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ON THIS DAY: APRIL
This month we remember, among others, an African-American
who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a German born
composer and a 19th century Highland minister.
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4 April:
Ambrose
Image of Ambrose
|
Ambrose was born of Roman diplomatic
parents circa 339, is known as one of the four traditional
‘doctors’ (authoritative teachers) of
the Latin Church, not just for his writings but
for the stand he took against intemperate and cruel
actions of state, such as the persecution of heretics
and the massacre of civilians. However his writings
fearlessly condemned philosophies which ran counter
to Christianity, such as Arianism, still followed
within the church mainstream (Ambrose’s predecessor
as Bishop of Milan held Arian views |
– the belief that Christ was not equal with God
but a subsequent creation by God, leading to the Council
of Nicaea 325). It was not until he was to become a bishop
that this lawyer and administrator was baptised. Some
know him as ‘the Father of Church Song’ for
his many hymns, such as O Trinity,
O blessed Light (Church Hymnary: Third Edition
56). He died in 397.
Also
on this day: Martin
Luther King was an African-American baptist minister
who, with great vision, resolution, and oratory "I
have a dream…" was a catalyst and galvaniser
of the civil rights movement, in an approach characterised
by non-violence, which greatly advanced the status of
black Americans. He was himself arrested and jailed for
his leading of protests against discrimination in Birmingham,
Alabama. His famous speech was delivered at an enormous
civil rights march on Washington in August 1963. Awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965, he was assassinated on
this day in 1968.
7 April: Robert
Raikes
| Robert Raikes was born
in Gloucester in 1735, where he in time inherited
from his father the ownership of the local newspaper.
Through its pages he campaigned for many good causes.
One of his concerns was the miserable condition
and woeful ignorance of many children in an emerging
industrial society. It led him to start the first
Sunday school in 1780 - an idea which spread widely
and began seriously in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow
by 1786, advocated by such journals as The
Scots Magazine.
Raikes’ schools did not confine themselves
to religious knowledge but included more general
subjects. There was great opposition from conservatives
who feared the results of educating ordinary people
and who believed that Sundays should be given over
entirely to worship. He died in 1811. |
Robert Raike's Monument, Gloucester Park
|
Image of Robert Raikes Monument courtesy of Gloucester
City Council. Please note this link will take you
out of the Church of Scotland website and open a new browser
window.
9
April: William Law
William Law was born in 1686, and led a life of which,
although upright, the details are easily forgotten. However,
according to some, his A Serious
Call to a Devout and Holy
Life is second only to Pilgrim’s
Progress in the post-reformation spiritual classics
stakes. Some regard his style as vigorous and readable,
his advice simple but convincing. In his hands, the virtues
of temperance, humility and self-denial, together with
meditation and asceticism, became appealing. John and
Charles Wesley were among those who were influenced by
his writing. Less convincing to many was his eloquent
appeal against theatrics, his "absolute unlawfulness"
of the Stage Entertainment
of 1726. He died in 1761.
Also on this day: Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, who has been described by some as
a brilliant and influential German Protestant theologian
whose writings and whose life appealed equally to scholars
and ‘people in the pew’, in the decades
after the ending of the Second World War and still today.
With a concern for Christian unity and international
peace, he was particularly noted for his emphasis on
the role of Christianity in a secular world, a stance
that was expressed in his opposition to Nazism and ratified
by his imprisonment and execution. Some have described
his Letters and Papers from
Prison is a spiritual classic. His execution,
accused of complicity in a plot against Hitler, happened
just before the end of hostilities in 1945.
13 April:
Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr was said to be a very early influence
in the emerging Christian church. Born in Samaria circa
100, he tried and tested a number of philosophical systems
before finding the Christian faith the most satisfying.
He was the first Christian to attempt to reconcile faith
and reason, and his 'Apology' stresses the reasonableness
and greater morality of Christianity. It also takes
an inclusive position over salvation for those outside
the church, believing that traces of the truth are to
be found in other, earlier philosophies. His writings
are also of great interest for their descriptions of
early Christian practice in baptism and Holy Communion.
Denounced as Christians, he and his associates refusing
to sacrifice to the gods were scourged and beheaded.
The date of his death was circa 165.
14 April: George
Frederick Handel
George Frederick Handel
|
German born George Frederick Handel
(1685), was a composer noted for his operas, instrumental
compositions, and biblical oratorios, his most famous
being Messiah (1742).
