1779 - Pioneer American Methodist bishop Francis Asbury reflected in his journal: 'God is gracious beyond the power of language to describe.'
1881 - The first formal church youth organization was established in the Williston Congregational Church in Portland, Maine, by the Rev. Francis E. Clark, 29. Originally called "Christian Endeavor," it became the prototype of the modern denominational "youth fellowship."
1907 - In a letter written to American statesman William Jennings Bryan, Christian Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy counseled: 'The most important thing is to know the will of God concerning one's life, i.e., to know what he wishes us to do and fulfill it.'
1944 - German theologian and Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter from prison: 'There is a kind of weakness that Christianity does not hold with, but which people insist on claiming as Christian, and then sling mud at it.'
1955 - English apologist C.S. Lewis wrote in a letter: 'It is right...that we should be much concerned about the salvation of those we love. But we must be careful not to...demand that their salvation should conform to some ready-made pattern of our own.'
© 1987-2011, William D. Blake. Used by permission of the author, from
Almanac of the Christian Church
