Episcopal Life Online Daybook -- Today is Friday, October 19, 2007. The Church calendar remembers Henry Martyn, priest, and missionary to India and Persia (1781-1812).
* Today in Scripture: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm * Today in Prayer: Anglican Cycle of Prayer: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm * Today in History: On this day in 1562, George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born in Guildford, England. His rise to leadership of the Anglican Church followed his defense of the hereditary monarchy and his efforts to combine the English and Scottish churches.
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MULTIMEDIA
Bishop Carol Gallagher on raising up Native voices
[Episcopal Life Online] Bishop Carol Gallagher, a member of the Cherokee Nation, shares her perspectives about the history and influence of indigenous people in the U.S. and the importance of raising up Native voices.
A video stream of Gallagher's interview is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81231_ENG_HTM.htm.
Several events have been planned this year to mark the 400th anniversary of North America's first permanent English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia.
The Episcopal Church's Office of Native American Ministries (http://www.episcopalchurch.org/native_american.htm) is sponsoring an All Saints' Day Commemorative Service at the Historical Jamestown Memorial Church on Thursday, November 1. The observance continues on Friday and Saturday, November 2-3, with a conference for Native and Non-Native participants from across the country. Events will be held at Colonial Williamsburg, Historic Jamestown, Bruton Parish, and St. Martin's Church, Williamsburg. Further information is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/6057_86526_ENG_HTM.htm
Earlier this year, the 400th anniversary of the First Landing was observed on April 26 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with a re-enactment of the ships' arrival. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori attended this event, which corresponded with the annual conference of the Episcopal Communicators in Virginia Beach.
Jefferts Schori also preached
(http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_87199_ENG_HTM.htm) June 24 to an estimated 1,200 people during an outdoor morning service commemorating "the 400th anniversary of the planting of the Church in America on Jamestowne Island in Virginia" and the settlers' first Holy Communion there.
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Catalyst: "Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall" from HarperCollins Publishers, by Eve LaPlante, 352 pages, hardcover, c. 2007, $25.95
[Source: HarperCollins Publishers] America's nefarious 1692 witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts were made famous in a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne (himself a descendent of one of the judges) and a play by Arthur Miller. Here is a carefully researched, historically accurate biography of the one judge on that infamous witchcraft court who repented -- by one of his own descendants, acclaimed biographer Eve LaPlante.
What separates Judge Sewall from the others is his famous public repentance, immortalized in a mural in the Massachusetts State House. Yet his courage to admit his wrong and atone for his sin led to other inspirations. He penned a reflection on the New England landscape some scholars point to as the beginning of American literature. He authored America's first antislavery tract, which set him against every other prominent man of his time and place. Then, in a revolutionary essay he wrote not long after the scene in the State House mural, he portrayed Native Americans not as savages -- the standard view -- but as virtuous inheritors of the grace of God, and personally paid for several promising young Indian men to attend Harvard. Finally, in a period when women were widely considered inferior to men, he published an essay affirming the fundamental equality of the sexes. To put these ideas into historical perspective, at Sewall's death, in 1730, the widespread belief in the equality of races and genders in America was more than two centuries in the future.
Though the witchcraft trials would make him infamous, there is much, much more to Judge Samuel Sewall. Drawing on documents not available to the public, based on Sewall's extensive personal diaries and letters, as well as archived public documents, this biography offers a fascinating look into daily life in Colonial America, and tells the intimate story of a remarkable figure whose influence on American history cannot be ignored.
To order: Episcopal Books and Resources, online at http://www.episcopalbookstore.org or call 800-903-5544 -- or visit your local Episcopal bookseller, http://www.episcopalbooksellers.org