Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. It's July and I was thinking back to another July the July of 1649 and that year there was a book published and there was an act of Parliament.

Let's first talk about the book's author.

The book's author was Edward Winslow.

He was born in 1595 in Old England.

He immigrated to New England,

and then later in life, he'd go back to old England and he died there in

1655. Now he was not just any old immigrant he was one of the signers of the

Mayflower compact that's right one of the original members of the Mayflower Compact. That's right, one of the original members of the Plymouth colony,

and he was also an historian alongside William Bradford,

he too chronicled the pilgrims in his 1624 book titled Good News from New England.

Or as the longer title has it, a true relation of things very remarkable at the plantation of Plymouth in New England showing the

wondrous providence and goodness of God in their preservation and continuance being

delivered from many apparent deaths and dangers.

Well, in addition to being an historian, he was also an active explorer.

He established posts throughout Maine and up and down the Connecticut River.

He served as a default minister, and he served as a default minister and he served three one-year terms as the

colonies governor. In 1649 he published one of his other books, it was titled The Glorious Progress of the Gospel

among the Indians in New England.

And that summer, in July of 1649, that book led to the founding of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England.

There was also an act passed in Parliament under Oliver Cromwell's Parliament on July 27, 1649 that allowed

for money to be raised in England for the work of evangelization in New England among the Native Americans.

The society operated mostly in New England and also a bit in Virginia and New Hampshire.

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