,” says Psalm 19:7. “It gives us new life”—and sometimes in unexpected ways.
One of the most powerful personal evangelists of the nineteenth century was “Uncle” John Vassar, who grew up in his family’s brewery in Poughkeepsie, New York. Following his conversion to Christ, he abandoned beer-making for soul-winning, and on May 15, 1850 he was commissioned as an agent for the American Tract Society of New York. Vassar took off across the country, never resting in his mission of selling Christian literature and asking everyone he met about their relationship with Christ.
On one occasion, traveling in the West, he visited the home of a praying wife whose husband was an infidel. She begged for a Bible, and Vassar gave her one and went his way. He had no sooner left when the husband, coming home, saw the book and was enraged. Seizing the Bible with one hand and the ax with the other, he hurried to the woodpile where he placed it on the chopping block and hacked it crosswise in two. Returning to the house, he threw half of the destroyed Bible at his wife, saying, “As you claim a part of all the property around here, there is your share of this.”
The other half he tossed into his tool shed.
Months later on a wet winter’s day, the man, wanting to get away from his Christian wife, retreated to his shed. The time passed slowly, and in boredom he looked around for something to read. Thumbing through the mutilated Bible, his attention was caught by the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. He became absorbed in the parable only to discover that its ending belonged to his wife’s section. He crept into the house and secretly searched for the bottom half of the book, but was unable to find where his wife had hidden it.
Finally he broke down, asked her for it, and read the story again and again. In the process he came to the heavenly Father like a penitent prodigal returning home.
The son said, “Father, I have sinned against God in heaven and against you. I am no longer good enough to be called your son.” But his father said to the servants, “Hurry and bring the best clothes and put them on him. … This son of mine was dead, but has now come back to life. He was lost and has now been found.” And they began to celebrate. Luke 15:21,22,24

Swallowed Up
May 16
Henry Martyn was born in Cornwall, England in 1781. His father was a well-to-do businessman, and Henry grew up amid comforts. He proved intelligent, excelled in school, and went on to Cambridge, graduating with honors in mathematics. The writings of missionary David Brainard helped bring Martyn to Christian surrender, and he soon contemplated foreign missions. “Let me forget the world,” he said, “and be swallowed up in a desire to glorify God.”
But he couldn’t forget Lydia Grenfell. Henry was deeply in love with Lydia, though she had no desire for Asian missionary service. A vicious war tore the young man apart. Should he go to India with God, or remain in England with Lydia? He awakened throughout the night, his mind full of Lydia. He called her his “beloved idol.” But, determined to do God’s will, he said a final goodbye and set sail.
At daybreak on May 16, 1805, Martyn went ashore at Calcutta and was met by William Carey who soon nudged him into translation work. Martyn lost himself in ministry, preaching, establishing schools, and translating the Bible into three Asian languages. All the while he brooded over Lydia. On July 30, 1806, after much deliberation, he wrote, proposing marriage. Letters traveled slowly, and a year passed before he received a reply. Lydia’s rejection hit the young man like a thunderbolt, and his health, always frail, began to falter. He wrote asking her to reconsider. She would not, though she agreed to correspond friend-to-friend.
In 1810 his Hindustani New Testament ready for the printer, Martyn traveled to Persia hoping to recover his health. By 1812 he had grown so weak that an overland trip to England seemed the only solution. It would also, he knew, bring him to Lydia. He set out but didn’t make it, dying en route at age 31. When his journal was opened, the name Lydia, like the droning of sad music, was found on almost every page. But Henry Martyn had fulfilled his objective in coming to India. He had been swallowed up in a desire to glorify God, and the New Testament was read in three new languages.
Please listen, God, and answer my prayer!
I feel hopeless,
And I cry out to you from a faraway land.
Lead me to the rock high above me.
Let me live with you forever
And find protection under your wings, my God.
Psalm 61:1,2,4

