An American Joseph?

I'm sure most of us are familiar with the story of Joseph, the Hebrew slave who, by his faithfulness to God, rose to become the most powerful man in the kingdom of Egypt. By his obedience, the people of God were preserved setting the stage for the creation of the nation of Israel. I'd like to tell you about another slave, who from humble beginnings, also rose to prominence because of his devotion to the same God that Joseph honoured.

Lott Carey was born into a slave family around 1780 on an estate located about 30 miles south of Richmond, Virginia. We know very little about his childhood, as the lives of slaves were not something their masters recorded, only their value and productivity. We do know that while his parents were illiterate, Lott's father was a respected member of the Baptist Church. And his mother, while not known to frequent any particular denomination, was regarded as a Godly woman.

Lott's recorded history begins about the age of 24, when as was often the custom, he was hired out by his owner, William A. Christian, to the Shockhoe tobacco warehouse in Richmond. Removed from the Christian influence of his father, he was soon given to drunkenness and profanity. However, the Lord obviously was watching over the young man as he came under the influence of one John Courtney, and in 1807 Carey converted and joined the Baptist church in Richmond.

The change in Lott was remarkable. He went from being an unreliable drunk, to a hard worker who could be left to his own devices without supervision. On hearing his pastor preach on the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus, Carey became so intrigued by the story he determined to learn to read the passage for himself; it was not long afterward he learned to write and do fundamental arithmetic as well.

As time passed his efficiency, faithfulness and literacy earned him a promotion to shipping clerk in the tobacco warehouse. It became commonplace for merchants to tip him a five dollar note, a substantial amount for the day. In addition the owners of the warehouse allowed him to exercise his entrepreneurial spirit by letting him gather and process what was regarded as "waste" tobacco and sell it to his own customers. In this was Lott was able to amass a sum of $850 which he used to buy the freedom of himself and his two children. (His wife had died from illness a few years earlier.)

Carey continued to work at Shockhoe, only now, he got to keep his $800 annual wages instead of turning them over to his owner. He bought a house and was able to afford to educate his children. His value to the company and the community continued to grow. So much so that when he and a friend, Collin Teage (another free black), decided God was calling them to enter the mission field, the tobacco company offered him a raise of $200 a year to stay. He respectfully declined the offer.

In the early 1800's the U.S. government, in cooperation with the American Colonization Society founded the colony of Liberia. The idea was to provide a place for freed slaves who wished to return to Africa to settle and begin a new life. It was to this place that Carey and Teage wished to take the gospel message. They did so with the help of William Crane from New Jersey who assisted Lott in organizing a society to collect funds for mission work in Africa.

In 1822 Lott moved to Monrovia, capital of Liberia, about the same time as Jehudi Ashmun, a white man, who served as the colony's de facto governor. Ashmun was glad to see the two missionaries arrive and granted them permission to establish Providence Baptist Church--the first church in Liberia. Lott preached several times a week and gave religious instruction to native children, using his own money to maintain a charity school. He also established a school at Big Town in the Cape Mount region despite Muslim protests.

He also helped immigrants, mostly freed slaves from the U.S., to establish small farms where they could raise food for themselves. Determined to use the funds provided by the society back in the States for the mission work they were doing, he learned the coopers trade (barrel making) and used the income from this business to support himself. Things started out quite well.

About a year after the colony was founded the citizens of the colony had complaints about the manner in which land was being distributed. A resistance movement rose up against the colonial agent, Jehudi Ashmun, and instead of promoting calm and negotiation as Ashmun had hoped, Carey sided with the resistance. The U.S. sent an armed vessel to deal with the situation in the summer of 1824. After investigation, Jehudi Ashmun was kept on as the colonial agent; the Colonization Society withdrew Lott's license to preach. I know this sounds a little strange to us, but at this point in history every preacher had to be licensed to preach by a governing body almost everywhere in the world.

You might think that this was the end of Carey's involvement in the colony, but such was not the case. Even though he could no longer occupy the pulpit, he still proved his worth. Letters written by Ashmun to his contacts back in the U.S. indicate that he fully understood why Carey would take the stand he did. They also indicate that the colonial agent considered Lott Carey an invaluable resource. Which is why he and Lott quickly reconciled and got back to the task of making the colony work.

He made Carey his vice-agent, and assigned him the task of readying a local militia to protect the colony from the surrounding tribes and the Spanish slave-traders who objected to the existence of a free black anything. On one occasion, when a slave ship attempted to trade for food and water under the guise of a wheat ship, Carey fired a well placed cannon shot across the ships bow and gave its captain one hour to get out of the range of his guns. The captain did.

