Today in 1751 John Wesley and Molly Vazeille (pictured above) made the mistake of getting married. John said, ‘I cannot understand how a Methodist preacher can answer it to God to preach one sermon or travel one day less, in a married than in a single state’ – a doctrine he followed unrelentingly. Molly gave up accompanying him on his evangelistic travels, grew jealous of his female disciples, opened his letters, hid his papers, often accused him of adultery and once dragged him across the floor by his hair. She left him in 1758.
Today in 1473 Nicolaus Copernicus, the Polish astronomer, was born. He revived the ancient Greek theory that the earth revolves around the sun, which had been buried under a millennium and a half of biblicism. He (probably wisely) didn’t publish this writing in his lifetime, and when it was later published it was almost universally ignored.
This is the feast day of St Conrad of Piacenza. He used to roll in thorn bushes to cure himself of the temptations of the flesh, or at least distract himself from them, and is invoked for the cure of hernias.
Image: The Museum of Methodism