How about “Hallelujah!”
May 17
William Grimshaw was born in rural England in 1708, educated at Cambridge, and ordained to the ministry in 1731 without knowing Christ. Three years later while pastoring in Todmorden, he felt deep concern about his soul. He ceased his hunting, fishing, card-playing, and merrymaking, and began pleading with God for light. After several more years, the scales completely fell from his eyes. The gospel became real and the Bible came alive. He told a friend that “if God had drawn up his Bible to heaven and sent me down another, it could not have been newer to me.”
He moved to Haworth in Yorkshire and began a 21-year ministry. Had he been in London, claim his biographers, he would have become one of the most famous preachers of the eighteenth century. As it was, Haworth was rough and uncivilized, a long narrow village of brown stone. The main street was so steep that carriages traveled it at their own risk. Here Grimshaw labored in obscurity, but with great zeal. He gathered listeners wherever he could, in barns, fields, quarries, and pressed on them the gospel.
He once said, “When I die I shall then have my greatest grief and my greatest joy—my greatest grief that I have done so little for Jesus, and my greatest joy that Jesus has done so much for me.”
But William Grimshaw’s heart was broken by his son John who, rejecting Christ, lived a careless, intemperate life. When William lay dying, John visited him. “Take care what you do,” said William, “for you are not fit to die.” Those words evidently haunted the young man, for one day he met a Haworth inhabitant who said, “I see you are riding the old parson’s horse.”
“Yes,” replied John. “Once he carried a great saint, and now he carries a great sinner.” But not for long, for John soon heeded his father’s dying pleas and gave his heart to Christ. He died shortly afterward on May 17, 1766, saying, “What will my old father say when he sees I have got to heaven?”
How about “Hallelujah!”
If any of you has a hundred sheep, and one of them gets lost, what will you do? Won’t you leave the ninety-nine in the field and go look for the lost sheep until you find it? Jesus said, “In the same way there is more happiness in heaven because of one sinner who turns to God than over ninety-nine good people who don’t need to.” Luke 15:4,7

He Just Persisted
May 18
We often rush when we should plod, forgetting that we usually accomplish more by persisting than by hurrying. Sheldon Jackson was born on May 18, 1834 in the Mohawk Valley of New York. When he was four his parents dedicated him to God’s service, and his ambition from youth was to be a missionary.
After graduating from Princeton Theological Seminary, he joined the thousands trekking to the American West. Most were searching for gold, land, and open skies. Wagon trains were leaving St. Louis daily. The golden spike tied East to West in 1866 as the Union Pacific Railway opened. Boom towns arose. Cowboys and mining camps, rowdy saloons and gunfighters filled the frontier. Jackson was everywhere, searching for souls with the fervor of a prairie fire. He once organized seven churches in 15 days.
He stood just over five feet tall, but his size, he said, allowed him to sleep anywhere. His bed was a stagecoach floor, a saloon loft, a hollow log, a teepee, a canoe. Someone described him as “short, bewhiskered, bespectacled, but a giant.” And his field was immense. He served as superintendent of Presbyterian missions from New Mexico to Minnesota.
When the United States purchased Alaska, he headed there at once, and the North soon became his passion. He explored the dangerous, uncharted fog-hidden coasts of the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. He established schools for the young and placed missionaries in the hamlets. He evangelized, established churches, and brought Bibles to the Eskimos. He worried that explorers and exploiters were slaughtering whales and seals, depriving Eskimos of their natural food supplies. So, braving criticism and ridicule, Sheldon raised $2,000 and brought reindeer from Siberia. Soon great herds were providing transportation, food, clothing, and livelihood for the people.
Sheldon made 26 trips to Alaska, and during 50 years of ministry he traveled a million miles through the West and North. He oversaw the establishing of 886 churches. Few men have ever so planted the Christian faith over such a wide area. His secret? His friends simply explained, “He never hurried. He just persisted.”

A messenger you can trust is just as refreshing As cool water in summer. Broken promises are worse than rain clouds That don’t bring rain. Patience and gentle talk can convince a ruler And overcome any problem. Proverbs 25:13-15