A sociable, cultivated and devout man, Handel spent
most of his working life in Britain. When cost prevented
the staging of his operas, Handel turned to oratorio,
but into this static form he was able to infuse
all the drama that characterised stage productions,
bringing to life the biblical narrative. Beethoven
said of him: "Go and learn of him how to achieve
great effects with simple means," and Haydn,
hearing the Hallelujah Chorus in Westminster Abbey,
exclaimed: "He is the master of us all."
He died in 1759. |
15 April:
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United
States of America. Self-educated, he went from log
cabin to White House. A man of high principle,
straightforward in speech and action, according to many
he is especially famed as the liberator of the slaves.
Though having a deep knowledge of Scripture, he was not
a member of any Church; however, he was a regular worshipper
in the Presbyterian Church and famously declared that
he often went on his knees because he had nowhere else
to go. A Lincoln pew is preserved in the New York Avenue
Presbyterian Church in Washington. Assassinated in 1865,
he came to be regarded not only as a martyr but as one
of the greatest American presidents.
16 April:
Donan
Donan was a monk of the sixth and seventh centuries
whose name lives on in a number of places on the west
coast of Scotland, including several Kildonans (‘church
of’), although there is a connection too with
Auchterless on the east where his staff are said to
have been preserved up until the Reformation in the
16th century. He is thought to have been known to Columba
and established a large monastery on the island of Eigg
in the Inner Hebrides, which was to become the scene
of a massacre when all 52 of the inhabitants were attacked
and killed in their refectory. No reason is known for
this.
Also on this day: Magnus
stood out against his contemporaries for his dislike
of the warring and violence that was part of their daily
lives. As joint earl of Orkney, Magnus was on friendly
terms with other rulers, including Henry I of England
who gave him ships and men. Tension between him and
his cousin Hakon came to a head in 1116 when the latter
succeeded in capturing him, and had him killed. Magnus
was not so much a Christian martyr (Hakon himself claimed
to be Christian) but he continued to be respected in
death as he had been in life. The cathedral at Kirkwall
was built soon after by his nephew Rognvald to shelter
his remains.
18 April: John
Foxe
| John Foxe was born in
1516, was a Puritan scholar whose Book
of Martyrs (as it was popularly known), published
in 1563 and enlarged in 1570, recorded Protestant
sufferings at the English Reformation. Written in
vivid prose and widely read, it did much to reinforce
Reformation ideas and foster opposition to Spain.
A fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, Foxe was one
of those who fled to the continent on the accession
of Queen Mary, where he met John Knox. When he returned
to England, he was ordained though remained a strong
Calvinist. He died in 1587. |
John Foxe
|
Image of John Foxe courtesy of British Acadamy John Foxe
Project, to find out more about the John Foxe Project
click
here. Please note this link will take you out of the
Church of Scotland website and open a new browser window.
Also on this day: Molios
was connected with Lamlash, on the Isle Arran, and from
him the town derives its name, and with Holy Island
just off the coast. He was of an Ulster royal house
but was said to have made a second visit to Scotland
to avoid being made king. In the controversy over the
date of Easter, he took the Roman side against the Celtic.
Other places in the west of Scotland carry versions
of his name. He is also remembered in Ireland.
19 April:
Philipp Melanchthon
Philipp Melanchthon was an important German humanist
scholar who became a friend of Luther and later assumed
his mantle and advocating Protestant doctrine e.g. Loci
Communes (1521) the earliest systematic exposition
of Reformation doctrine. Many believe that his biblical
commentaries broke new ground, treating scripture in
the same way as the classics, as documents to be read
without elaborate metaphorical interpretation. Even
in the infancy of the Reformation, he was already seeking
reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church, of which
his composition of the Augsburg Confession was a part.
He lived from 1497 to 1560.
21 April: Maelrubha
| Maelrubha was born
near Derry in 642 of an Irish family whose exploits
were legendary, but of a Pictish mother. He was
related to Columba. At first a monk in Ireland,
he followed the trend to cut himself off and travel
as a missionary. He finally settled in the Applecross/Torridon
area of Scotland from which he founded many daughter
churches. |
Loch Etive
|
There is also a dedication to him in the parish of Muckairn,
on Loch Etive, and a nearby hamlet, Ballindeor carries
the meaning of the homestead of the keeper (dewar) of
the saint's ’taff. He has been described as one
of the most important missionaries of the early British
church.
