January 7
1536
Catherine of Aragon, whose divorce from Henry VIII was the
catalyst for the English Reformation, died (b. 16 December 1485).
1537 The Saxon Elector
John Frederick I (1503–1554)
expressed his thanks to Martin Luther for having drawn up the
Smalcald Articles.
1546 Luther preached his last
sermon at Wittenberg.
1590 Jakob
Andreae, theologian, reformer and leader in the drafting of
the Formula of Concord, died (b. 25 March 1528). He introduced
Lutheranism to much of Germany.
1634 Adam Krieger,
composer, was born in Neumark, Prussia (d. 1666).
1659
Francis Rous (Rouse), Puritan hymnist, died in Acton, England
(b. 1579, Dittisham, Devonshire [or Halton, Cornwall?], England).
1715
François Fénelon (b. 6 August 1651),
French theologian and mystic, died.
1786 William C.
Bouck, Lutheran governor of New York, was born in Fulton,
Schoharie County, New York (d. 19 April 1859).
1828
Julius Hardeland, director of the Leipzig Evangelical
Lutheran Mission, was born in Hanover (d. 11 October 1903).
1829
Frederick Whitfield, Anglican clergyman and hymnist, was born
in Shropshire, England (d. 13 September 1904, Croydon, London, England).
1832
Thomas DeWitt Talmage, American Presbyterian clergyman, was
born near Bound Brook, New Jersey (d. 12 July 1902).
1844
Saint Bernadette Soubirous, a French peasant girl who had
several visions of the Virgin Mary in a cave near the Gave River close
to her birthplace of Lourdes, was born (d. 16 April 1879).
1867 James
Edmeston, hymnist, died at Homerton, Middlesex, England (b.
10 September 1791, Wapping, Middlesex, England).
1868
William B. Bradbury (b. 6 October 1816), composer, died.
1878 J. F. Doescher
(1840–1916), the
first Synodical Conference missionary to African Americans in the U.S.,
left Little Rock and traveled through Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama,
Florida, Georgia and Tennessee, preaching in many cities and on many
plantations.
1888 Arthur Martin Kuehnert was
born in Altenburg, Missouri (d. 3 October 1974, Saint Louis). He
attended Concordia College (Fort Wayne) from 1903 to 1909 and graduated
from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1912. He was a member of the
Missouri Synod Board for Foreign Missions from 1923 to 1947, serving as
the board's chairman from 1932 on.
1914 The first issue of the Northwestern
Lutheran (Wisconsin Synod) appeared.
1918
Julius Wellhausen (b. 17 May 1844), German theologian and
biblical scholar, died.
1934 Billy Sunday
(1862–1935),
baseball player-turned-evangelist, began a two-week revival service at
the age of seventy in Calvary Baptist Church in New York City.
1940
Carl Gustaf Boberg, Swedish lay preacher and author of “How Great Thou Art,” died at Kalmer, Sweden
(b. 16 August 1859, Mönsterås, Sweden).
1944 An Overture for Lutheran Unity
was adopted by the executive committee of the
American Lutheran Conference in Chicago.
1956 The first plane was dedicated
to the LCMS mission in New Guinea. It came as a gift from Minnesota.
1983 Lawrence Acker, who served as
Lutheran Hour speaker from 1950 to 1951, died at Omaha, Nebraska (b. 22
May 1892, Seymour, Indiana). Acker, who served First Lutheran Church
(Omaha) from 1919 until his retirement in 1956, became Lutheran Hour
speaker in June 1950 and served until the appointment of Armin C. Oldsen in the summer of 1951. He succeeded Walter A. Maier, who died in
January 1950. He also served for many years as pastoral advisor to the
International Lutheran Laymen’s
League. He was a graduate of Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis).
