1415 - Bohemian reformer and martyr Jan Hus wrote in a letter: 'It is difficult to...esteem it all joy in various temptations. It is easy to talk about...but difficult to fulfill it.'

1683 - English Quaker William Penn signed his famous treaty with the Indians of Pennsylvania. Voltaire once remarked that it was the only treaty never sworn to, and never broken.

1738 - Birth of Samuel Medley, English Baptist clergyman and author of the hymn, 'O Could I Speak the Matchless Worth.'

1775 - Anglican hymnwriter John Newton wrote in a letter: 'True religion is not a science of the head so much as an inward and heartfelt perception.... Here the learned have no real advantage over the ignorant.'

1967 - Paul VI issued the encyclical 'Sacerdotalis Caelibatus,' reaffirming the Catholic Church's requirement of celibacy with the priesthood.

© 1987-2010, William D. Blake. Used by permission of the author, from

Almanac of the Christian Church