Birth of Horace Tracy Pitkin in Philadelphia. Well to do, he inherited also good sense and love for God from his parents. As a young man he defined himself by Christ. He felt convinced he should go as a missionary to China. Three years after his arrival in China with his wife, on March 7, 1897, the Boxer uprising began. He could have saved himself by fleeing, but preferred to risk his life rather than abandon the Chinese Christians. When it was too late to escape, he told one of his helpers, "You hurry and hide away in the country; we cannot escape-- if God wills us to go to Him it is well." He was beheaded July 1, 1900.
Birth of Clarence Larkin, Bible teacher. Converted at nineteen, his life became an example of trusting the Lord for the future. At his conversion, he felt called to enter the ministry, but the way did not open. He graduated from college as a Mechanical Engineer. Larkin went from one thing to another...a teacher of the blind (which cultivated his descriptive faculties)...working in a bank...to becoming a manufacturer...but he was not happy. He felt God wanted him in the gospel ministry. After becoming an ordained Baptist minister, he pastored at Kennet Square, Pennsylvania. During World War I, his study of the scriptures led him to adopt a pre-millennial view of prophecy. (Some post-millennialists thought man would usher in the Millennium--the thousand year reign of Christ--through human progress) Larkin used his drafting skills (there was the purpose of his engineering training) to lay out an illustrated book called Dispensational Truth, or God's Plan and Purpose in the Ages which became highly influential. He also wrote and illustrated other Bible study books.