Carey proved himself to be something of a polymath, that is a person who succeeds at a number of divergent endeavours. Already proving himself to be an able businessman, preacher and administrator, he now took on the challenge of being a doctor.

When the ship Cyrus arrived from the U.S. with one hundred and five emigrants, seemingly in good health, and within four weeks, all were smitten with an unknown disease, Lott Carey stepped up. The colony did not have a permanent physician of its own. Wrote one observer, "in this deplorable state of things, the only individual who could act the part of a physician, was Lott Cary, whose skill resulted entirely from his good sense, observation, and experience. He had gained much knowledge of the human frame and of medicine, from scientific practitioners, who had, at various times, visited the colony. His attentions were rendered successful in the restoration of almost the whole number."

In 1828 Jehudi Ashmun returned to America, leaving Liberia's management in Lott's hands. Ashmun urged Lott to become the permanent agent for the colony. But before Lott could do so, he was mortally wounded in a munitions explosion, while preparing to undertake an expedition to rescue one of the outlying settlements from raids by hostile Muslims. He died two days later.

On hearing of Lott Carey's death, Jehudi returned to the colony and continued to govern it until his death in 1841. At this point Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the colony's first black governor took over. Liberia declared its independence from the United States in 1847. The American government officially recognized the new African Republic in 1862.

The munitions explosion that ended the life of Lott Carey, a man born a slave who rose to the second highest position in what would become a free and democratic republic, happened on November 10th, 1828 - 179 years ago this week.

Resources:
1. Taylor, James B. Biography of Elder Lott Cary, Late Missionary to Africa. With an Appendix on the Subject of Colonization, by J.H.B. Latrobe, #p92. <http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/taylor/taylor.html >
2. "Liberia." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 7 Nov. 2007 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-214453>.
3. Photo credit: <http://www.lottcarey.org/history.html>


Other events this week in Church History:

November 5, 1605: Guy Fawkes who, with a number of others, sought to destroy the government of Britain by planting explosives in the basement of the House of Lords, is discovered and arrested before the plan can be carried out. A Catholic, Fawkes and his co-conspirators felt the Protestant domination of politics spelt the end of a free Britian. They hoped that by destroying parliament on the day of the throne Speech, they would send the nation into sufficient disarray that a Catholic coup might succeed.

November 6, 1935: American revivalist Billy Sunday, a baseball player who became one of America's most famous evangelists before Billy Graham, dies at age 73. More than 100 million people heard him speak at his evangelistic crusades, and about 300,000 of them became Christians.

November 7, 1837: Presbyterian minister and abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy is murdered in Alton, Illinois. A newspaper editor whose press was destroyed by vandals three times, he was accused of inciting slaves to revolt when he defended a black man burned at the stake by a mob. When another mob tried to burn down his warehouse, Lovejoy was shot trying to save it. His death helped to galvanize the abolitionist movement.

November 8, 1308: John Duns Scotus, the hard-to-follow Scottish theologian who first posited Mary's immaculate conception (that she herself was born without original sin), dies in Cologne, Germany. Mary's immaculate conception was declared dogma by Pope Pius IX in 1854.

November 9, 1522: Martin Chemnitz, theogian who drafted the Formula of Concord, a document that eased rifts between various factions of the Lutheran movement, thus saving Lutheranism from falling apart, is born.

November 11, 1855: Danish Christian philosopher Síren Kierkegaard, regarded as the founder of existentialism, dies at age 42. Trying to "reintroduce Christianity to Christendom," he believed that Christianity was far more radical and difficult than did his Danish contemporaries.

Patron Saint of Charities

In many cities and towns across North America people from all walks of life shop in stores bearing the name of St. Vincent de Paul, but how many of them know anything of the man in whose name these shops are maintained? Let me tell you a little about him.

