Tuesday, April 30, 2024

It is the 30th of April 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

Oh boy, this is the last episode of season 5. May 1st, 2019, is our birthday, and thus, tomorrow, we will enter season 6. Will there be any changes? No. No changes. Remember that one time we changed music, and there was a collective gasp? This show, of course, evolves as I settle my way into it and try to figure out the best possible way to give you a story a day, a reading, and the reminder that in Christ, everything is going to be okay.

As a quick reminder, I travel from time to time to churches, camps, and schools, where I do things like I do here, but in the flesh and a little longer. You can inquire at 1517.org, where our staff facilitates these kinds of things.

There is some poetic irony that the last figure we cover in this season is, in some ways, rather ordinary. On this show, we highlight those often “extraordinary” and sometimes even “sainted” Christians, and I would never want to give the impression that there are “tiers” in the church- last is first, first is last, and all of that radical leveling stuff.

And even the name of our character today is run-of-the-mill. He was James Montgomery. Do you know how many James Montgomerys there are? The all-knowing oracle of Wikipedia counts at least 25: a Boxer, a politician, a Civil War colonel, an economist, and a blues singer.

 Our James Montgomery was born in November 1771 in Irvine, Scotland—it looks like “Irvine”, my hometown, and is pronounced as “Irvin.” While he would gain his share of fame, his life was remarkably static and staid.

He was the oldest of three boys born to John and Mary. John left the Church of Scotland to join the United Brethren, also known as the Moravians—the same group that inspired the Wesleys. The couple lived in Ireland and moved to Scotland just as James was born, so he could claim he “narrowly escaped being an Irishman.” His father’s Moravian parish in Irvine was small and poor, so eventually, the couple decided to send their boys off to school and become missionaries in the West Indies.

The family would come together in December of 1783 before the parents left; they did not know it would be the last time together as the parents would die on a mission.

The boarding school, a Moravian school, was, according to James, something like a monkish cloister. He had no contact with the outside world, and his reading was closely monitored. This made the boy curious, and he began procuring books however he could, especially taken with poetry.

The schoolmasters believed James’ head in the clouds and apprenticed him off to a Moravian shopkeeper. As a clerk he would write poetry, both historical and devotional- one poem was about Alfred the Great and another a metrical version of Psalm 113.

But he tired of the life of a clerk and disappeared one Sunday morning in June of 1789 as the shopkeeper was at church.

He would try to find work as a poet in London to no avail and then in other shops until he found an advertisement for work as a clerk in the offices of the Sheffield Register. It was run by a notorious “liberal” whose fondness for American and French liberties made him a marked man. He would eventually have a warrant placed for his arrest and then would flee to the United States. Unsure what to do, James found an investor and soon got the Sheffield Register up and running again, this time as the Sheffield Iris. He would publish news, poetry, and prose written by himself, a small staff, and other contributors. The year was 1792, and little did the 21-year-old James Montgomery know he would be doing this for the rest of his life.

In his first years, he did make some noise, being arrested and imprisoned twice for publishing one article praising the French Revolution and the storming of the Bastille (written by someone else) and an article critical of the local police and their violent actions on the people amidst a riot. But he would learn his lesson and soon found his voice in writing hymns. The paper was never such a success, but he lived frugally, and what he did have, he gave to local charities. He never married, and he had the company of an older woman, a maid who kept his affairs in order. He would consider his hymns his most worthy contributions- and many considered him an equal of Newton, Watts, and Wesley. Perhaps his best-known hymn today is the Christmas Carol “Angels From the Realms of Glory.” As an old man in 1849, he wrote:

“As all my hymns embody some portion of the history of the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears, of this poor heart, so I cannot doubt but they will be found an accurate vehicle of expression for the experience of many of my fellow-creatures who may be sim­ilarly exercised during the pilgrimage of the Christian life.”

He would die quietly in his sleep on the 30th of April in 1854; born in 1771, James Montgomery was 82 years old.

 

The last word for today is from Montgomery, his “No Cause For Fear.”

God is my strong salvation;

what foe have I to fear?

In peril and temptation

my light, my help, is near.

Though hosts encamp around me,

firm to the fight I stand;

what terror can confound me,

with God at my right hand?

 

Place on the Lord reliance;

my soul, with courage wait;

God's truth be thine affiance,

when faint and desolate.

God's might thy heart shall strengthen,

God's love thy joy increase;

mercy thy days shall lengthen;

the Lord will give thee peace

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 30th of April 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose favorite Montgomerys include James, John Warwick, Ward, and Burns… he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who just learned that Montgomery was the first name of both Star Trek character Scotty and Lightning McQueen. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.