August 4
1874: Methodist clergyman John H. Vincent (1832-1920) and Ohio manufacturer Lewis Miller established the Chautauqua Assembly in northwest New York state a summer retreat center combining recreational activities with the training of Sunday School teachers and other church workers.
1879: Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical "Aeterni patris," which urged the study of "true" philosophy, especially that of Thomas Aquinas. The injunction led to a great revival of both Thomist studies and scholastic philosophy.
1884: Birth of Sigmund O.P. Mowinckel, Norwegian Old Testament scholar. Associated from 1917-54 with Oslo University, his most influential work was done in the Psalms. In 1951 he published The Psalms in Israel's Worship (1963).
1892: English medical missionary Wilfred T. Grenfell, 26, first arrived in Labrador, Newfoundland. For 42 years he labored among the fisherfolk, helping build hospitals and orphanages as well as churches.
1959: Swedish Christian and U.N. Secretary General Dago Hammarskald observed in his journal (Markings): "We encounter a world where each man is a cosmos, of whose riches we can only catch glimpses."
[Source: William D. Blake. Almanac of the Christian Church, Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.]