Born of a peasant family at Pouy, Gascony, France, in 1580, Vincent was drawn to the religious early in life and found himself studying at both Dax with the Cordeliers, and Toulouse where he graduated in theology. Ordained in 1600 he remained at Toulouse serving as tutor while continuing his own studies. He spent a brief time at Marseilles and was returning from there in 1605 when Turkish pirates captured him and took him to Tunis in Africa. Vincent de Paul's Muslim captors hustled him ashore where, along with a number of other Christian-born captives, he was marched through the streets for all to see, then they were brought back to the wharf and auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The hand of God must have been with Vincent as he was purchased into the household of a kindly Muslim. Impressed with the French priest, the elderly man offered to make Vincent his heir, if Vincent would only convert to Islam. Vincent refused. When the old man died the steadfast priest was sold to a Muslim who was a convert from Christianity. Vincent's life and songs so impressed one of this man's wives that she rebuked her husband for abandoning his faith. Once again it would seem God’s hand was with Vincent as the man returned to the beliefs of his childhood, and subsequently fleeing Africa, took Vincent with him. He was forced to leave his three wives behind, including the one who had sparked his return to faith.

Back in France, Vincent impressed the Countess of Joigny, whose husband was general of the prison galleys of France. Before being convoyed aboard the galleys, or when illness compelled them to disembark, the condemned convicts were crowded with leg chains into damp dungeons, their only food being black bread and water; all the while,they were covered with vermin and ulcers.

Remembering his own experience as a slave Vincent determined in his heart to reach out to these unfortunates. Assisted by a priest, he began visiting the galley convicts of Paris, speaking kind words to them, doing them every manner of service however repulsive. He thus won their hearts, and converted many of them. A house was purchased where Vincent established a hospital. Soon after this, in 1625, he was appointed by Louis XIII as royal almoner (an officer responsible for distributing alms to the poor) and because of this title gained access to the galleys of Marseilles and Bordeaux, where he met with similar success.

At the same time this was happening St.Vincent found himself frequently at the residence of the aforementioned Countess of Joigny, where she persuaded Vincent to preach to her tenants. The result was that so many people came seeking repentance, Vincent had to enlist other priests to assist him in hearing their confessions. This pattern repeated itself a number of times in various locations. In Chatillon-les-Dombes he repaired a ruined church and led another revival among the local aristocrats.

With sizable sums of money from these various aristocratic families, who found themselves inspired to good works, various groups and charities sprang up all over France. Vincent himself, founded the Lazarists, a group of priests dedicated to teaching the catechism, peacemaking, charitable works and preaching, especially in France’s rural regions.

The Daughters of Charity was established in 1629, when Vincent thought it a good idea to enlist the aid of good young women in the service of the poor. Not long after, the Ladies of Charity, a similar group, was founded, comprised largely of women of nobility. Through Vincent’s teachings and examples, they found themselves working side by side with their own servants in aiding those who were farthest removed from their own positions in French society.

A man of seemingly endless energy, Vincent soon found himself in favour in every court in the land, including those of Richelieu and Louis XIII. In fact, on his deathbed Louis would allow no one else to hear his confession and declared to Vincent, “Oh, Monsieur Vincent, if I am restored to health I shall appoint no bishops unless they have spent three years with you.”

Still, Vincent refused to allow himself to be puffed up by his fame and favour. He continued to dress humbly, though appropriately, when attending to the Royal Court. He used his influence among France’s nobility only to improve the condition of prisoners and the poor, establishing hospices, hospitals, kitchens, and refuges wherever he perceived a need. His experience in Tunis never far from his consciousness, he even raised sufficient funds to ransom 1,200 Christians who lived as slaves in North Africa.

Less than one hundred years after his death Pope Clement XII named Vincent de Paul a saint. In 1885, 225 years after his passing, Pope Leo XIII proclaimed him the patron saint of all charitable societies. This is why you see charity thrift shops named for him throughout Canada and the United States.

This master of charity passed away peacefully, sitting in his chair, September 27,1660 - 347 years ago this week.

Resources:
1. "St. Vincent de Paul", The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV. Published 1912. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15434c.htm>
2. "Vincent De Paul, Saint." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 25 Sept. 2007 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9075411>.
3. Various other internet articles derived by searching "Vincent de Paul"
Photo credit: From and e-card distributed by www.catholicgreetings.com
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Other Events that Happened this Week:

September 22, 1692: The last 8 of 19 condemned witches are hanged by Puritan magistrates in Salem, Massachusetts. The trails began in May of the same year when three young women, their imaginations stimulated by voodoo tales told them by a slave, claimed to have been possessed by the devil at the behest of other women in the village. By the time these last executions were carried out, public opinion on the trails had begun to reverse, and in October authorities would annul the witch trials' convictions and grant indemnities to the families of those who had been executed.

September 23, 1857: Layman-turned-evangelist Jeremiah C. Lanphier holds a lunchtime prayer meeting for businessmen on Fulton Street in New York City. At first, no one shows up, but by the program's third week, the 40 participants requested daily meetings. The meeting continued to grow in size until several locations in New York were required to hold everyone. Other cities began similar programs, and a revival—sometimes called "The Third Great Awakening"—catches fire across America.

