The Hanscom Family Weblog

National Blueberry Month
National Anti-Boredom Month
Unlucky Month for weddings
National Cell Phone Courtesy Month
National Hot Dog Month
National Ice Cream Month

Week Event:

Week 2 Nude Recreation Week

535 Sir Thomas More went on trial in England charged with treason

1643 The Westminster Assembly first convened in England, from which would emerge theWestminster longer and shorter catechisms.

1690 Army of England’s Protestant King William III defeats Roman Catholic King James II in Battle of the Boyne in Ireland (Now celebrated on July 12 as “The Battle of the Orange” )

1800 The earliest recorded Methodist camp meeting in America was held in Logan CountyKentucky, near the Gaspar River Church.

1899 Gideon Society established to place bibles in hotels. In Wisconsin, the Gideons were founded by three traveling businessmen. They placed their first Bibles in 1908 at the Superior Hotel in Iron Mountain, Montana.

1942 Birth of Andrae Crouch, African-American sacred music artist. His most enduring gospel songs have been ‘Soon and Very Soon,’ ‘My Tribute’ and ‘Through It All.’

1985 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public school teachers may not enter parochialschool classrooms, to provide remedial or enrichment instruction.

Religious Observances

Luth : Commem of Catherine Winkworth, John Neale, hymnwriters
Old Catholic : Feast of the Precious Blood of Jesus
RC : Comm of St Oliver Plunkett, Irish martyr/theologian/primate

On This Day

Catholic Church - St. Gall,St. Julius and Anron, St. Juthware,St. Martin of Vienne, Saint Oliver Plunkett

Anglican Church - Commemoration of Henry, John, and Henry Venn the younger, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1797, 1813 and 1873

In History

1633 - Birth of Johann Heinrich Heidegger, Swiss theologian

1681 - Death of Oliver Plunkett, Irish Saint

1879 - Charles Taze Russell publishes first edition of the religious magazine, The Watchtower.

Third Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions begins in Astana, Kazakhstan (until July 2),

Assembly of the African Union meets in Sirte, Libya (until July 3). Agricultural investment and food security are principal topics

July 1

On this day in 1643, The Westminster Assembly convened for the first time in London in the Henry VII Chapel of Westminster Abbey. The assembly was appointed by the Long Parliament and sought to restructure the Church of England.

Blessed Junipero Serra

(1713-1784)

In 1776, when the American Revolution was beginning in the east, another part of the future United States was being born in California. That year a gray-robed Franciscan founded Mission San Juan Capistrano, now famous for its annually returning swallows. San Juan was the seventh of nine missions established under the direction of this indomitable Spaniard.

Born in Spain’s island of Mallorca, Serra entered the Franciscan Order, taking the name of St. Francis’ childlike companion, Brother Juniper. Until he was 35, he spent most of his time in the classroom—first as a student of theology and then as a professor. He also became famous for his preaching. Suddenly he gave it all up and followed the yearning that had begun years before when he heard about the missionary work of St. Francis Solanus in South America. Junipero’s desire was to convert native peoples in the New World.

Arriving by ship at Vera Cruz, Mexico, he and a companion walked the 250 miles to Mexico City. On the way Junipero’s left leg became infected by an insect bite and would remain a cross—sometimes life-threatening—for the rest of his life. For 18 years he worked in central Mexico and in the Baja Peninsula. He became president of the missions there.

Enter politics: the threat of a Russian invasion south from Alaska. Charles III of Spain ordered an expedition to beat Russia to the territory. So the last two conquistadors—one military, one spiritual—began their quest. José de Galvez persuaded Junipero to set out with him for present-day Monterey, California. The first mission founded after the 900-mile journey north was San Diego (1769). That year a shortage of food almost canceled the expedition. Vowing to stay with the local people, Junipero and another friar began a novena in preparation for St. Joseph’s day, March 19, the scheduled day of departure. On that day, the relief ship arrived.

Other missions followed: Monterey/Carmel (1770); San Antonio and San Gabriel (1771); San Luís Obispo (1772); San Francisco and San Juan Capistrano (1776); Santa Clara (1777); San Buenaventura (1782). Twelve more were founded after Serra’s death.

Junipero made the long trip to Mexico City to settle great differences with the military commander. He arrived at the point of death. The outcome was substantially what Junipero sought: the famous “Regulation” protecting the Indians and the missions. It was the basis for the first significant legislation in California, a “Bill of Rights” for Native Americans.