The Earthquake Synod
May 19
“God is our … fortress,” says Psalm 46. “And so, we won’t be afraid! Let the earth tremble. … ” The trembling of the earth may even reassure God’s children of his power, as happened on this day, St. Dunstan’s Day, May 19, 1382. St. Dunstan’s Day is named for the British politician who, having slighted the king, found himself banished to a monastery in Belgium. There he committed himself to Christ’s cause, eventually returning to England and becoming archbishop of Canterbury. Dunstan died May 19, 988.
Three hundred years later another archbishop of Canterbury, William Courtenay, held sway. Courtenay, powerful and headstrong, raged against Oxford professor John Wycliffe, who criticized church teaching. Wycliffe believed the head of the church to be Christ, not the pope. He opposed selling indulgences and warned against superstitions associated with the Mass. We are saved, he said, by faith in Christ, Scripture alone being our authority. He pre-Luthered Luther, and thus is called The Morning Star of the Reformation.
Courtenay tried repeatedly to convict Wycliffe, but the popular professor always bested him. Finally Courtenay summoned a special committee to examine Wycliffe’s teachings, to condemn and destroy the Bible teacher. John Foxe tells the story: Here is not to be passed over the great miracle of God … for when the archbishop with other doctors of divinity and lawyers, with a great company of babbling friars and religious persons, were gathered together to consult touching Wycliffe’s books, when they were gathered in London to begin their business on St. Dunstan’s day, after dinner, about two of the clock, the very hour and instant that they should go forward, a wonderful and terrible earthquake fell throughout all England: whereupon divers of them, being affrighted, thought it good to leave off from their determinate purpose.
Wycliffe later declared that the Lord sent the earthquake “because the friars had put heresy upon Christ. The earth trembled as it did when Christ was damned to bodily death.” Wycliffe, however, didn’t tremble when the earth did, for God was his fortress. But the archbishop’s meeting has ever since been known in English history as the Earthquake Synod.
God is our mighty fortress,
Always ready to help in times of trouble.
And so, we won’t be afraid!
Let the earth tremble
And the mountains tumble into the deepest sea.
Psalm 46:1,2

Tortured
May 20
God’s grace arrives just as we need it, appropriate for every challenge. Even if we’re lonely? Even if we’re ill? Yes. Even if we’re tortured? Even then.
Michael Sattler, born in Germany around 1490, became a Benedictine monk. As he studied Paul’s letters, he grew dissatisfied, left the monastery, married, and became a Lutheran. Sometime later he became convinced of believer’s baptism and became an Anabaptist of growing renown whose ministry attracted both converts and enemies.
Sattler, his wife, and a handful of associates were arrested in the mid-1520s and imprisoned in the tower of Binsdorf, where he wrote a letter to his flock: The brethren have doubtless informed you that some of us are in prison. Numerous accusations were preferred against us by our adversaries; at one time they threatened us with the gallows; at another with fire and sword. In this extremity, I surrendered myself entirely to the Lord’s will, and prepared myself, together with all brethren and wife, to die for his testimony’s sake.
On May 20, 1527 his torture, a prelude to execution, began at city center where his tongue was sliced. Chunks of flesh were torn from his body with red-hot tongs, and he was forged to a cart. On the way to the stake execution the tongs were applied five times again. Still able to speak, the unshakable Sattler prayed for his persecutors. After being bound to a ladder with ropes and pushed into the fire, he admonished the people, the judges, and the mayor to repent and be converted. “Almighty, eternal God,” he prayed, “Thou art the way and the truth: because I have not been shown to be in error, I will with thy help to this day testify to the truth and seal it with my blood.” As soon as the ropes on his wrists were burned, Sattler raised the two forefingers of his hand giving the promised signal to his brothers that a martyr’s death was bearable. Then the assembled crowd heard coming from his seared lips, “Father, I commend my spirit into Thy hands.”
Sattler’s wife was executed by drowning eight days later.
Others were made fun of and beaten with whips, and some were chained in jail. Still others were stoned to death or sawed in two or killed with swords. Some had nothing but sheep skins or goat skins to wear. They were poor, mistreated, and tortured. The world did not deserve these good people. … Hebrews 11:36-38