September 24, 1794: Russian Orthodox priest-monk Father Juvenaly, his brother Stephen, and eight other monks after several months trekking 8,000 miles across Russia, Siberia, and the Pacific Ocean arrive at Kodiak Island, Alaska. After two years of ministry, the team had led 12,000 Alaskans to embrace the gospel. Juvenaly then extended his mission to the mainland, where he was martyred in 1796, making him the Orthodox Church's protomartyr (first martyr) of the Americas.

September 25, 1534: Pope Clement VII dies. During his tenure Clement was unable to halt Luther's reformation movement or even to implement his own reforms in the Catholic church. When Henry VIII asked Clement VII to annul his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, he refused (albeit rightly in the light of church doctrine) leading to England's break from Catholicism. For these reasons, and others, he is regarded by some as something of a failure as pope, responsible for the destruction of the Catholic (universal) church.

September 26, 1861: In the midst of the American Civil War, in accordance with a proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln earlier that year, the Northern states observe a day of public humiliation, prayer and fasting "to be observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnities. ... It is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals to humble ourselves before Him, and to pray for His mercy... "

September 28, 929: King Wenceslas, ruler and patron saint of Czechoslovakia is assassinated by his brother and his followers while attending mass. During his brief reign as king Wenceslas sought peace with surrounding nations, reformed the judicial system, and showed particular concern for his country's poor. His example of charity and concern for the less fortunate is heralded in the popular Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslas."

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He Didn’t Turn Her Brown Eyes Blue.

When Amy Carmichael was a child in Ireland, her mother told her that if Amy were to pray then God would answer. Since Amy didn’t like her brown eyes she prayed for God to give her blue ones. The next morning Mrs. Carmichael heard her wail in disappointment. It was a while before Amy would understand that "no" was an answer too.

Even though the “no” answer disappointed her she never lost her faith in God. Service to Him became the passion of her life leading Amy to start classes and prayer groups for Belfast’s many poor and homeless children, known as “ragamuffins.” Her Sunday classes were also attended by "shawlies", factory girls so poor that they could not afford hats to wear to church and wore shawls instead. Believe it or not this was enough for “respectable people” to refuse to have anything to do with them.

In the years following her father’s death the Carmichaels found themselves in tough financial circumstances, so Mrs Carmichael decided to move to England and work for Uncle Jacob. Amy and another sister joined her. Uncle Jacob asked Amy to teach his mill workers about Christ and she threw herself into the work, living near the mill in an apartment infested with cockroaches and bed bugs. However, she was constantly sick with neuralgia and had to lie in bed for days at a time. Her bad health eventually forced her to give up the work.

When she announced she was going to be a missionary, her friends thought she was being foolish and predicted that she would soon be back in England for keeps. Nevertheless, in 1892, she answered the call to the mission field and made her way to India.

In Dohnavur, India, Amy Carmichael became a kidnapper. According to local custom young girls dedicated to the Hindu gods were forced into prostitution to earn money for the priests. Amy heard about a five-year-old girl named Kohila who faced just such a fate. Dressed in a sari, her skin stained brown, Amy could pass as a Hindu. Disguised in this way she rescued the little girl and gave her shelter. Now she understood why God had given her brown eyes. Blue eyes would have been a dead giveaway!

When the child’s guardians discovered what had happen they demanded the child’s return. Amy refused to return the little girl to a life of certain abuse and arranged for Kohila to "disappear" to a safe place. Technically that made her a kidnapper. Over the years, Amy would rescue many other children, often at the cost of extreme exhaustion and personal danger. Charges were brought against Amy. She faced a seven year prison term.

Amy did not go to prison. A telegram arrived on February 7, 1914, saying, "Criminal case dismissed." No explanation was ever forthcoming, but those who worship Amy's Lord have no doubt that He had a hand in the decision.

Amy would continue her mission for the next fifty years until her death in 1951. Her first under-cover mission, to rescue little Kohila from the temple, happened on March 9, 1901 — 106 years ago this week.

Other things that happened this week - March 4 - 10.

March 4, 1866 - Alexander Campbell, founder of the Disciples of Christ and the Church of Christ, dies. He sought desperately to get back to a "simple evangelical Christianity," founded on the Bible and the Bible alone. Campbell believed that creeds, confessions and liturgy could only bring division, not unity to the universal Christian church. To use his words, "The testimony of the Apostles is the only and all-sufficient means of uniting Christians.”