Because the Native Americans were living a nonhuman life from the Spanish point of view, the friars were made their legal guardians. The Native Americans were kept at the mission after Baptism lest they be corrupted in their former haunts—a move that has brought cries of “injustice” from some moderns.

Junipero’s missionary life was a long battle with cold and hunger, with unsympathetic military commanders and even with danger of death from non-Christian native peoples. Through it all his unquenchable zeal was fed by prayer each night, often from midnight till dawn. He baptized over 6,000 people and confirmed 5,000. His travels would have circled the globe. He brought the Native Americans not only the gift of faith but also a decent standard of living. He won their love, as witnessed especially by their grief at his death. He is buried at Mission San Carlo Borromeo, Carmel, and was beatified in 1988.

Catherine Winkworth, Hymnwriter and Educator

Catherine Winkworth was born in London in 1827, and spent most of her life in Manchester. In 1845 she went to Dresden, Germany, to stay for a year. In 1853 (or 1855?) she published a collection of translations of German hymns into English, called Lyra Germanica. It was an instant success, and went into 23 editions. Her second series, published in 1858, went into 12 editions. In 1863 she published The Chorale Book For England, and in 1869 Christian Singers of Germany. Her work is one of the principal means by which the great German chorale tradition of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries has been incorporated into English-language worship.

Some of her hymn translations widely sung today, plucked from a couple of nearby hymnals, are listed below. I give the first line, followed by the German author, and the date of writing or (preceded by a +) the date of the author’s death. Stars mark my own favorites.

All depends on our possessing (Nuernburg Hymnal, 1676)
* All my heart this night rejoices (Paulus Gerhardt, 1656)
* Baptized into thy name most holy (Johann J Rambach, +1735)
* Blessed Jesus, at thy word (Tobias Clausnitzer, +1684)
Christ, the life of all the living (Ernst C Homburg, +1681)
Christ the Lord is risen again! (Michael Weissel, +1534)
* Comfort, comfort ye my people (Johann Olearius, +1684)
Dearest Jesus, we are here (Benjamin Schmolck, +1737)
Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness (Johann Franck, 1649)
* From deepest woe I cry to thee (Martin Luther, +1546)
* If thou but suffer God to guide thee (Georg Neumark, +1681)
In thee is gladness (Johann Lindemann, + c1631)
* Jesus Christ, my sure defense (anon., Berlin, 1653)
* Jesus, priceless treasure (Johann Franck, +1677)
Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates (George Weissel, 1642)
Lord God, we worship thee (Johann Franck, 1653)
* Lord Jesus Christ, be present now (Wilhelm II, +1662)
Lord, keep us steadfast in thy Word (Martin Luther, +1546)
* Lord, thee I love with all my heart (Martin Schalling, +1608)
* My soul, now bless thy maker (Johann Gramann, +1541)
* Now thank we all our God (Martin Rinkart, c1630)
O Christ, our light, O Radiance true (Johann Hermann, +1647)
* O God, thou faithful God (Johann, Franck, +1647)
O Holy Spirit, enter in (Michael Schirmer, +1673)
O Jesus Christ, our Lord most dear (Heinrich von Laufenburg,1429)
* O living Bread from heaven (Johann Rist, +1667)
Oh, blest the house, whate’er befall (Christoph von Pfeil, +1784)
Once he came in blessing (Johann Horn (aka Jan Roh?), +1547)
Open now thy gates of beauty (Benjamin Schmolck, +1737)
* Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (Joachim Neander, +1680)
Rise, my soul, to watch and pray (Johann B Freystein, +1718)
Thy Word, O Lord, is gentle dew (Carl B Garve, +1841)
* Wake, awake, for night is flying (Philip Nicolai, 1597)
* When in the hour of deepest need (Paul Eber +1569)
(Note: Your hymnal may have a slightly different title, since hymnal compilers tend to fiddle with the wording. Thus, “All my heart this night rejoices” has been changed in some hymnals to “Once again my heart rejoices,” presumably so that it can be sung on other occasions than Christmas Eve.)

In addition to translating hymns, Miss Winkworth was deeply involved in promoting women’s rights, and was the secretary of the Clifton Association for Higher Education for Women, a supporter of the Clifton High School for Girls, and a member of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College. She died suddenly of heart disease near Geneva on 1 July 1878.