Infinite Wisdom
May 21
Isaac Watts, called the “Father of English Hymns,” wrote such classics as O God Our Help in Ages Past, Joy to the World, At the Cross, and 600 others. He was a small, odd man whose life was shaped by his father, Isaac, senior. The elder Watts was repeatedly imprisoned for his Nonconformist beliefs. On May 21, 1685 he wrote this letter to his family from prison, addressing his comments especially to 11-year-old Isaac: We must endeavor by patient waiting to submit to His will without murmuring; and not to think amiss of His chastening us, knowing that all His works are the products of infinite wisdom. Watts then gave several charges to his son:
• Frequently read the Holy Scriptures, and that not as a task but as a delight.
• Understand the sinful state and begin betimes to be a praying Christian, remembering that prayer is the best weapon of a saint’s defense.
• Remember the hope of salvation founded on Jesus Christ.
• Keep perpetually in mind that God is our Creator, and serve him with a willing mind.
• Worship God in God’s own way, that is, according to the rules in the Gospel and not according to the inventions or traditions of men.
• Do not entertain in your heart any popish doctrines, particularly that of praying to the saints or to the Virgin Mary or any other mere creature. Pray instead that God will give you knowledge of his truth, for it is a very dangerous time that you are like to live in.
• Do not entertain hard thoughts of God or of his ways because his people are persecuted, for Jesus Christ himself was persecuted to death by wicked men for preaching the truth and doing good.
• Be dutiful and obedient to all superiors—to your grandfather, both grandmothers, and in a special manner to your mother.
Watts was soon afterward released from prison and lived to be 85. It was he who planted the music of the gospel in his son’s heart, and who encouraged him to pursue it.
Shout praises to the Lord, everyone on this earth.
Be joyful and sing as you come in to worship the Lord!
You know the Lord is God!
He created us, and we belong to him.
Psalm 100:1-3a

The Forgotten Basin
May 22
The last half of our Lord’s ministry was marred by envy and infighting among his followers. The disciples plotted against each other even on the eve of Christ’s crucifixion, prompting him to wrap himself in a towel and wash their feet in a servant’s basin.
The lesson was lost on many bishops during the ensuing centuries. As churches spread across the Roman world, the bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome assumed particular leadership. Antioch and Rome were, after all, prominent in the New Testament records, and the Alexandrian church traced its origin through the evangelist Mark to Peter. The Council of Nicaea in 325 placed these three bishops on more or less equal footing.
The bishop of Jerusalem, arguing his city deserved recognition, became the fourth world center of Christianity. Soon there was a fifth. Emperor Constantine decided to move the Roman capital to his new city on the Bosporus, and the bishop of Constantinople instantly assumed prominence. The ecumenical council held in Constantinople in 381 said that the patriarch of Constantinople deserved honor “next to the bishop of Rome.”
A low-grade rivalry arose between the two. It worsened when the Council of Chalcedon in 451 issued this decree extending the authority of the bishop of Constantinople: With reason did the fathers confer prerogatives on the throne of ancient Rome on account of her character as the imperial city; and moved by the same consideration, the bishops recognize the same prerogatives also in the most holy throne of New Rome.
Papal delegates from Rome protested on the spot, and on May 22, 452 Pope Leo launched three angry letters like warheads, addressed to the emperor, the empress, and the patriarch of Constantinople. Leo declared that the elevation of Constantinople was: (1) a work of pride; (2) an attack on the other centers of Christianity; (3) a violation of the rights given Rome by earlier councils; and (4) destructive to church unity. His letters only aggravated the situation. Eastern and Western Christianity drifted further apart until a complete schism occurred in 1054.
They had all, it seems, forgotten the basin and the towel.

And if your Lord and teacher has washed your feet, you should do the same for each other. I have set the example. John 13:14-15a