March 5, 1899 - Alcoholic-turned-evangelist Sam Jones begins a crusade in Toledo, Ohio, where the mayor was also named Sam Jones. Mayor Jones at first welcomed the publicity, the evangelist Jones was very popular drawing crowds in the tens of thousands every he went. The mayor's enthusiasm would wane however, as evangelist Jones decried the city's immorality --- "If the Devil were mayor of Toledo," the preacher said, "he wouldn't change a thing!". It should be noted that one month after the evangelist folded his tents and left, the mayor was reelected by a significant margin.

March 6, 1629 - In Germany, Ferdinand II issues the Edict of Restitution, which restores all church property appropriated by Protestants since Peace of Augsburg (1555) to the Roman Catholic Church.

March 7, 203 - Perpetua, a Christian about 22 years old, her slave, Felicitas, and several others are martyred at the arena in Carthage. They were flogged, faced hungry leopards loosed by Roman officials, and finally beheaded by a gladiator. She remains one of early Christianity's most famous martyrs.
March 8, 1915 - The US Supreme Court finds religious education in the public schools in volitation of the First Amendment of the Constitution.
March 10, 1302 - Pope Boniface VIII sentences politician, Dante Alighieri, to be burned to death for political reasons. He avoided the fate by living in exile, but he never saw his wife again. During his time of exile Dante turned to writing poetry and eventually penned his most famous work, The Divine Comedy.

God Made All Men Equal

Imagine for a moment what the economic impact would be if the Canadian and American governments became serious about dealing with pollution and climate change and banned the manufacture of new cars and trucks immediately. We would simply not make them any more. You could continue to own the one you have, but no new parts would be made either, so once they ran out, that was it. What would happen to our economy if this were to happen?

Well, that’s about the size of the impact of the slave trade in Britain and her colonies in the Americas a little over 200 years ago. There were very few sectors of the British economy that did not directly or indirectly rely on the use of slave labour. It was for this reason the British Parliament had resisted all previous efforts to curtail the trade. Then along came a man named Wilberforce.

William Wilberforce was born in the city of Hull, England in 1759, into a wealthy merchant family. Influenced in spiritual matters by his Methodist aunt he eventually attended St. John’s College, Cambridge where, as he put it, “As much pains were taken to make me idle as were ever taken to make me studious.”

Not wanting to get involved in the family business he sought out a seat in Parliament, and in 1780, succeeded in being elected as the Member of Parliament for the county of Yorkshire. At first his political career looked a lot like his academic one. He later admitted, "The first years in Parliament I did nothing—nothing to any purpose. My own distinction was my darling object."

At Easter of 1786 however, he had a spiritual awakening and, determined that his life should not be without purpose, he decided to champion the cause of those who lived at the opposite end of the economy to himself – the slaves. He had been greatly influenced by the work of one, Thomas Clarkson, who had written a pamphlet entitled “The Impolicy of the African Slave Trade” which had been widely distributed.

Wilberforce tabled his first bill seeking the abolition of the slave trade in April of 1791. It was defeated 163 votes to 88, but William, undaunted, continued tabling a new bill in ever single session of Parliament. He came close to succeeding for the first time in March of 1796, when all indications were that the bill would succeed by at least a dozen votes. His opponents however, took advantage of the premier of a new opera on the night of the vote, sending free tickets to Wilberforce’s softest supporters. They used the tickets and the bill was defeated 74 to 70.

Feeling betrayed and devastated by this defeat, Wilberforce wrote to his friend and mentor, John Newton, the ex-slave captain turned minister, who penned the words the famous hymn, Amazing Grace. Newton wrote back, “Though you have not, as yet, fully succeeded in your persevering endeavours to abolish the slave trade, since you took it in hand the condition of the slaves in our islands has undoubtedly been already improved... you have not laboured in vain.”

“It is true that you live in the midst of difficulties and snares, and you need a double guard of watchfulness and prayer. But since you know both your need of help, and where to look for it, I may say to you as Darius to Daniel, 'Thy God whom thou servest continually is able to preserve and deliver you.' Daniel, likewise, was a public man, and in critical circumstances; but he trusted in the Lord; was faithful in his department, and therefore though he had enemies, they could not prevail against him.”

