Isaac Barton (I. B.) Kimbrough was one of those many tough 19th-century pastors who appeared on the United States frontier. Born in Tennessee in 1826, he was orphaned at seven and acquired little education. When he married in 1846, having just turned 21, he could scarcely read. Three years later he was converted to Christianity.
Immediately he set out to master reading, so that he could study the Bible and theology. He had a family to maintain, so he made a frame on his plow on which to prop a book as he worked. At night, he studied by candle or at the fire side.
The upshot was that he became something of a homespun Christian scholar, evangelist and Baptist pastor in his native Tennessee. He converted and baptized over 1,000 people and organized eight new churches. Built like a football linebacker, possessing a strong voice, and definite in his aims, he commanded considerable attention.
When Tennessee Baptists appointed him to raise money for Carson and Newman College, Kimbrough, who was already 50 years old, went to work with a will, and became known as “the beggar” because he pleaded so assiduously for funds. A fascinating episode shows him as the ultimate salesman.
A pair of highwaymen pulled a gun on him and ordered him to hand over his money. According to Kimbrough, who told the tale at the Texas State Convention on this day, June 26, 1886, he asked for a little time to comply, got off his horse, pulled out the money and laid it in two distinct piles, one of them quite small. He then told the robbers that the little pile was his. They could take that. But the larger pile was the Lord’s, and he dared them to touch that. “I collected it for the young preachers of the state who are struggling for an education at Carson and Newman College.”
The highwaymen questioned him. After learning he was a preacher and the nature of his mission, they said they’d not touch either pile of money. Kimbrough then warned them they were in a bad line of business and urged them to turn from it. He then asked them to donate something to the school! Both robbers did.
A few years later, Kimbrough moved to Texas, where he spent his remaining years in the work of Christ, founding numerous churches in the less-established regions of Texas. In 1890, he was simultaneously pastor at three churches: Hale City, Plainview (where he oversaw the building of the first Baptist church in a 120 mile radius) and Floyd City. He died at Plano, Texas in 1902.
After the American Civil War ended in 1865, the push westward by settlers and the military intensified. Most native tribes were forced on to reservations but many maintained a state of intermittent warfare with the government. In 1876 a US Army campaign, one component of which was the 7th Cavalry led by Lt-Col. George Custer, was launched to force Cheyenne and Sioux nations back on to their reservations in Montana and the Dakotas. On June 25th, Custer’s 700-man column encountered a native encampment on the Little Bighorn River, the unusual size of which he did fully appreciate, and, believing he had been detected, Custer ordered an attack.
Custer divided his command into three elements, one of which he led, while the other two were under the command of Captain Frederick Benteen and Major Marcus Reno. Benteen and Reno were ordered to charge in order to bring the native warriors into a battle while Custer was to attack the village itself. Unfortunately Benteen and Reno found themselves facing superior forces and they were forced to retreat and dig defensive positions on a hill, leaving Custer unsupported and riding into what was said to be the biggest gathering of hostiles ever assembled. Instead of facing 800 enemies, Custer had blundered into a camp of thousands under chiefs such as Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Gall; mounted warriors from two directions forced him into a running battle of retreat. In about an hour, Custer and his detachment were dead. Benteen and Reno and their men were under siege for the rest of the day and into the next before the natives melted away in the face of General Terry’s relief column.
Terry’s men found the bodies of Custer, two of his brothers, his nephew and a brother-in-law, plus over 260 others, ritually mutilated where they fell, killed on the run, or in a number of dismounted “last stands”. They were buried on the battle field and the news sent out to a shocked nation about to celebrate America’s centenary.
The native triumph was short lived; their confederacy soon dissolved. Many bands returned to the reservations while Sitting Bull led his people across the border into Canada’s Northwest Territories (now southern Saskatchewan).
Racial segregation was a legal fact in much of America and it extended to their armed forces, even in the midst of World War II. Black troops were largely left out of combat roles and their officers were often less-than-competent whites who had been assigned to these units as a way of reducing the harm they could do. One of these units was a transport outfit, the 1511th Quartermaster Truck regiment, stationed at Bamber Bridge, in Lancashire. The black troops seem to have generally gotten on well with the locals and drank without incident in the local pubs until one fateful night.
The “mutiny” took place on 23 and 24 June 1943 and, as might be expected, the trouble began in what was otherwise a trivial matter. Two white Military Policemen (henceforth MPs), having been advised that there was trouble at the Old Hob Inn, went to investigate. It was just after 10 pm, closing time, and the barmaid had just refused a drink to the several black soldiers in the pub, who were there along with a number of British soldiers and civilians. The MPs tried to arrest one of the black soldiers who was improperly dressed and had no pass; the soldier refused and a crowd surrounded the two policemen. Some of the Britons in the crowd verbally supported the black troops and the whole thing escalated. As far as the MPs were concerned the black troops looked threatening and aggressive and probably were. One of the MPs drew his gun when a soldier advanced on him with a bottle in his hand. The MPs left and a bottle was thrown hitting the windscreen of their jeep.
The soldiers then began walking to Adams Hall, followed by three ATS girls. The MPs, having got reinforcements, returned to the walking soldiers; there was a confrontation ending with a fight, bottles and cobble-stones being thrown. A policeman fired a shot to stop one of them throwing a cobble-stone; another shot was fired hitting one of the blacks in the neck. Another policeman also fired. The crowd dispersed. The blacks went to Adams Hall and the MPs went for more reinforcements. Rumours then spread at Adams Hall that blacks had been shot in the back and that the MPs were gunning for African Americans. Up to 200 men then formed a crowd in the area of Adams Hall and some blacks, carrying rifles, tried to get back into Bamber Bridge but the situation was calmed by the unit’s sole black officer, a 2Lt, who convinced the men that the (white) senior officers would listen to their grievances.
But about midnight about a dozen police arrived in “a makeshift armoured vehicle”, complete with a machine gun. This convinced some or possibly many of the black soldiers that the police were going to kill them and they armed themselves with rifles. Two-thirds of the rifles in the stores were seized by the black soldiers; some stayed in the camp; others believed they were defending the camp; another group ‘took more direct action, and, as the MPs moved off, someone fired at them. British residents testified that there was firing that night in Bamber Bridge and it became known that shots were fired at the MPs who returned fire. Four soldiers were wounded and one black soldier was killed. One British resident said that the firing went on until 3 am. One black soldier had bruises, and two MPS had, respectively, a broken nose and a broken jaw.
There were two trials. The first was at another American Army base at Chorley, south of Bamber Bridge. Four of those involved in the initial brawl were charged with various offences and were found guilty. Three were sentenced to 3-4 years’ hard labour and dishonourable discharges; the fourth to two and a half year’s hard labour. On review the sentence on the fourth was overturned.
The second trial took place at Eighth Army Air Force Headquarters at Bushy Park, Tedidngton. One of the men convicted at the first trial along with the man who was acquitted were among the 35 accused of mutiny, seizing arms, rioting, firing upon officers and MPs, ignoring orders and failing to disperse. Seven were found not guilty, and the remainder received prison sentences from 3 months to fifteen years. Seven men received sentences of twelve years or more. But the President of the court martial made an immediate plea for clemency, arguing that there had been an appalling lack of discipline at the camp and poor leadership with officers failing to perform their duties properly. His views were accepted by higher authority and all sentences were reduced. A year later, 15 of the men were restored to duty, and six others had their sentences reduced to one year. The longest period served was 13 months. Opinions on the fairness of the trial varied. Some thought it a kangaroo court with the defence being poorly prepared and performed; others thought that the board bent over backwards to be fair. It could be argued that the sentences were very light considering they had been charged with mutiny in wartime.
There were some positive outcomes of the whole affair. All field officers (majors, Lt-Colonels and colonels) of black units were replaced and many junior officers were weeded out. There were also improvements in such matters as leave arrangements and for the provision of racially mixed MP patrols. But there was still trouble in various parts of England. In September 1943 some blacks wounded two MPs in Cornwall; in October 1943 some black troops faced a court martial for mutinies and attempted murder at Paignton, Devon; in February 1944 there was serious fighting between black and white troops at Leicester; and on October 5 1944, the wife of a licensee was killed in the cross-fire between black and white troops near Newbury, Berkshire.
