247 – Sept. 04 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

He Died as He was Born

 

1688 – “Wednesday…was kept in prayer and humiliation for this Heavy Stroak upon us, ye Death of deare Brother Bunyan. Apoynted also that Wednesday next be kept in praire and humiliation on the same Account.” John Bunyan, their most loved pastor had died on Friday, Aug. 31 while on a preaching trip to London, England. The news had not reached his congregation in Bedford until they had gathered to worship the following Sunday. Bunyan often preached to as many as 3,000 in London after spending nearly 13 years in Bedford jail for refusing a license to preach the gospel. There he had written Pilgrim’s Progress and other great works. In 1672 the Act of Pardon had set him free. He was born to a tinker (a repairer of pots and pans). He married in 1647 and was saved and baptized into the membership of Bedford church in 1655. His wife died the same year and he remarried in 1659. He had a precious blind daughter who visited him while in jail. He died as he was born, in poverty. His death came when he was exposed to a heavy rain which brought on a high fever, and in ten days the great preacher was with the Lord. [John Brown, John Bunyan His Life Times and Work (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1888), pp. 390-91.  This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp. 483-485.]  Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon

 

 

244 – Sept. 01 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

She Proved a “Worthy Successor”

 

Sep. 01, 1845 – Sarah Hall Boardman Judson died on a ship in the port of St. Helena. She had embarked with her second husband Adoniram Judson and three children on the previous April 26th, at the request of physicians, with the hope of saving her life, after she contracted a chronic illness. She was the second wife of the renowned missionary to Burma, having married him after her husband George Dana Boardman died after serving faithfully in Burma for 6 years. Rather than leaving the field she stayed on to serve with Rev. and Mrs. Francis Mason. Judson [served eight lonely years on the field since the death of his beloved Ann before Rev. Mason joined them in Holy Matrimony on April 10, 1834. She proved a “worthy successor” and deservedly won his respect and love after 11 blessed years. Though his heart was broken, the veteran missionary sailed on to America for his first furlough in 33 years. Sarah Boardman Judson will ever stand alone as one of the great stalwarts of the 19th century missionary enterprise as she translated the New Testament into the Peguan language, and the ‘Pilgram’s Progress’ into Burmese. [Arabella W. Stuart, Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons (New York: Lee and Shephard, 1855), pp. 194-95. This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. 478-479.] Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon

 

 

 

242 – Aug. 30 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

The Creeks Reject Christ

 

1838 – James O. Mason was ordained to the gospel ministry, and after training at the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution at Hamilton, NY he and his wife left to minister to the Creek Indians. James had been born on Christmas day in 1813 and raised by godly parents in the Baptist church in Granville, NY. He resigned from the mission on May 4, 1840 after it became impossible to gain a foothold in the tribe. He explained it all in a letter dated Jan. 10, 1840 in which he tells of being exposed hourly to the tomahawk and scalping knife. He said as he was walking some two hundred yards from his house he was stalked by three or four Indians and heard one of them yell, “here is the …nig(g)er missionary-shoot him.” Then he saw a flash and felt two balls pass through his coat and vest, hardly two inches from his heart. When I cried out, another one started toward me with a large bowie knife when I ran and lost them by a brook in impenetrable growth. These facts were made known to the chiefs but denied by the Indians. He went on to write that he cannot step outside without danger of being shot and when they lie down at night they fear that their house will be burned down before morning.  Rev. Mason returned to New York and pastored the church where he was raised and then accepted a call to the Bottskill Baptist Church in Greenwich, NY and served with great distinction. [William Cathcart, The Baptist Encyclopedia (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881), 2:757. This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp.474-475.]  Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon

 

 

238 – Aug. 26 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

They Divided to Multiply

 

1801 – David’s Fork Baptist Church was organized with 267 members from the Bryants Station Baptist Church for that very purpose. This effort doubled the Baptist influence in the harvest of souls in the area east of Lexington, KY. Bryants Station had received 421 new members who had been saved and Baptized during the great revival of 1800-03. They had grown to nearly 600 before they divided to multiply. Their pastor during those days was Rev. Ambrose Dudley who had moved to that area from Spottsylvania, Virginia after his days in the Colonial army where he entered with a Captain’s commission. While stationed at Williamsburg he came under deep conviction for his sin and received Christ. He was followed as Pastor of the Bryant Station Church by his son Thomas P. Dudley upon his death on January 27, 1825. [J.N.M. The Missionary Jubilee (New York: Sheldon and Company, 1871), p. 338. This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp. 466-468.]  Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon

 

235 – Aug. 23 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

Scourged – Not Ordained by State Church

 

1771 – James Greenwood preached the gospel in the Middlesex County Jail to a number of friends who had come to encourage the prisoners. In a letter, written by John Waller from the jail he said, “Bro. Thomas Wafford was severely scourged, however because he was not ordained, he was released and did not have to serve time in prison. The early Baptist preachers in the Common Wealth of Virginia were despised by the political and religious leaders that were under the control of the Anglican Church/State system of government. These men, as the early Apostles as recorded in Acts Chapter four and five, had not been trained in the recognized seminaries of the day, and also refused to take a license to preach the gospel, but rather preached under the authority of Christ alone. This principle is made clear at Act 4:13 – Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. Because of this, until American Independence was won, they were fined, whipped, and jailed but they would not bend, bow or burn. [Robert C. Newman, Baptists and the American Tradition (Des Plaines, Ill.: Regular Baptist Press, 1976), p. 32. This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp. 460-462.]   Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon

 

234 – Aug. 22 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

A Dull Scholar in Christ’s School

1751 – Rev. Isaac Backus, one of the outstanding pastors of a Separate (Conservative Congregational) Church at Middlebourgh, Massachusetts was baptized by Rev. Benjamin Pierce. This was at a time when the Baptists (only fifty churches total in America) being small in number, were also divided and persecuted.  Backus would later write, “After renewing grace was granted, I was such a dull scholar in Christ’s school, that I was thirty-two years in learning a lesson of only six words, namely, ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism.’ It took ten years to get clear of the custom of putting baptism before faith [his Congregational experience] and near five more to learn not to contradict the same in practice [his Separate experience] after which, above seventeen trying years…before we could refrain from an implicit acknowledgment of more than ‘one Lord’ in religious affairs” [the embracing of the church/state as an overlord]. His joining the Baptists was not prompted by prominence, popularity or pedigree but out of conviction. [Robert C. Newman, Baptists and the American Tradition (Des Plaines, Ill.: Regular Baptist Press. 1076, p. 32. This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp. 459-460.] Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon

 

233 – Aug 21 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

God’s True Trailblazers

 

1832 – Spencer Clack, his wife and six children were appointed to serve as home missionaries with the American Baptist Home Missionary Society for Missouri.  His annual salary was fixed at $400.  Less than eight months later Clack died in Palmyra, MO, of cholera.  On June 4, the day of his death, he wrote his last report to the society.  A portion follows, “Dear Bro. Going, I am dying.  Since my last communication to you, I have had much affliction in my family.  I want you to pay up my full salary for the year out—else my family must suffer.  My trust is in the Lord.  He is able to strengthen me and uphold me in my dying hour.  Don’t give up the ship.  You are engaged in a good cause, you will meet with opposition—fear not.  I have faithfully, honestly and conscientiously defended the cause—not with the object of making money, for I have sustained pecuniary losses; but for the glory of God and of His cause.  Say to all the Missionaries  to be faithful, and bear hardships as good soldiers of Jesus Christ…the mission is the cause of God.  My affectionate regard to the churches…tell Bro. Vandeman I want him to preach my funeral sermon in Palmyra…I am dying, into the hands of God I resign my spirit.”  The letter was signed by the man of God.  A few minutes later he breathed his last breath and two days later his wife died, leaving six small children destitute.  Such was the life of the home missionaries that blazed the trail and planted churches in the West in the early years of our Republic. [This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp. 457-458.] Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon

 

 

 

231 – Aug. 19 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

We Ought to Obey God Rather than Men

 

1950 – Three special law enforcement officers were sworn in by the La Sarre Police Department, in the Province of Quebec, Canada for the express purpose of corralling the activities of the street preachers in Montreal.  A sixteen-year-old Catholic youth heard the police give specific orders not to hit the pastor on the street but to take him to a private lot and beat him there.  At 8 pm that night the street preachers began their service, the police came and in defiance of the Canadian Constitution ended up beating the pastor four times, then  arrested him along with others, as he continued to preach the gospel of Christ.  During those years quite a few Baptist preachers were imprisoned in Quebec.  Among the better known men were, Wilson Ewin, Lorne Heron, Murray Heron, and Dr. William L. Phillips.  All together, these men and others served a total of forty-five sentences.  Quebec actually passed laws making the preaching against other religious beliefs in public and on Radio or TV a crime.  (This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp.  455 – 56) Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon

 

223 – Aug 11 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

The Lord of the Harvest provides the reapers
Helen Maria Griggs was baptized and joined a Baptist church in Brookline, Mass., Aug. 11, 1822. She felt the call to Burma, and she married Francis Mason and spent their honeymoon aboard ship as they sailed the next day to Burma.   As a small girl Helen was very ill, but her mother prayed that the Lord would spare her, and at the same time, she gave her over to the will of God.  After several years her mother was willing to give her up, as Helen told her, of her call to  Burma. She was willing to go alone but the Lord of the Harvest was working in the heart of a young man, Francis Mason, a student at Newton Theological Institution who also planned to go to Burma. They were married on May 23, 1830. One hundred and twenty-two days later they arrived in Calcutta.  She was severely criticized when she had to leave their children behind in the homeland and Editors of Christian periodicals had to go to her defense and a drastic change in public opinion took place. The Lord took this dear one to Himself in her fortieth year on Oct. 8, 1846. G. Winfred Hervey, The Story of Baptist Missions in Foreign Lands, (St. Louis: C.R. Barns, 1892), p. 413.]  Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon

 

 

222 – August 10 – This Day in Baptist History Past

Religious Liberty Comes to Spain

1870 – William I Knapp from America baptized thirty-three people in the Mananares River in Madrid.  He had entered Spain immediately after the Declaration of Religious Liberty in 1868.  These believers formed the First Baptist Church of Madrid and is considered the first Baptist church of Spain in modern times.  It was not until 1980 that a law was passed giving non-Catholics complete religious freedom in Spain. [J.H. Rushbrooke, The Baptist Movement in the Continent of Europe (London: Carey Press, 1923. p. 19; This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp 437, 38.]  Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon.