Andrew Dies a Martyr with 2,593 of His Faithful Soldiers

Andrew Dies a Martyr with 2,593 of His Faithful Soldiers

On The Day August 19 302AD

Khen Lim

Andrew the Stratelates (Image source: Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Toronto (Canada)

Not a lot is known about this Syrian man known only by his first name, Andrew, but in the reign of Emperor Maximian (250-310AD), he was a military tribune in the Roman army much loved and respected by the soldiers as much for his bravery and invincibility as for his fairness in command. 

Under Maximian’s rule, the Roman Syrian territories were constantly menaced by enemies looking to exploit whatever vulnerabilities and invade. 

That one time, a large Persian army had gathered to attack with a suddenness that took governor Antiochus by surprise. The threat was serious enough for him to despatch the trusted Roman army captain Andrew and to allow him the freedom to tailor an imperial army of his choice but not before he summoned him to join his inner council. 

Hippolytus Returns Home A Martyr

Hippolytus Returns Home a Martyr

On the Day August 13 236AD

Khen Lim



Early Church Fathers (Image source: Reformed Resources)

The Early Fathers of the Church weren’t just stalwarts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; they also took the commission to spread the Word seriously. They made their name defending the Church through apologetic writings and inspired by Paul, they fought hard against the myriad heresies that sprouted through the early centuries of fledgling Christianity. 

These were men whom history calls the Apostolic Fathers for they not only gave special witness to the faith but many, as a result, gave their lives as martyrs.

Lady Jane Becomes Queen for Nine Days (Final Part Three)

Lady Jane Becomes Queen for Nine Days (Final Part Three)

On the day July 10 1553

Khen Lim

Lady Jane Grey, the Nine-Day Queen (Image source: Stuff You Missed in History Class)

In the previous Part Two, we witnessed the inevitable deaths of Lady Jane Grey, the Nine-Day Queen, her husband Guildford Dudley with both their fathers and quite a few more to come. Before that, we read of the folly of the Wyatt Rebellion that was the ultimate turning point in the fate of Jane.

Final part three concludes here.

Lady Jane Becomes Queen for Nine Days (Part Two)

Lady Jane Becomes Queen for Nine Days (Part Two)

On the day July 10 1553

Khen Lim

Lady Jane Grey by Matt Abraxas (Image source: redbubble.com)

By the time Part One ended, Lady Jane Grey was forced to step down after nine days at the throne and together with Guildford Dudley, her husband, were arrested, charged and sentenced to death. 

However a reprieve seemed possible for at least the both of them. But then the country heard of Mary’s plan to marry the Spanish Crown Prince, which would mean England would capitulate back to Roman Catholicism. On hearing this, the people weren't happy...

Part Two continues.

Lady Jane Becomes Queen for Nine Days (Part One)

Lady Jane Becomes Queen for Nine Days (Part One)

On this day July 10 1553

Khen Lim

Lady Jane Grey en route to Tower of London by Matt Abraxas (Image source: Redbubble)

Stepping into the Tower of London, the sixteen-year-old Lady Jane Grey felt uncomfortable. Reportedly thin and freckled with sandy-coloured hair, her ‘new role’ was, frankly, a fair few shoe sizes too big for her. 

Her granduncle was the audacious Henry VIII, who died six years ago but that really wasn’t the problem. Hers was when Henry’s only son, her same-age uncle, the sitting King Edward VI died four days earlier that had now set into motion her fatal destiny.

And on July 10 four-hundred and sixty-four years ago, Lady Jane sealed her fate with a proclamation accompanied by great lords and nobles of England, and with that, she took the Thames to the Tower of London. Dressed in Tudor green and white, her domineering and manipulative mother bore the train of her dress. 

No one in her right mind, not least Lady Jane herself, would have even remotely understand that by doing so, she had just confirmed her death nine days away.