The feast of John the Baptist takes place on June 24, a date so close to mid-summer that many popular pre-Christian customs are associated with it and, as is usual, the eve of the saint’s day is when celebrations take place.
At the summer solstice, the days are longest and the nights shortest. From then until December 21, daylight wanes. It is natural, therefore, that fertility, light and heat are the focus of the paganesque carryings-on. In Sweden it remains a major occasion for gaiety and hospitality with the erection of festive poles, decorated with flowers, dancing and late-night drinking. The Polish festival is called “sobótki” and traditionally involves a kind of courtship ritual of young men, and women who wear flower crowns. In Latvia, it was traditional to call the day Herbal Eve and to hold flower and herb markets (see above.)
Bonfires are the order of the day everywhere. In Quebec the day was celebrated in 1636 by cannon shots and a fire; in Turin they dance around a bonfire in the public square; in Denmark an effigy of a witch is burnt; and in Estonia old fishing boats are burnt.
Butler’s Lives of the Saints gives us this account of Meropius Anicius Paulinus (354-431), a Roman bishop ministering as the empire collapsed under barbarian invasions.
PAULINUS was of a family which boasted of a long line of senators, prefects, and consuls. He was educated with great care, and his genius and eloquence, in prose and verse, were the admiration of St. Jerome and St. Augustine. He had more than doubled his wealth by marriage, and was one of the foremost men of his time. Though he was the chosen friend of Saints, and had a great devotion to St. Felix of Nola, he was still only a catechumen, trying to serve two masters. But God drew him to Himself along the way of sorrows and trials. He received baptism, withdrew into Spain to be alone, and then, in consort with his holy wife, sold all their vast estates in various parts of the empire, distributing their proceeds so prudently that St. Jerome says East and West were filled with his alms. He was then ordained priest, and retired to Nola in Campania. There he rebuilt the Church of St. Felix with great magnificence, and served it night and day, living a life of extreme abstinence and toil. In 409 he was chosen bishop, and for more than thirty years so ruled as to be conspicuous in an age blessed with many great and wise bishops. St. Gregory the Great tells us that when the Vandals of Africa had made a descent on Campania, Paulinus spent all he had in relieving the distress of his people and redeeming them from slavery. At last there came a poor widow; her only son had been carried off by the son-in-law of the Vandal king. “Such as I have I give thee,” said the Saint to her; “we will go to Africa, and I will give myself for your son.” Having overborne her resistance, they went, and Paulinus was accepted in place of the widow’s son, and employed as gardener. After a time the king found out, by divine interposition, that his son-in-law’s slave was the great Bishop of Nola. He at once set him free, granting him also the freedom of all the townsmen of Nola who were in slavery. One who knew him well says he was meek as Moses, priestlike as Aaron, innocent as Samuel, tender as David, wise as Solomon, apostolic as Peter, loving as John, cautious as Thomas, keen-sighted as Stephen, fervent as Apollos. He died in 431.
Paulinus is sometimes credited with inventing the custom of ringing church bells and was a great patron of art in churches.
Marie-Joseph Angélique was a black slave from the Portuguese island of Madeira. She was sold to a Fleming who brought her to New England before selling her in 1725 to a Québec merchant living in Montreal. She served in the household of François Poulin de Francheville and his wife where she developed a reputation for disobedience and being difficult to control. In February 1734, she attempted to flee to New England with a white servant, Claude Thibaut, but they were captured and returned to her owner. Fearful that she would be sold again, possibly to a far harder life in the West Indies, Angélique vowed to escape again.
