October 16

John Brown, Lucy Stanton, Hugh Lattimer, and Nicholas Ridley

Author

David Barnhart
October 16, 2025

St. Mary’s, East Chinook, England, 2011. Own photo.

On this date in 1859, John Brown led a raid of 21 persons on Harper’s Ferry, with the aim of creating “an army of emancipation” which would end slavery in the United States.

Today is the birthday, in 1831, of Lucy Stanton, an abolitionist and civil rights activist who was not only the first African-American woman to graduate from a U.S. college (Oberlin, in 1850), but also, even as a single mother, worked to educate formerly enslaved persons in the South. 

Today marks the martyrdom, in 1555, of Hugh Lattimer and Nicholas Ridley, two Anglican bishops who were burned at the stake under the reign of Mary I, which executed nearly 300 Protestants. Today is a Feast day for these “Oxford Martyrs” in the Anglican church. As England see-sawed between Protestant and Catholic control, each governing power killed people in the name of Jesus. 

Reflection: 

At his trial, John Brown spoke these words: 

“Had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment. This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!”

As I’ve said before, I reject violence. But one of my aims with this devotional is to highlight people of faith who have had the bravery to resist oppression and injustice, and John Brown certainly fits the bill. 

We have two thousand years of Christian history, and there are a diversity of opinions in that history about the proper way to make change. 

Prayer: God of liberation and justice, inspire more of your people to throw in their lot with those who are oppressed. Unite us in a common cause to reduce the manufactured suffering of poverty and political disfranchisement. Amen.