Feast Day:

Saints Julius and Aaron, martyrs, about 303;

St. Thierri, abbot of Mont-d’Hor, 533;

St. Calais or Carilephus, abbot of Anille, 542;

St. Gal the First, bishop of Clermont, about 553;

St. Cybar, recluse at Angouleme, 581;

St. Simeon, surnamed Salus, 6th century; St. Leonorus or Lunaire, bishop;

St. Rumold, patron of Mechlin, bishop and martyr, 775;

St. Theobald or Thibault, confessor, 1066.

July 1

Calais, abbot (of Ancille) [BLS]
Carileffus, priest [GTZ: Chartres, Rouen, Tours, Durham]
Cybar, recluse [BLS]
Domitian, abbot, confessor [GTZ: Lyon]
Eparchius, priest (at Angoulême), confessor [GTZ: Angoulême, Saintes, Limoges]
Gaius, pope, martyr [GTZ: Bamberg]
Gall, bishop (of Clermont) [BLS; GTZ: Clermont]
Golvinus, bishop (of Léon), confessor [GTZ: St. Pol de Léon]
John the Baptist (Octave) [common; 6082, in red]
Julius and Aaron, martyrs [BLS]
Leonore, bishop, confessor [BLS; GTZ: Paris; PCP (Paris), as Lunaire]
Leontius, bishop (of Autun), confessor [GTZ: Autun]
Monegundis, virgin [GTZ: Liège]
Oliver Plunkett, martyr [BLS]
Rumold, bishop, martyr [BLS; GTZ: Liège, Cambrai, Scotland]
Servanus, bishop, confessor [GTZ: Scotland]
Simeon Salus [BLS]
Sophia, widow, and daughters (Faith, Hope, and Charity), martyrs [GTZ: Freising, Minden, Sitten]
Theobald, priest, confessor [BLS; GTZ: Mainz, Trier, Metz, Switzerland, France; PCP (Paris)]
Theoderic (Thierry), abbot (of Mont d’Hor), confessor [BLS; GTZ: Reims]

HOLY WELLS

July 1, 1652, the eccentric John Taylor, commonly called the Water Poet, from his having been a waterman on the Thames, paid a visit to St. Winifred’s Well, at Holywell, in Flintshire. This was a place held in no small veneration even in Taylor’s days; but in Catholic times, it filled a great space indeed.

There is something at once so beautiful and so bountiful in a spring of pure water, that no wonder it should become an object of some regard among a simple people. We all feel the force of Horace’s abrupt and enthusiastic address, ‘0 Fons Blandusiae, splendidior vitro,’ and do not wonder that he should resolve upon sacrificing a kid to it. In the middle ages, when a Christian tinge was given to everything, the discovery of a spring in a romantic situation, or remarkable for the brightness, purity, or taste of its water, was forthwith followed by its dedication to some saint; and once placed among the category of holy wells, its waters were endued, by popular faith, with powers more or less miraculous. Shrewd Thomas Powell, writing in 1631, says: ‘Let them find out some strange water, some unheard-of spring; it is an easy matter to discolour or alter the taste of it in some measure, it makes no matter s how little. Report strange cures that it hath done; beget a superstitious opinion of it. Good-fellowship shall uphold it, and the neighbouring towns shall all swear for it.’

So early as 963, the Saxon king Edgar thought it necessary to forbid the ‘worshipping of fountains,’ and the canons of Anselm (1102) lay it down as a rule, that no one is to attribute reverence or sanctity to a fountain without the bishop’s authority. Canons, however powerful to foster superstition, were powerless to control it; ignorance invested springs with sanctity without the aid of the church, and every county could boast of its holy well.

Some of these were held specially efficacious for certain diseases. St. Tegla’s Well was patronised by sufferers from ‘the falling sickness;’ St. John’s, Balmanno, Kincardineshire, by mothers whose children were troubled with rickets or sore eyes. The Tobirnimbuadh, or spring of many virtues, in St. Kilda’s Isle, was pre-eminent in deafness and nervous disorders; while the waters of Trinity Gask Well, Perthshire, enabled every one baptized therein to face the plague without fear. Others, again, possessed peculiar properties. Thus, St. Loy’s Well, Tottenham, was said to be always full but never overflowing; the waters of St. Non’s ebbed and flowed with the sea; and those of the Toberi-clerich, St. Kilda, although covered twice in the day by the sea, never became brackish.

The most famous holy well in the three kingdoms is undoubtedly that dedicated to St. Winifred (Holywell, Flintshire), at whose shrine Giraldus Cambrensis offered his devotions in the twelfth century, when he says she seemed ’ still to retain her miraculous powers.’ Winifred was a noble British maiden of the seventh century; a certain Prince Cradocus fell in love with her, and finding his rough advances repulsed, cut off the lady’s head. Immediately he had done this, the prince was struck dead, and the earth opening, swallowed up his body. Meanwhile, Winifred’s head rolled down the hill; where it stopped, a spring gushed forth, the blood from the head colouring the pebbles over which it flowed, and rendering fragrant the moss growing around. St. Bueno picked up the head, and skilfully reunited it to the body to which it belonged, after which Winifred lived a life of sanctity for fifteen years, while the spring to which she gave her name became famous in the land for its curative powers.

The spring rises from a bed of shingle at the foot of a steep hill, the water rushing out with great impetuosity, and flowing into and over the main basin into a smaller one in front. The well is enclosed by a building in the perpendicular Gothic style (dating from the beginning of the reign of Henry VII), which ‘forms a crypt under a small chapel contiguous to the parish church, and on a level with it, the entrance to the well being by a descent of about twenty steps from the street. The well itself is a star-shaped basin, ten feet in diameter, canopied by a most graceful stellar vault, and originally enclosed by stone traceried screens filling up the spaces between the supports. Round the basin is an ambulatory similarly vaulted.’

The sculptural ornaments consisted of grotesque animals, and the armorial-bearings of various benefactors of the shrine; among them being Catharine of Aragon, Margaret, mother of Henry VII, and different members of the Stanley family, the founders both of the crypt and the chapel above it. Formerly, the former contained statues of the Virgin Mary and St. Winifred. The first was removed in 1635; the fate of Winifred’s effigy, to which a Countess of Warwick (1439) bequeathed her russet velvet gown, is unknown.

On the stones at the bottom of the well grow the Bissus iolethus, and a species of red Jungermania moss, known in the vulgar tongue as Winifred’s hair and blood. In the seventeenth century, St. Winifred could boast thousands of votaries. James II paid a visit to the shrine in 1688, and received the shift worn by his great-grandmother at her execution, for his pains. Pennant found the roof of the vault hung with the crutches of grateful cripples. He says, ‘the resort of pilgrims of late years to these Fontanalia has considerably decreased; the greatest number are from Lancashire. In the summer, still a few are to be seen in the water, in deep devotion up to their chins for hours, sending up their prayers, or performing a number of evolutions round the polygonal well; or threading the arches between and the well a prescribed number of times.’

An attempt to revive the public faith in the Flintshire saint was made in 1805, when a pamphlet was published, detailing how one Winefred White, of Wolverhampton, experienced the benefit of the virtue of the spring. The cure is certified by a resident of Holywell, named Elizabeth Jones, in the following terms: ‘I hereby declare that, about three months ago, I saw a young woman calling herself Winefred White, walking with great difficulty on a crutch; and that on the following morning, the said Winefred White came to me running, and without any appearance of lameness, having, as she told me, been immediately cured after once bathing in St. Winifred’s Well.’ It was of no avail; a dead belief was not to be brought again to life even by Elizabeth Jones of Holywell.

St. Madern’s Well, Cornwall, was another popular resort for those who sought to be relieved from aches and pains. Bishop Hall, in his Mystery of Godliness, bears testimony to the reality of a cure wrought upon a cripple by its waters. He says he ‘took strict and impartial examination’ of the evidence, and found neither art nor collusion—the cure done, the author an invisible God.’ In the seventeenth century, however, the well seems to have lost its reputation. St. Madern was always propitiated by offerings of pins or pebbles. This custom prevailed in many other places beside; Mr. Haslam assures us, that pins may be collected by the handful near most Cornish wells. At St. Kilda, none dared approach with empty hands, or without making some offering to the genius of the place, either in the shape of shells, pins, needles, pebbles, coins, or rags. A well near Newcastle obtained the name of Ragwell, from the quantity of rags left upon the adjacent bushes as thank-offerings. St. Tegla, of Denbighshire, required greater sacrifices from her votaries. To obtain her good offices, it was necessary to bathe in the well, walk round it three times, repeating the Lord’s Prayer at each circuit, and leave fourpence at the shrine. A cock or hen (according to the patient’s sex) was then placed in a basket, and carried round the well, into the churchyard, and round the church. The patient then entered the church, and ensconced him or herself under the communion-table, with a Bible for a pillow, and so remained till daybreak. If the fowl, kept all this while imprisoned, died, the disease was supposed to have been transferred to it, and, as a matter of course, the believer in St. Tegla was made whole.