On the evening of April 10, inhabitants of Montreal discovered that fire was spreading through the town, a blaze that destroyed the local hospital and 45 houses. Rumours immediately linked Angélique and Thibaut to arson; she was arrested and he fled, never to be found. Though no witnesses linked her to the fire, her reputation and her attempted escape convinced the court that she was guilty. She was sentenced to die in the usual manner of arsonists:
Convicted of Having set fire to the house of dame francheville Causing the Burning of a portion of the city. In Reparation for which we have Condemned her to make honourable amends Disrobed, a Noose around her Neck, and carrying In her hands a flaming torch weighing two pounds before the main door and Entrance of the parish Church of This city where She will be taken And Led, by the executioner of the high Court, in a Tumbrel used for garbage, with an Inscription Front And Back, with the word, Incendiary, And there, bare-headed, And On her Knees, will declare that She maliciously set the fire And Caused the Said Burning, for which She repents And Asks Forgiveness from the Crown And Court, and this done, will have her fist Severed On a stake Erected in front of the Said Church. Following which, she will be led by the said Executioner in the same tumbrel to the Public Place to there Be bound to the Stake with iron shackles And Burned alive, her Body then Reduced To Ashes And Cast to the Wind, her Belongings taken And Remanded to the King, the said accused having previously been subjected to torture in the ordinary And Extraordinary ways in order to have her Reveal her Accomplices.
Though a judicial review changed her sentence from mutilation and burning to death by hanging, she was also required to undergo torture to get her to name her accomplices. The official torturer, also a black slave, broke her leg in a device known as “the boot” but, despite her pain, she maintained she had acted alone. On this day in 1734 she was hanged, with her body burnt and her ashes scattered.
Recent historians have claimed that she was either innocent, or acted out of rebellion against slavery. A street in Montreal in now named after her.
Few men who have attained the office of Bishop of Rome can have had such a roller-coaster career as Silverius (d. 537 or 538). Italy at this time was in the throes of the Gothic Wars, a generation of battles between the Ostrogothic occupiers who were Arian Christians and the Byzantine Empire under the great Justinian. It was Justinian’s dream to reconquer the western part of the Roman empire which had been lost to the Germanic barbarians. He succeeded in retaking North Africa, Sicily, and part of Spain but was drawn into a conflict that devastated Italy. It was also a time when the imperial court in Constantinople was tangled in the lingering controversies about the number of Christ’s natures.
Silverius was son of Pope Hormisdas (d. 523) who fathered him before he began his priestly career. Hormisdas had to deal with the heresies springing from those in the East who rejected Trinitarianism and the Council of Chalcedon’s definition of the Godhead, a situation made worse by the fact that the powers occupying Rome were antitrinitarian themselves. Silverius was elected pope in 536 with the support of the Gothic court but later that year imperial forces under Belisarius took Rome. Some say that the empress Theodora caused Belisarius to depose Silverius and send him into exile because of his opposition to the Monophysite schism (which Theodora always supported) but it may simply have been a political coup to remove someone who did not owe his position to those in the capital, Constantinople. Silverius is said to have died of starvation in captivity. He was widely recognized as a saint and is still venerated on southern Italian islands (and in the Italian community in New York, as shown above) as San Silverio.
James VI of Scotland and James I of England was one of the longest reigning of British monarchs, succeeding to the throne as a baby. He was superbly educated, an author of poetry, political theory, and a book on witchcraft (in which he was a believer) but he was also a coward, crude of speech, and given to expensive love affairs with male courtiers. Of him Chambers Book of Days says:
King James—so learned, yet so childish; so grotesque, yet so arbitrary; so sagacious, yet so weak- ‘the wisest fool in Christendom,’ as Henry IV termed him—does not personally occupy a high place in the national regards; but by the accident of birth and the current of events he was certainly a personage of vast importance to these islands. To him, probably, it is owing that there is such a thing as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland among the states of Europe.
This sovereign, the son of Henry Lord Darnley and Mary Queen of Scots, was born on the 19th of June 1566, in a small room in the ancient palace within Edinburgh Castle. We know how it was—namely, for security—that the queen selected Edinburgh Castle for her expected accouchement; but it is impossible to imagine by what principle of selection she chose that this event should take place in a room not above eight feet square. There, however, is the room still shown, to the wonder of everybody who sees it. The young prince was ushered into the world between nine and ten in the morning, and Sir James Melville instantly mounted horse to convey the news of the birth of an heir-apparent of Scotland, and heir-presumptive of England, to Queen Elizabeth.