“Indeed,” Newton continued, “the great point for our comfort in life is to have a well-grounded persuasion that we are where, all things considered, we ought to be. Then it is no great matter whether we are in public or in private life, in a city or a village, in a palace or a cottage. The promise, 'My grace is sufficient for thee,' is necessary to support us in the smoothest scenes, and is equally able to support us in the most difficult.”

William continued the fight despite the opposition and ill-health that dogged him every step of the way. Using what was described as “his natural charm and eloquence” he used every tactic at his disposal to make the rest of parliament understand that slavery was “unacceptable in a civilized and moral society.”

Finally, a bill calling for the abolition of the slave trade was introduced to the House of Lords (the inspiration for the Canadian senate) by Lord Grenville, a supporter of Wilberforce’s. His impassioned speech called the Upper House to account for it’s reprehensible conduct in allowing such an abominable industry to continue. To everyone’s surprise, the bill was passed by a vote of 41 to 20.

This sent the bill to the House of Commons for a vote, where member after member called for the bill to be passed, praising Wilberforce for his 20 year campaign to end the slave trade. Finally, at 4:00 a.m. the vote was taken. The bill was passed by an overwhelming vote of 283 to 16. One month later it was given royal assent and became law throughout the British Empire.

While the bill only banned the trading of slaves by British companies or on British ships and not the owning of slaves itself, it marked the beginning of the end for the slave trade between Africa and the American continent. Canada banned slavery completely three years later in 1810; but it would not be until 1833, just three days before his death, that an ailing Wilberforce would receive word that all of Britain’s slaves had finally won their freedom. The slave trade in America came to an end in 1863.

William Wilberforce was buried in Westminster Abbey on August 3rd, 1833. The funeral was attended by many members from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as well as many members of the public. The pall bearers included such noted men as the Lord Chancellor and the Duke of Gloucester. In 1840 a memorial (pictured) was erected in the north choir aisle of the abbey.

The legacy of William Wilberforce is not just the end of slavery in the British Empire, it is also the notion that one man, with his heart in the right place and God on his side, can make a difference in how the world works. He demonstrated that it is possible, however unlikely, for the Kingdom of Heaven to be lived out in the real world if we have the will and determination to see it happen.

That fateful vote in the House of Commons, began on the evening of February 23rd, 1807 — 200 years ago this week.

Other events that took place this week - Feb. 18 to Feb. 24

February 18, 1678 - "Pilgrim's Progress" is published for the first time, in England. The author, John Bunyan, spent a total of twelve years imprisoned for preaching without a license contrary to the rules of the Established Church. It was during this times, between 1660 and 1672, that Bunyan conceived the ideas that he would eventually turn into this masterpiece of Christian literature.

February 19, 843 - Empress Theodora, at the request of a Council in Constantinople, reinstates icons once and for all in the Eastern churches, effectively ending the medieval iconoclastic controversy. A similar Council had allowed the use of icons back in 787, but opponents of these images still controlled much of both the government and the church leadership. The controversy did not end there, however, and is cited as one of the reasons for the Great Schism between Catholics and the Orthodox in 1054.

February 20, 1895 - Frederick Douglass, the first African-American to hold high political office, serving as an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, dies in Washington, D.C. After escaping to freedom in 1838, he became the most prominent black abolitionist touring the country to rouse support for the movement. In his speeches he often criticized the "Christianity of this land," for tolerating slavery, considering himself a devotee of "the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ".

February 21, 1945 - Eric Liddell, the Scottish Olympic runner whose story is told in the film Chariots of Fire, dies of a brain tumor. In 1925, he joined the staff of the Anglo-Chinese Christian College in his birthplace - Tientsin, China. Captured by the Japanese in 1942, he died just before he was scheduled to be released.

February 22, 1906: Itinerant evangelist William J. Seymour arrives in Los Angeles to lead a Holiness mission (an interdenominational group planted to evangelize an area). The group grew larger as word spread of its revival meetings and the fact that “speaking in tongues” was a regular occurrence. Eventually, they moved to a rundown building located at 312 Azusa Street. Later on, the famed "Azusa Street Revival" broke out under Seymour's leadership. It was one of the pioneering events in the history of 20th century Pentecostalism.

February 24, 1582: Pope Gregory XIII issues a bull (a type of holy edict) requiring all Catholic countries to follow October 4 with October 15 and replace the Julian calendar with the Gregorian (named for the pontiff and which we still use today). By this time, the Julian calendar had drifted from the equinoxes by a full ten days, and so a new calendar had been devised. In some communities where education was not readily available there were protests of the action as some believed the church was robbing them of 10 days of their lives.