England Condemns Her Faire Gospeller to a Fiery Death

England Condemns Her Faire Gospeller to a Fiery Death

On This Day June 18 1546

Khen Lim

Emma Stanfield as Anne Askew in The Tudors TV series about to be burned alive (Image source: Cinemorgue Wiki)

On July 16 1546, a very tired and near-to-death 26-year-old Anne Askew sat on a wooden chair perched up on a stake. Below her were kindling gathered around and next to her were three other stakes all spaced apart. Her friends, John Lascelles, Nicholas Belenian and John Adams, fellow Protestants were all tied firmly with rope. In a matter of minutes, in the market square of Smithfield, all of them would be burned to their death.

Scotland’s Beloved Margaret is Honoured

Scotland’s Beloved Margaret is Honoured

On the Day June 10 1693

Khen Lim

Margaret of Scotland (Image source: smos-school.org)

In 1693 on this day, June 10, Pope Innocent XII installed a feast day to honour the woman who was to become the mother of James VII of Scotland, also II of England. 

This woman, as unlikely as it might have been, had lived her entire life on the edge of conflict. From the day she was born to her return to her country of belonging, this was a time in history when England and Scotland were coalescing into separate sovereign kingdoms.

Around the same period, a Scottish prince had just lost his beloved father King Duncan but was later to take revenge by killing his murderer, Macbeth. Had Shakespeare decided to write a sequel to Macbeth, he might even have immortalised this very woman into the history of perennial literary favourites. 

She would have given him an innately powerful and quietly influential heroine who was every bit the queen that she became. She would have fitted very snugly into his stage and become a favourite character.

Her name was Margaret of Scotland.

Pagans’ Kill Deprive Germany of their National Apostle

Pagans’ Kill Deprive Germany of their National Apostle

On the Day June 5 754AD

Khen Lim

Statue of Boniface, Apostle to Germany at the Cathedral of Mainz (Image source: Pinterest)

On that fateful day, June 5 754AD, an eighty-year man was sat quietly reading the Gospels in his tent in Dokkum between Franeker and Groningen in Frisia (now Netherlands) while he waited for new converts to arrive. They were due him to confirm. He had been harbouring hope to bring Christ to the Frisians and so had decided to convene a meeting.

But that was not to be. As he sat there, a group of furious pagan worshippers pounced on the aged archbishop. Pleading with his co-workers not to intervene but to back down, saying, “Cease fighting. Lay down your arms for we are told in Scripture not to render evil for good but to overcome evil by good.” His only token defence was the book he was reading – the Gospels – which he placed atop his head as protection.

A Emigrant's Best Friend Dies

An Emigrants’ Best Friend Dies

On the Day March 25 1877

Khen Lim

Caroline Chisholm, 1852, by Angelo Collen Hayter, from Dixson Galleries (Image source: Caroline Chisholm Society)

There are many catchwords that are often used to describe Australia. ‘Ocker’ is certainly one of them and so is ‘larrikin.’ Both play to the unique character of the Australian individual but it is ‘multiculturalism’ that perhaps define the national culture of what was once White Australia and of the names in history that are linked to the multicultural movement, it was Al Grassby, the late Gough Whitlam’s Minister of Immigration till 1974 who was even known in some circles as the father of Australian multiculturalism.

Yet with all the hoopla about Grassby’s role, what we may not realise is the link to Australia’s immigrant history goes farther back to at least the nineteenth century when a certain woman from Northampton, England who, with her husband, made Australia her home chose to fight for alien rights in the most unprecedented spirit of them all. It was on this day, one-hundred and forty years ago, in 1877, that she passed away.

Free From Bondage, It's Time to Rebuild

Free from Bondage, It’s Time to Rebuild

Americans remembering March 12 515BC

Khen Lim

Image source: Biblical Authorship

Following the post-Davidian period where the nation partitioned into Israel to the north and Judah to the south, the people of God capitulated to one sinful ruler after another. The northern kingdom of Israel, in particular, produced some of the most wicked rulers the Bible could describe. Judah was not much better – with the exception of exemplary kings like Uzziah, Jotham, Hezekiah and Josiah, pretty much the rest were like their northern cousins.

Invariably, after Zedekiah, the evil son of Josiah’s rule, around 586BC, Judah and her capital, Jerusalem, finally succumbed to the Neo-Babylonian Empire and a fair portion of its Jewish population was exiled to Babylon. 

As long as 135 years earlier, in 721BC, Israel was already captured by the Assyrians right after Hoshea ascended to the throne. Forty-seven years later, in 539BC, the Babylonians themselves were brought to their knees by a coalition of Medes and Persians.

Unlike before, the new conquerors believed that the captives, including the Jews from Judah, should be given the opportunity to rebuild their own homes, meaning that they were allowed to return to the southern kingdom and fulfil their pledge to rebuild their destroyed temple. 

Yet, even seventeen long years later, that pledge languished and construction of the temple was poor enough that God had commanded His prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, to rebuke His people for their indifference and negligence.

On the Day March 5 1743

America’s First Christian Journal Begins

On the Day March 5 1743

Khen Lim

Thomas Prince (Image source: Sotheby's)

No matter how much today’s progressives, politically-correct fanatics and liberal revisionists might want or force us to believe, Christianity is the bedrock of American culture. It is also the country’s founding religion and on that point alone, its history in America is the history of the nation at large. Nothing changes that regardless of the efforts to whitewash Christianity in deference to Islam or any other political ideology.

Christianity identifies American history and in this country, it is also the source of historical records that tells us of God’s hand in the centuries leading to today. In fact, history is His story – God’s story – as told in the Old and New Testaments. Here, Scripture is a real record of God’s relationship with His people. In the same way, on this day, two-hundred and seventy-four years ago, in 1743, Boston clergyman Thomas Prince recorded America’s relationship with God and called it ‘The Christian History.’

On the Day February 26 1401

The First Lollard to Burn

On the Day February 26 1401

Khen Lim

William Sawtrey (Image source: Look and Learn)

When William Sawtrey, a Roman Catholic priest was charged and then thrown into prison for heresy before being freed in 1399, he did so only because he abjured the increasingly popular but illegal Lollard movement, but then once he returned to his normal life, he was filled with remorse, feeling strongly that, by his actions to save his own skin, he had, in fact, betrayed Christ.

On the Day February 20 1948

Dead Sea Scrolls Photographed for the First Time

On the Day February 20 1948

Khen Lim

Qumran Caves (Image source: Wikipedia)

“They’re the greatest find of our time. If you love God, if you love history, if you’re a Jew, if you’re a Christian, if you care about the Gospel, if you care about the Bible, there is no greater discovery,” said Peter Flint, professor of religious studies at Trinity Western University in British Columbia, Canada.

Johns Hopkins University professor William F. Albright called them, “the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times.”

On February 20, 1948, the moment the Dead Sea Scrolls were photographed for the first time, that discovery took on the world stage and never left it since then.

On the Day February 13 1861

God Raises Kanzo Uchimura

On the Day February 13 1861

Khen Lim

Kanzo Uchimura (Image source: Geneugen van Nederland)

One-hundred and fifty-six years ago to this day, children were born everywhere just like they would on any other day. In Japan, it was, understandably, the same. What could ever be different, right? 

It seemed God took a different view and eight years after Commodore Perry anchored in the Bay of Yedo (Tokyo Bay), in the midst of Edo (today’s Tokyo) in the compound of the daimyo (feudal lord) was born a little boy who would emerge from the elite Samurai class to spiritually impact his nation as well as the world. His name was Kanzo Uchimura.

On the Day February 5 1596

Christians Cross the Line and Pay the Price in Japan

On the Day February 5 1596

Khen Lim




A close-up view of the Memorial to the Martyrdom of the 26 Saints of Japan, Nagasaki (Crisis Magazine)

The idea to introduce Christianity into the closeted culture of ancient Japan began, according to historical records, with Francis Xavier who together with fellow Jesuits Fathers Cosme de Torres and John Fernandez who arrived in Kagoshima, Japan on August 15 1549. With them were the hopes that Christianity would begin to flourish in the Far East. 