The Thirty Years’ War
May 23
Seventeenth-century Bohemia was a beautiful area at the center of Europe, encircled by mountains and highlands, home of the Moravians. It was the land of John Hus who died for the Reformation before Luther even launched it. And it was filled with Hussites longing for freedom of worship.
But Bohemia was ruled by the Hapsburg king, Ferdinand II, a dedicated Catholic. He unleashed a campaign to re-Catholicize Bohemia, and on May 23, 1618 Bohemian rebels shouting the Protestant cause stormed the palace. They literally threw Ferdinand’s governors out the window. The governors landed in a pile of manure (just where the rebels thought they belonged), and Ferdinand sent troops against the Protestants, defeating them soundly in January, 1620 at the Battle of White Mountain. Protestants throughout Bohemia were endangered.
Jan Amos Comenius, pastor and Christian educator, lost his family to the war, and he himself barely escaped a burning house. His church members became fugitives, then they became refugees, having to flee their homeland. They packed their few belongings, left home and country, and plodded through bitter snows toward Poland. Arriving at the border, they turned and gazed a final time on their land. In a scene that later became a favorite of Christian artists, Comenius led his shivering flock in prayer for God to preserve in Bohemia “a hidden seed to glorify thy name.” Finishing their prayer, the little flock trudged on.
Comenius never returned, never found a home, and when he died in 1670, he owned virtually nothing but a sack of tattered clothes. But he left the world 154 books that laid a foundation for modern Christian education.
Meanwhile, White Mountain wasn’t the end of the war, but its beginning. Denmark entered the fray, then Sweden, then France. Europe was ravaged, and half of all Germans perished. Not until 1648 was the Treaty of Westphalia signed—30 years after the initial revolt in Bohemia.
As for Comenius’s prayer, it was answered 100 years later when Count Zinzendorf gave the Bohemian offspring refuge at Herrnhut. It was the descendants of Comenius and his followers, gathered safely by Zinzendorf, who became the forerunners of the modern missionary movement.
Along the way someone said to Jesus, “I’ll go anywhere with you!” Jesus said, “Foxes have dens, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man doesn’t have a place to call his own.” Luke 9:57,58

Storm Greater: Afraid!
May 24
“Even when I am afraid,” said the psalmist, “I keep on trusting you” (Psalm 56:3). John Wesley had never been so frightened as on January 25, 1736. He was aboard a small sailing ship somewhere in the mid-Atlantic in midwinter, en route to Georgia as a missionary to the Indians, though as yet he himself had never been saved. A group of Moravian missionaries from Germany had booked passage on the same ship. The voyage was treacherous. Three storms had already battered the boat, and a fourth was brewing. Wesley scribbled in his journal, “Storm greater: afraid!” But the Moravians, showing no fear, persevered in their plans for a worship service. In the middle of their singing, a gigantic wave rose over the side of the vessel, splitting the mainsail, covering the ship, pouring water like Niagara between decks “as if the great deep had already swallowed us up.”
The English passengers screamed as the ship lurched and pitched between towering waves. Wesley clung on for dear life. But the German missionaries didn’t miss a note. Wesley, awestruck by their composure, went to the leader and asked, “Weren’t you afraid?”
“I thank God, no.”
“Were not your women and children afraid?”
“No,” replied the man. “Our women and children are not afraid.”
John Wesley’s missionary labors in Georgia failed, and he returned to England saying, “I went to America to convert the Indians, but, oh, who shall convert me?” The Moravians, that’s who. Back in London, Wesley attended a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate Street, May 24, 1738, and listened to someone reading from Luther’s preface to Romans. He later said, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine.”
Wesley became a famous evangelist and social reformer, with the world as his parish. But he himself was won to Christ by the power of a small group whose commitment to Christ was strong enough to keep them unflappable in a storm.

Have pity, God Most High! My enemies chase me all day. Many of them are pursuing and attacking me, But even when I am afraid, I keep on trusting you. I praise your promises! I trust you and am not afraid. Psalm 56:1-4a

The Eccentric Preacher
May 25
Charles Spurgeon once wrote a little book entitled Eccentric Preachers. He described 11 peculiar ministers, his concluding example being Billy Bray of Cornwall, England. Billy, an alcoholic miner, found the Lord at age 29. “In an instant the Lord made me so happy I cannot express what I felt,” said Billy. “I shouted for joy. Everything looked new to me; the people, the fields, the cattle, the trees. I was like a man in a new world. … ” Billy joined the Methodists and set out immediately to win others. His bursting, driving energy made some people call him a madman.
“But they meant ‘glad man’!” said Billy.
He took Cornwall by storm. On meeting strangers, Billy would inquire about their souls; and he would shout “Glory!” whenever hearing of anyone being saved. Sometimes he would pick people up and spin them around the room. “I can’t help praising God,” he said. “As I go along the street I lift one foot and it seems to say ‘Glory!’ and I lift the other, and it seems to say, ‘Amen!’ And they keep on like that all the time I’m walking.”
From age 29 to his death at 73, he danced and leaped and shouted his way through each day. He preached and built chapels and took orphans into his home. He fasted Saturday afternoon till Sunday night each week. When pressed to eat, he would say, “On Sunday I get my breakfast and dinner from the King’s table, two good meals too.”
When his wife died, Billy jumped around the room in excitement, shouting, “Bless the Lord! My dear Joey is gone up with the bright ones! Glory! Glory! Glory!” And when his doctor told him he, too, was dying, he shouted, “Glory! Glory to God! I shall soon be in heaven.” Then lowering his voice, he added, “When I get up there, shall I give them your compliments doctor, and tell them you will be coming, too?”
His dying word as he fell asleep on May 25, 1868 was “Glory!”
“It does not seem so very horrible after all,” commented Spurgeon, “that a man should be eccentric.”
Shout praises to the Lord!
With all that I am, I will shout his praises.
I will sing
And praise the Lord God for as long as I live.
Psalm 146:1,2

