The Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan, was published today in 1678. The most popular prose work of that century and the next, and one of England’s Christian classics, it astounded its first readers when it turned out to have been written by a tinker (that is, an itinerant kettle-mender) while he was in prison for holding unlawful religious gatherings.
‘So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.’ The Pilgrim’s Pogress
Today in 999 Pope Gregory V died. The first German Pope (his real name was Bruno), he was chosen by the German emperor and was unpopular in Rome. His sudden death was suspected to be a poisoning, but was actually due to malaria.
Today in 1957, Martin Luther King appeared on the cover of Time magazine.
Meanwhile, in 1546, Rev King’s namesake, the reformer Martin Luther, died. He died in his bed, although in his last sermon, preach a few days earlier, he said:
‘Christ says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden”, and it is as though he were saying: Just stick to me, hold on to my Word and let everything else go. If you are burned and beheaded for it, then have patience, I will make it so sweet for you that you easily would be able to bear it.’ Martin Luther
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