1531 - German reformer Martin Luther declared: 'The inner man is a saint; the outer man is a sinner. That is why we confess in the Creed that the church is holy but pray for forgiveness of sins in the Lord's Prayer.'
1620 - Plymouth Colony was settled by the "Mayflower" colonists. (In 1691 Plymouth joined other neighboring settlements to form the royal colony of Massachusetts.)
1830 - Birth of William Caven, Scottish-born Canadian Presbyterian leader. He taught at Knox College, in Toronto, the last 39 years of his life. Though staunchly conservative, Caven was genuinely interested in social issues and thoroughly committed to missions.
1887 - Birth of Charles Brandon Booth, American social reformer and head of the Volunteers of America, 1949-58. Booth was the grandson of Salvation Army founder William Booth.
1970 - American missionary and apologist Francis Schaeffer wrote in a letter: 'We can fail after we are truly Christians because becoming a Christian does not rob us of our true humanity.'
© 1987-2012, William D. Blake. Used by permission of the author, from
Almanac of the Christian Church