A Quiet Life
May 26
Some lives crackle with adventure—great answers to prayers, narrow escapes, dramatic conversions, broad travel. But Christians with quieter lives often cast longer shadows. The life of Venerable Bede was so uneventful that little can be said about him. Yet few have left such a record of scholarship and faithfulness.
Bede was born about 672 in north England. At seven, probably orphaned, he went to live at a nearby monastery. The boy took to books, studying Scripture, biography, literature, music, and history. He pored over manuscripts—the church fathers, the Vulgate, the classics. He learned Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. By age 30, he was adding to early literature with books of his own. “I always took delight,” he said, “in learning, teaching, and writing.” He became the greatest scholar of his era, the father of English history and theology. His Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation is meticulously accurate, setting a standard for historians.
Spring of 735 found Bede laboring on his crowning work, translating the Gospel of John into Anglo-Saxon. On May 25, he told his assistant, “Go on quickly, I know not how long I shall hold out, and whether my Maker will not soon take me away.” By early morning, May 26, 735, only one chapter remained, and Bede said, “Take your pen and write fast.” He told a friend, “I have some little articles of value in my chest—pepper, napkins, and incense: Quickly bring the priests to me that I may distribute among them the gifts God has bestowed on me.” He spoke to each priest, and they wept. “I have lived long,” he said. “I desire to die and be with Christ.”
Bede spent the day joyfully, and near evening his helper said that only one sentence remained to be translated. “Write quickly,” Bede replied with satisfaction. The work finished, Bede sat on the floor of his small room and began singing, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,” and, finishing the hymn, passed quietly into the presence of the Lord.

If I live, it will be for Christ, and if I die, I will gain even more. I don’t know what to choose. I could keep on living and doing something useful. It is a hard choice to make. I want to die and be with Christ, because that would be much better. But I know that all of you still need me. Philippians 1:21-24

Sunset
May 27
If a beautiful death authenticates a holy life, then we can feel good about John Calvin. On February 6, 1564 Calvin, 55 years old, stood for the last time in his pulpit at Saint Pierre in Geneva. In mid-sermon, he was seized by a coughing fit and his mouth filled with blood. He slowly forced his way down the circular staircase from the pulpit, his sermon unfinished.
On Easter Sunday, April 2, he was carried back to Saint Pierre’s and sat near the pulpit, listening as Theodore Beza preached. At the end of the service, Calvin joined the congregation in singing a final hymn, “Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” He was taken to his bed, still working feverishly on his papers. When friends begged him to rest, he replied, “What! Would you have the Lord find me idle when he comes?” On April 30 the Geneva Council gathered around him. He spoke to them, prayed for them, and gave his right hand to each one. The men left the bedroom weeping like children. Two days later Geneva’s ministers paid a similar visit. Calvin asked pardon for his failings, pointed the men to Christ and grasped their hands tenderly. They, too, parted with anguished tears.
When it appeared the end was near, his friend and mentor, 80-year-old William Farel, set out on foot, walking a long distance, hoping to make it in time. He arrived covered with dust to join others who had gathered at the deathwatch. Calvin lingered, quoting Scripture and praying continually, until Saturday, May 27, 1564, just as the sun was setting. He passed from one life to another very quietly, without twitch or gasp or even a deeper sigh. “On this day with the setting sun,” said Beza, “the brightest light in the Church of God on earth was taken to heaven!” Geneva mourned deeply.
Calvin had instructed that his body be laid in a common cemetery with no tombstone. He didn’t want his grave becoming a shrine as tombs of earlier saints had become. It didn’t—today his grave site is unknown.
“Lord, I am your servant, and now I can die in peace, because you have kept your promise to me. With my own eyes I have seen what you have done to save your people, and foreign nations will also see this. Your mighty power is a light for all nations. … ” Luke 2:29-32a


