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This is the day that … John Owen died in 1683, at the age of 67.
He has been called “the Calvin of England” and “the theologian of the Puritan movement”.
James Packer writes, “In an age of giants, he overtopped them all” (Quest for Godliness, page 191).
His writings, “weighty with learning”, fill some 28 large volumes. [...]

This is the day that …. Barclay Foxwell Buxton was born in Essex, England, in 1860. His father, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet, was sole owner of Truman, Hanbury, Buxton & Co and an elected member of British Parliament for almost twenty years who helped found the Anti-Slavery Society and who was instrumental in [...]

This is the day that … Fletcher of Madeley died in 1785.
John William Fletcher, was born in Switzerland on 12 September, 1729, with the Swiss surname De La Fleceere. He was educated at Geneva and initially sought a military career. When an accident stopped him from sailing with his regiment to Brazil he eventually found [...]

This is the day that … Augustus Montague Toplady died, in 1778.
Augustus Toplady was born in Surrey, England, in 1740, and his father was killed in battle at the Siege of Carthagena when Augustus was only a few months old. His biographer describes the boy as a “sickly, neurotic, and precociously religious lad” (The [...]

This is the day that … Jenny Geddes flung her stool at the Dean’s head in St Giles’ Kirk (church), Edinburgh! It was in 1637.
William Laud was both Archbishop of Canterbury and adviser of King Charles I of England, and he it was who was responsible for seeking to impose the Church of England Prayer [...]

This is the day that … Howell Harris died, in 1773, “loyal to the last to the church whose sacraments he had been denied. His funeral was attended by 20,000 people.”
He was born in Wales on 23 January 1714, and early in life he decided to become a Church of England clergyman.
By the age of [...]

This is the day that … Henry VIII was excommunicated by the Pope of Rome. It was 1533.
He was 42 years of age, had sat upon the throne of England since 1509 … and (in 1521) had been awarded the title “Defender of the Faith” - by Pope Leo X!
Why? Because Henry had taken up [...]

This is the day that … Thomas Cranmer was born in 1489.
He was Archbishop of Canterbury at the time of England’s stormy break with the Church of Rome.
King Henry VIII wanted his marriage to Catherine of Aragon dissolved on the grounds that she was the widow of Henry’s brother when the marriage had taken [...]

This is the day that … Samuel Crowther was consecrated as a bishop, in 1864.
Adijah was 13 years of age, a black boy living inland near the west coast of Africa, when the slave traders attacked. He never saw his father again, and it would be 25 years before he was to again meet his [...]

This is the day that …Philip Henry died in 1696.
During his 65 years of earthly pilgrimage he was an ordained Church of England clergyman who was ejected from his church (as were some 2000 other clergy), for refusing to obey the king’s “Act of Uniformity” (24 August, 1662).
Two months later his son Matthew was born, [...]