Today in 1564, John Calvin was in the middle of preaching on the harmony of the Gospels, when his mouth filled with blood and he had to stop. It was his last sermon.
‘All I have done has been worth nothing, and I am a miserable creature. But certainly I can say this, that I have willed what is good, that my vices have always displeased me, and that the root of the fear of God has been in my heart; and you may say that the disposition is good; and I pray you that the evil be forgiven me, and that if there was any good, that you conform yourselves to it and make it an example.’ John Calvin
Today in 1812, Adoniram Judson was ordained as a missionary in Tabernacle Church, Salem, the day after his wedding before a congregation of 1,500. He is often called America’s first foreign missionary, despite the fact that African Americans George Liele and David George had beaten him to it in 1780.
Pius XI became Pope in 1922. A doctor three times over, he cooled down Catholicism’s war against modern learning, but was violently opposed to communism, fascism and ecumenism. He was the first Pope to be heard on radio, and founded Vatican Radio in 1931.
Image: Biblioteca General Antonio Machado / Wikimedia under CC BY 2.0