Alleine’s Alarm
May 28
While a chaplain at Oxford, Joseph Alleine often neglected his friends for his studies. “It is better they should wonder at my rudeness,” he explained, “than that I should lose time; for only a few will notice the rudeness, but many will feel my loss of time.” Though barely 21, he was already “infinitely and insatiably greedy for the conversion of souls,” devoting every moment to studying, preaching, and evangelizing.
In 1655 Joseph was called to a church in the west of England. He soon married, and his wife, Theodosia, later claimed his only fault was not spending more time with her. “Ah, my dear,” he would say, “I know thy soul is safe; but how many that are perishing have I to look after?”
Joseph habitually rose at 4:00 in the morning, praying and studying his Bible until 8:00. His afternoons were spent calling on the unconverted. He kept a list of the inhabitants of each street and knew the condition of each soul. “Give me a Christian that counts his time more precious than gold,” he said. At the beginning of the week, he would remark, “Another week is now before us, let us spend this week for God.” Each morning he said, “Now let us live this one day well!”
But his time was nonetheless cut short. The restoration of England’s monarchy in 1662 resulted in the Act of Uniformity, removing 2,000 preachers from their pulpits in a single day. Most preached their farewell sermons August 17, 1662. Joseph, however, continued preaching. The authorities descended, and on May 28, 1663 he was thrown into prison. His health soon declined.
“Now we have one day more,” he told Theodosia when he was finally released. “Let us live well, work hard for souls, lay up much treasure in heaven this day, for we have but a few to live.” He spoke truthfully. He died on November 17, 1668, at age 34. But he had spent his years well, outliving himself not only in the souls he saved, but in the book he left, a Puritan classic entitled Alleine’s Alarm.
Act like people with good sense and not like fools. These are evil times, so make every minute count. Don’t be stupid. Instead, find out what the Lord wants you to do. Ephesians 5:15-17

The Restoration
May 29
Joseph Alleine’s imprisonment was occasioned by the restoration of the English monarchy and the laws passed by England’s government in the 1660s. For years England had seesawed between Catholic and Protestant mandates, depending on the monarch in power. When the king was Catholic, Protestants were burned. When Protestant, Catholics died. In both situations, Puritans and non-Anglicans (Dissenters) were hunted down with such vengeance that they finally rebelled. King Charles I was beheaded, his young son fled to France, and a Puritan government was installed.
But the people missed their monarchy, and in 1658 young Charles II headed home from France promising religious liberty. He entered London on his thirtieth birthday, May 29, 1660. Twenty thousand soldiers escorted the young king through flower-strewn streets. Trumpets blared, crowds cheered, bells pealed from every tower. His love life and his dubious faith in God made him the most scandalous leader of his time. But his easy smile and approachability caused few to dislike him.
Some did. In 1661 a pack of religious fanatics known as Fifth Monarchy Men tried to overthrow him and set up a kingdom awaiting the return of Christ. They failed, but the experience left Charles more suspicious of Dissenters than ever. Such preachers as John Bunyan found themselves languishing in prison, and a series of laws put the screws to Dissenters.
Five different acts were passed: (1) the Corporation Act of 1661 excluded all Dissenters from local government; (2) the Act of Uniformity in 1662 required all ministers to use The Book of Common Prayer as a format for their services. It was this act that drove 2,000 preachers from their pulpits in a single day; (3) the Conventicle Act of 1664, aimed primarily at Baptists, forbade religious meetings by Dissenters; (4) the Five Mile Act of 1665 prohibited dissenting ministers from coming within five miles of any city or town in which they had ministered; and (5) the Test Act of 1673 excluded Catholics from civil and military positions.
Baptists, Catholics, Quakers, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists all found themselves again under the lash. In the jail. At the stake. So much for religious liberty.
We don’t want any of you to be discouraged by all these troubles. 1 Thessalonians 3:3