Darnley came at two in the afternoon to see his royal spouse and his child. ‘My lord,’ said Mary, ‘God has given us a son.’ Partially uncovering the infant’s face, she added a protest that it was his, and no other man’s son. Then, turning to an English gentleman present, she said, ‘This is the son who I hope shall first unite the two kingdoms of Scotland and England.’ Sir William Stanley said, ‘Why, madam, shall he succeed before your majesty and his father?’ ‘Alas!’ answered Mary, ‘his father has broken to me;’ alluding to his joining the murderous conspiracy against Mary’s secretary David Rizzio [who had stirred up Darnley to jealousy]. ‘Sweet madam,’ said Darnley, ‘is this the promise you made that, you would forget and forgive all?’ ‘I have forgiven all,’ said the queen. ‘but will never forget. What if Fawdonside’s pistol had shot? [She had been held at gunpoint while Rizzio was knifed to death in front of her.] What world have become of him and me both?’ ‘Madam,’ said Darnley, ‘these things are past.’ ‘Then,’ said the queen, ‘let them go’.
The Queen, however, did not let those things go. Before too long she conspired to have Darnley murdered and then married his killer — for these crimes she was deposed by the Scottish nobility and baby James crowned in her place. She fled to England and never saw her child again; she would be executed after 20 years of imprisonment by Elizabeth I. In 1603 James would succeed his mother’s killer and become king of both England and Scotland.
Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.
Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and. being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.
For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945) “On Stupidity” – Letters and Papers from Prison
When your nickname is Vlad the Impaler, and you are the inspiration for the bloodsucking Count Dracula, it is hard to imagine that you have a loyal historical following. In fact, Vlad III Drakulya, Prince of Wallachia, is a hero in the Christian lands of the Balkans which, in the fifteenth century, were being overrun by the Ottoman Turks. Vlad had his little ways — such as nailing turbans to the heads of Turkish emissaries and impaling or burning his less enthusiastic subjects — but his resistance to the Turks made him a folk hero.
In 1453, Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, which had been for centuries a barrier to the expansion of Islam into Eastern Europe, fell to the forces of Mehmet II, nicknamed the Conqueror. Mehmet then turned on the minor princes of the Balkans — Serbs, Croats, Saxons, Albanians, Wallachians, Transylvanians, etc. — and demanded that they become his vassals. Most saw no option and paid tribute to the Turks, often serving in their armies. Like so many others, Vlad did the same, for a time, but by 1461 he had ceased to acknowledge the lordship of Mehmet and turned to the Catholic Hungarians for aid. Mehmet responded by invading Wallachia with a huge army of perhaps 150,000 men.
On the night of June 16-17 Vlad launched a night attack on Mehmet’s camp, hoping to capture or kill him. Fortunately for the Turks, the Wallachians struck at the tents of the emperor’s advisers and missed their main target. Vlad withdrew and Mehmet followed him to the vicinity of the town of Târgoviște. There they discovered a mass atrocity, designed to daunt the Turks. According to a contemporary Greek historian:
The sultan’s army entered into the area of the impalements, which was seventeen stades long and seven stades wide [about an acre in size]. There were large stakes there on which, as it was said, about twenty thousand men, women, and children had been spitted, quite a sight for the Turks and the sultan himself. The sultan was seized with amazement and said that it was not possible to deprive of his country a man who had done such great deeds, who had such a diabolical understanding of how to govern his realm and its people. And he said that a man who had done such things was worth much. The rest of the Turks were dumbfounded when they saw the multitude of men on the stakes. There were infants too affixed to their mothers on the stakes, and birds had made their nests in their entrails.
The Turks abandoned that campaign but continued to rack up victories in the Balkans. The treacherous politics of the area saw Vlad arrested by his fellow Christians and then restored briefly to power. He died in 1466 fighting the Turks who sent his head to Constantinople.