Wells were also used as divining-pools. By taking a shirt or a shift off a sick person, and throwing it into the well of St. Oswald (near Newton), the end of the illness could easily be known—if the garment floated, all would be well; if it sank, it was useless to hope. The same result was arrived at by placing a wooden bowl softly on the surface of St. Andrew’s Well (Isle of Lewis), and watching if it turned from or towards the sun; the latter being the favourable omen. A fore-knowledge of the future, too, was to be gained by shaking the ground round St. Madern’s Spring, and reading fate in the rising bubbles. At St. Michael’s (Banffshire), an immortal fly was ever at his post as guardian of the well. ‘If the sober matron wished to know the issue of her husband’s ailment, or the love-sick nymph that of her languishing swain, they visited the well of St. Michael. Every movement of the sympathetic fly was regarded with silent awe, and as he appeared cheerful or dejected, the anxious votaries drew their presages.’

Of St. Keyne’s Well, Cornwall, Carew in his Survey quotes the following descriptive rhymes:

‘In name, in shape, in quality,
This well is very quaint;
The name to lot of Keyne befell,
No over-holy saint.
The shape—four trees of divers kind,
Withy, oak, elm, and ash,
Make with their roots an arched roof,
Whose floor the spring doth wash.
The quality—that man and wife,
Whose chance or choice attains,
First of this sacred stream to drink,
Thereby the mastery gains.’

Southey sang of St. Keyne—how the traveller drank a double draught when the Cornishman enlightened him respecting the properties of the spring, and how

You drank of the well I warrant betimes?
He to the Cornishman said;
But the Cornishman smiled as the stranger spake,
And sheepishly shook his head.

I hastened as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my wife in the porch;
But i’ faith she had been wiser than me,
For she took a bottle to church!’

When Erasmus visited the wells of Walsingham (Norfolk), they were the favourite resort of people afflicted with diseases of the head and stomach. The belief in their medicinal powers afterwards declined, but they were invested with the more wonderful power of bringing about the fulfilment of wishes. Between the two wells lay a stone on which the votary of our Lady of Walsingham knelt with his right knee bare; he then plunged one hand in each well, so that the water reached the wrist, and silently wished his wish, after which he drank as much of the water as he could hold in the hollows of his hands. This done, his wishes would infallibly be fulfilled within the year, provided he never mentioned it to any one or uttered it aloud to himself.

While the Routing Well of Inveresk rumbled before a storm of nature’s making, the well of Oundle, Northamptonshire, gave warning of perturbations in the world of politics. Baxter writes (World of Spirits, p. 157)— ‘When I was a school-master at Oundle, about the Scots coming into England, I heard a well in one Dob’s yard, drum like any drum beating a march. I heard it at a distance; then I went and put my head into the mouth of the well, and heard it distinctly, and nobody in the well. It lasted several days and nights, so as all the country-people came to hear it. And so it drummed on several changes of tunes. When King Charles II died, I went to the Oundle carrier at the Ram Inn, Smithfield, who told me the well had drummed, and many people came to hear it.’

Not many years ago, the young folks of Bromfield, Cumberland, and the neighbouring villages, used to meet on a Sunday afternoon in May, at the holywell, near St. Cuthbert’s Stane, and indulge in various rural sports, during which not one was permitted to drink anything but water from the well. This seems to have been a custom common to the whole county at one time, according to The June Days Jingle:

The wells of rocky Cumberland
Have each a saint or patron,
Who holds an annual festival,
The joy of maid and matron.

And to this day, as erst they wont,
The youths and maids repair,
To certain wells on certain days,
And hold a revel there.

Of sugar-stick and liquorice,
With water from the spring,
They mix a pleasant beverage,
And May-day carols sing.’