By the following month, on September 29, on his visit to Shimazo Takahisa, the daimyo* of Kagoshima, Xavier sought and was granted permission to establish the first Catholic mission in the country. The daimyo was probably thinking more along the lines of expanding trade relationships with Europe more than any curiosity about knowing Christ.

* One of the great lords who acted as vassals of the shogun (ruling commander-in-chief) in feudalistic Japan

On the Day January 30 680AD

Bathilde the Slave Queen Dies

On the Day January 30 680AD

Khen Lim




Bathilde the slave queen (Image source: TradCatKnight)

Hurriedly, the flaxen braided slave girl rushed into a hidden chamber near to the kitchen but out of sight of anyone around. Locking the door behind her, she tried to catch her breath but eventually, she quickly undressed. 

Dispensing with the attractive clothes she wore in attendance of the aristocrats and the nobility, she found her old dirty rags and put them on instead. Then she smeared her pretty face with kitchen grime desperately to conceal her beauty. After she completed her disguise, she resurfaced and calmly walked to the kitchen and became a dirty kitchenhand unfit for the eyes of the royalty and palace attendees.

Disney Studios could easily be behind this story and transformed it into an animation movie with a fairy-tale ending where the slave girl is spotted by a handsome beau who marries her and lived happily ever after. 

The remarkable thing about this story is that it is real. It happened and the girl was pursued by a powerful politician but she married someone else and left an amazing legacy. This was certainly nothing an epic motion picture could not do justice to.

On the Day January 22 1973

America Embraces Abortion

On the Day January 22 1973

Khen Lim

Image source: CNS News

The decadence that has plagued America has arguable roots. Notwithstanding the fundamental issue of the Adamaic sin that afflicts all of mankind, America has seen sin creeping into society from way back when. Some argue that it was the rock and roll era. Some others believe it’s the Woodstock hippiedom and the marijuana revolution. A few even go further back in time to the Wild West days.

On the Day January 15 1955

God Becomes New Business Owner

On the Day January 15 1955

Khen Lim



Image source:foothillsamishfurniture.com

Total surrender is a Christian concept but rarely do we hear or see it played out in modern society. Whatever the commitments, they’re not quite ‘total’ surrender. But that doesn’t stop us from constantly looking into Scripture for an Old Testament story that inspires as much as it awes. Other than Jesus sacrificing Himself at the cross, Abraham’s famous story of giving up his son Isaac completely to God lays down a powerful marker of what it means to totally surrender to the Lord.

On the Day December 24 1968

The Men of Apollo 8 Cites God’s Word in Space

On the Day December 24 1968

Khen Lim




(L-R) Frank Borman, William A Anders and James A Lovell Jr (Image source: spacefacts.de)

With the year of 1968 coming to a close, many Americans would be forgiven for breathing a huge sigh of relief. The social turbulences that have raged through the population like a wildfire had divided the country. Not only did the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy rock society to the hilt but so did the Vietnam War and the escalating race riots that had set many cities alit.

But when it came time for the giant Saturn V to launch the Apollo 8 crew into space on December 21 1968, all eyes throughout the world were focused on what America could do. Tens of thousands of Americans including two Supreme Court justices as well as aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh turned out at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre (present-day Cape Canaveral, Florida) on the morning of the launch to witness an event so mesmerising that no newspapers anywhere in the world could ignore.

On the Day December 19 1950

The End for Bill Wallace in Communist China

On the Day December 19 1950

Khen Lim




Bill Wallace (standing, centre) with the staff of Stout Memorial Hospital, Wuchow, China, 1946 (Image source: Baptist Press)

Bill Wallace’s tragic death at the hands of the Communist Chinese is not just an injustice. It was amoral because the Communist killed someone who served and loved the Chinese people. Unlike how some might see it, his death was all but a waste. 

Bill did suffer in the final weeks of his life but even so, he cared more about his co-workers and their hospital than his own life. When he was first arrested, he said, “Go on back and take care of the hospital. I am ready to give my life if necessary.”