1812 - Pioneer missionary Samuel Newell married fellow Congregationalist Harriet Atwood. They afterward sailed for India with Adoniram and Ann Hasseltine Judson. (Harriet Newell and Ann Judson thereby became the first American women commissioned for missionary work abroad.)

1819 - Birth of William True Sleeper, New England Congregational clergyman and author of the hymns "Jesus, I Come" and "Ye Must Be Born Again."



1839 - Scottish clergyman Robert Murray McCheyne wrote in a letter: 'In spiritual things, this world is all wintertime so long as the Savior is away.'



1930 - American pioneer linguist and missionary Frank Laubach wrote in a letter: 'The sense of being led by an unseen hand which takes mine, while another hand reaches ahead and prepares the way, grows upon me daily.'



1948 - U.S. Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall prayed: 'We are tempted to despair of our world. Remind us, O Lord, that Thou hast been facing the same thing in all the world since time began.'



© 1987-2010, William D. Blake. Used by permission of the author, from

Almanac of the Christian Church