23
April: Toyohiko Kagawa
Toyohiko Kagawa was of Samurai family, born in 1888. Enrolling
in a Bible class primarily to learn English he became
Christian. Educated at the Presbyterian Seminary in Tokyo
and then at Princeton in New Jersey, he returned to Japan
as an evangelist and social reformer, working initially
in the slums of Kobe drawing attention to the plight of
poor Japanese. He worked for universal suffrage in Japan,
and was a founder of the Japanese Federation of Labour.
A pacifist who apologised for Japan’s policy in
China, he suffered imprisonment. After the Second World
War he worked for the democratisation of his country and
for woman’s rights. A significant 20th century Christian
and a considerable scholar, he wrote novels as well as
books on sociology and religion, a total altogether of
more than 150 books. He died in 1960.
24 April: Archibald Charteris
 |
Archibald Charteris was born in 1835
in Wamphray, Dumfriesshire. After ministering in
Ayrshire, Galloway and Park Church, Glasgow, he
became professor of biblical criticism and biblical
antiquities in Edinburgh. He founded the influential
Life & Work Committee (which, for example, held
mission weeks in many parishes, and provided spiritual
and social care for migratory fisherfolk, etc.),
and then Life & Work
magazine in 1879. |
| He pioneered the Young
Men's Guild and the Woman’s Guild and was
chief promoter of the restoration of the office
of deaconess. He was described as: "the gentlest
man in the Assembly" and it was said of him
that: "perhaps to no one else does the Church
of Scotland owe a greater debt of recovery of vitality
(after the 1843 Disruption) of evangelical mission,
of devoted and purposeful activity." He was
Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church
of Scotland in 1892, and died in 1908. |
Church of Scotland Guild logo
|
28 April:
John MacDonald
John MacDonald was a 19th century Highland minister
and preacher who led many evangelistic campaigns in
Gaeldom often preaching to thousands. He was often compared
to the English evangelist George Whitfield and was dubbed
'the Apostle of the North'. He edited a Gaelic edition
of the Shorter Catechism, wrote
hymns in Gaelic, and was responsible for having a church
built on St Kilda. He died in 1849.
29 April: Catherine
of Siena
Catherine of Siena
|
Catherine of Siena was born in that
Italian town circa 1347. A connection with Scotland
is found in the district of south Edinburgh known
as Sciennes, where once was a Dominican convent
of nuns of the order she founded. It was founded
in 1517 by Lady Seton whose husband was killed at
Flodden. By all accounts Catherine herself was a
woman of intelligence who was able to combine piety
with political involvement. The reverence with which
she was held in Scotland gave rise to the founding
of other convents and chapels in her name, one of
the latter becoming ultimately Shotts Parish Church. |
Also on this day: Brioc
was a fifth century peregrinus, a travelling
missionary, whose name survives across the Celtic world.
In Scotland he is associated with Rothesay but he can
be traced also to Montrose and Kirkcudbright.
30 April:
James Montgomery
James Montgomery was born in Irvine in 1771, the son
of a Scots-Irish Moravian minister. He gave up training
for the ministry and for some time moved around England,
taking a variety of jobs. Eventually he settled in Sheffield
and became editor of a local newspaper known for its
radical views. For this he was twice fined and imprisoned.
He was an eloquent advocate of the foundation of Bible
societies, of foreign missions, and of the abolition
of slavery. Some believe his fame rests on his many
hymns, some 100 of which are still in use, such as Angels
from the realms of glory, Hail
to the Lord’s anointed, Stand
up and bless the Lord and a series of fine hymns
on the life of prayer (e.g. Lord,
teach us how to pray aright). He once said of
his hymn writing that he: "lay in wait for his
heart to catch the highest emotions." He died in
1854.
Also this month
Sunday 6 April is the third
Sunday of Easter. Click
here to find out more about the season of Easter.
Sunday 13 April is the fourth
Sunday of Easter. Click
here to find out more about the season of Easter.
Sunday 20 April is the fifth
Sunday of Easter. Click
here to find out more about the season of Easter.
Sunday 27 April is the sixth
Sunday of Easter. Click
here to find out more about the season of Easter and
links to suggested prayer and worship material, from the
Panel of Worship.
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