The Cautious Reformer
May 30
Desiderius Erasmus, born in 1466 in Rotterdam, Holland, was the illegitimate son of a priest. He was orphaned in childhood, swindled out of his inheritance, and forced into a monastery that he hated—except for its library. Reaching adulthood, Erasmus approached theology with freshness, sought out scholars, then eclipsed them. He became the most cultivated man of his age.
In appearance, his skin was fair, hair blond, eyes blue, voice pleasant. His manners were polished. In temper, he could be irritable. He repeatedly visited England (though complaining of its “bad beer and inhospitable weather”) where John Colet urged him to master the original language of the New Testament. He did, and in 1516 Erasmus published his Greek New Testament. “Would that these were translated into every language,” he said. In studying Erasmus’s New Testament, ministers found themselves returning to the truth of the Bible. Erasmus’s translation became Luther’s fodder, and the primary source for his German translation of the Bible (and later, of Tyndale’s English Version).
But Erasmus, having spent his first years advocating reform, spent his latter ones resisting it. He initially supported Luther, but retreated when he saw the church splitting. On May 30, 1519, he wrote Luther, suggesting that it might be wiser of you to denounce those who misuse the Pope’s authority than to censure the Pope himself. … Old institutions cannot be uprooted in an instant. Quiet argument may do more than wholesale condemnation. Keep cool. Do not get angry.
Erasmus neither supported nor flatly condemned the Protestants. As a result, he lost friends on both sides. “Men of learning,” he wrote, “who were once warmly attached to me, and old friends, are the most dangerous of foes.”
Erasmus had expected the new wine to ferment in old skins. It wouldn’t and couldn’t, to his dismay. But never mind, he did his part. In giving the church back its Greek New Testament, he had in effect squeezed the grapes.

No one pours new wine into old wineskins. The wine would swell and burst the old skins. Then the wine would be lost, and the skins would be ruined. New wine must be put into new wineskins. Both the skins and the wine will then be safe. Matthew 9:17

Half-Crazy Cruden
May 31
Christians of many generations have located verses of Scripture by pulling their Cruden’s Concordance off its shelf. Spurgeon wrote in the flyleaf of his, “For ten years this has been at my left hand when the Word of God has been at my right.”
Here’s the rest of the story: Alexander Cruden was born in Scotland on May 31, 1699. His father, a strict Puritan, forbade games on the Lord’s Day, and Alexander entertained himself by tracing words through the Bible. He enrolled in college at 13, graduated at 19, and fell in love. The girl’s father forbade him in the house, and when the girl became pregnant, she was sent away. Alexander, his nerves broken, entered an asylum.
In 1726 he was hired to read books for Lord Derby of Sussex. Alexander began reading the way he always did—spelling out each word letter by letter. He was quickly fired, but he refused to leave the grounds. For months, he followed Lord Derby around, creating one scene after another. He eventually moved to London and began working on his Concordance. It was published in 1737 and became an immediate success.
Alexander fell in love again, was rejected again, and went to such extremes to attract the woman’s affection that he was seized, taken to a private asylum, and chained to a bed for ten weeks. He finally managed to escape by cutting off the bed leg, then began traveling around calling himself “Alexander the Corrector,” trying to reform morals. One evening, wanting to stop a man from swearing, he hit him over the head with a shovel. A riot ensued, and Alexander endured a third stay in an asylum. Being released, he fell in love again, was rejected again, and badgered the king to appoint him “Alexander the Corrector.”
People thought him crazy—but they loved his Concordance. Alexander spent his final days giving out tracts and studying the Bible. One morning in 1770, a servant found him on his knees, his head on the open Bible, dead. “This half-crazy Cruden,” said Spurgeon, “did better service to the church than half the D.D.’s and L.L.D.’s of all time.”
If we seem out of our minds, it is between God and us. But if we are in our right minds, it is for your good. We are ruled by Christ’s love for us. We are certain that if one person died for everyone else, than all of us have died. And Christ did die for all of us. 2 Corinthians 5:13-15a


Morgan, Robert J.: On This Day : 265 Amazing and Inspiring Stories About Saints, Martyrs & Heroes. electronic ed. Nashville : Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000, c1997, S. May 1