180
Vigellius Saturninus, the proconsul (Roman administrator) of North Africa in 180 A.D., spoke generously. “You can have the forgiveness of our Lord the Emperor if only you return to your senses,” he said.
Speratus, one of twelve Christians who faced him, replied for the rest. “We have never done evil; we have not lent ourselves to wrong; we have never spoken ill, but when ill-treated we have given thanks, for we pay heed to our Emperor.”
Evidently Saturninus was stung by that reply. “We too are religious, and our religion is simple,” he said defensively. “We swear by the genius of our Lord the Emperor, and pray for his welfare, as you also ought to do.”
Speratus offered to instruct Saturninus in true simplicity of worship, but the proconsul brushed him off and turned to the other offenders. “Abandon this way of thinking,” he commanded.
Speratus reminded Saturninus that to murder and to lie were the real evils, not the Christian faith. Saturninus ignored him and addressed the other Christians. “Don’t share his folly!” he urged them. But the others (five were women) responded as firmly as Speratus.
Cittinus said, “We have no other to fear, save only our Lord God, who is in heaven.” Donata added, “Honor Caesar as Caesar; but it is God we fear.” Vestia declared, “I am a Christian.” Secunda assured the proconsul, “What I am, that I wish to be.”
Saturninus turned back to Speratus. “Do you persist in being a Christian?” he asked.
Speratus never wavered. “I am a Christian,” he replied, and all the others agreed with him.
Saturninus offered them time to reconsider. To that dangerous bait Speratus answered, “In a matter so plain, we don’t need to consider.”
Saturninus changed the direction of his inquiry. What were the documents he had found in Speratus lock box? he asked curiously.
“Books and letters of Paul,” answered Speratus.
The proconsul made one last effort to change the minds of the Christians. When he saw that they would not bend, he read his decision from a tablet. Heralds then announced his decree: “Speratus, Nartzalus, Cittinus, Veturius, Felix, Aquilinus, Laetantius, Januaria, Generosa, Vestia, Donata, and Secunda, I have ordered to be executed.”
The Christians responded with joy. “Thanks be to God,” they exclaimed. This was their chance to show their love for Jesus! On this day, July 17, 180, they were beheaded for the sake of Christ, at Scilli, near Carthage, North Africa.
1674
In the annals of hymn writing, Isaac Watts shines as a leading luminary. In most Reformation countries, hymns were employed in worship but seldom in the English church before Watts was born. Anglicans sang the Psalms. Psalm singing, which had at first been a welcome innovation, become a dreary, unmelodious chanting. Each line was first read out by a clerk and then sung. Through Isaac Watts’ influence, that changed.
Watts was born in Southampton, England on this day July 17, 1674. He fell under conviction in 1688 and learned to trust Christ in a personal way a year later. No doubt his father’s influence was felt here, for his father was twice imprisoned for refusing to bend to the Church of England beliefs. Later Isaac refused to take an all-expenses-paid education rather than conform himself to the Church of England. After attaining his education under more difficult circumstances, Watts became a preacher. He gave his first sermon on this day, his birthday, July 17, 1698, at Mark Lane in London. His qualities were such that the church soon named him its assistant pastor. Shortly afterward he became seriously ill and suffered such poor health the remainder of his life that he was often unable to carry out his church duties.
A kindly friend, Sir Thomas Abney took him under his roof and there he lived thirty years. The church also showed much wisdom and charity in continuing to support him despite his fevers and neuralgia. A lady who fell in love with him from reading his hymns is said to have rejected him close up upon finding him small and far from handsome.
Despite his lack of beauty, Watts wrote inspiring poems which were attractive to worshippers. Scarcely a hymnbook today in the English speaking nations is without one or more of his hymns. Psalm singing had fallen into a sad state and church leaders were seriously questioning what to do. Watts boldly called for a new kind of psalm, rewritten in light of the New Testament gospel. “We preach the gospel and pray in Christ’s name, and then check [stifle] the aroused devotions of Christians by giving out a song of the old dispensation.”
Acting on his own word, he published a collection of Christianized psalms in 1719. Even before this, in 1707, he published his Hymns and Spiritual Songs. They include “Joy to the World.” These, not his sermons, are his true gift to the church and inspired Charles Wesley’s even more successful endeavors.
Watts faced fierce opposition. Many church leaders were opposed to his efforts and some called his hymns “Watt’s Whims.” The common people, however, delighted in them. Eventually the Church of England revised its stand and began adding hymns to their worship. His most famous songs point to Christ:
“When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of glory died,
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.”
1799
Death of Samuel Medley, an English Baptist preacher. Converted after reading a sermon by Isaac Watts, Medley had pastored two different Baptist churches in Liverpool between 1767-99. “O Could I Speak the Matchless Worth,” one of his hymns, will be sung for centuries.
1950
“It is not how many years we live, but rather what we do with them,” said Evangeline Cory Booth. When Evangeline died on this day, July 17, 1950, she had put her 85 own years to good use.
The youngest daughter of William and Catherine Booth (founders of the Salvation Army), she was born in 1865, the same year that it was founded. Her name was taken from the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in which little Eva St. Claire was a Christian heroine.
Evangeline inherited her parents’ flair for ministry and salesmanship. She began preaching at the age of fifteen. Given her own leadership post two years later, she won the nickname “White Angel of the Slums.” Sometimes, she wore the same tattered clothes as the flower girls in order to minister to them. Full of tact, charm, inventiveness and good spirits–not to mention good looks, she had a knack for solving problems and dramatizing the Salvation Army cause. In fact, she became an Army troubleshooter. General William Booth sent Eva in when persecutions broke out or a local branch of the Army was in disarray.
When the American leaders of the Salvation Army disagreed with General William Booth (splitting to found the Volunteers of America) it was Evangeline whom the general sent to solve the organization’s woes. She succeeded. Eventually, she was appointed leader of the American work and became an American citizen. In 1934, she became general of the world wide movement, a position she held for five years.
Evangeline’s style was to work herself to exhaustion for weeks or months, rest a few days, and then begin the cycle over again. Nonetheless, she enjoyed life thoroughly. She rode horses and loved diving. Horses weren’t her only rides: she was the first prominent Salvationist to try a bicycle. Another means of relaxation was playing musical instruments such as the harp.
In her travels, Evangeline delivered powerful lectures. Many of these were gathered into a volume titled Toward a Better World. “The better world is the home as well as the sure reward for the faithful unto death. They may have dreary and disappointing experience on earth: hard toil for the hands, sickness of the body, anxiety at the home, patched clothes on the back, and, maybe, rejected love in the heart; but neither principalities, nor powers, nor things present, not things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall close against them the gates of THE BETTER WORLD.”
Among her many writings were hymns. Perhaps the most famous was “The World for God.”
The world for God! The world for God!
There’s nothing else will meet the hunger of my soul…
Evangeline’s death was from arteriosclerosis. She was buried near White Plains, New York.