ABOLITIONISM was the movement which opposed slavery and the slave trade in North America prior to the American Civil War. Although Christian groups opposed slavery it was supported by the vast majority of churches up to the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century on the basis of Scripture, tradition which was based on the theory of the racial inferiority of the Negro, and economic necessity. The movement was spread by a host of people including William Garrison, C G Finney [see 1821], T D Weld [see 1835], and Harriet Beecher Stowe [see 1851].
FROUDE, RICHARD HURRELL [1803-1836] – He was educated Oxford and served as a tutor before being ordained priest in 1829. In 1831 first signs of tuberculosis appeared and he travelled widely in search of healthier climates. On one of these journeys to Italy he was accompanied by John Newman [see 1845] whom he influenced greatly, being responsible for bringing Newman and John Keble [see 1833] together, hence he is sometimes known as the third man in the Oxford movement. His friends published his memoirs after his death in 1836 which revealed that beneath the debonair and cavalier exterior was a melancholy, self torturing, and a somewhat schizophrenic personality. He bitterly hated the Reformation and he was devoted to clerical celibacy and the cult of the virgin.
GAUSSEN, FRANCOIS SAMUEL LOUIS [1790-1863] – Swiss Reformed pastor who while studying theology in Geneva found personal faith through the student group who had be influenced by the orthodox Scot Robert Haldane [see 1795]. Gaussen helped found the Evangelical Society of Geneva in 1831. He is best remembered for his widely circulated “Theopneustia”, a statement of verbal biblical inspiration which drew fierce attacks.
GREGORY XVI – Pope [1831-1846]. He became a monk in 1783 and rose to vicar general of the Camaldolese Order in 1823 and to cardinal three years later. He devoted his reign to the consolidation of the papacy as the focus of authority in the church and the definer of religious principles for society. The Revolution of 1831 at Rome confronted him immediately with revolutionary principles faced and he called in Austrian troops to put it down. He determined to implement his previously published ideas that claimed that the church was divinely ordained with an independent and unchanging mandate with the pope, the infallible head with the Papal States giving spiritual independence from all states. In numerous publications he tried to pinpoint the religious errors of groups which were against him or at least unsympathetic with his own religious and cultural ideal. He condemned liberalism and separation of church and state. He stimulated massive missionary activity especially in Asia and Latin America naming 200 missionary bishops during his pontificate consolidating all missions under the papacy. He succeeded Pius VIII [see 1829] and was succeeded by Pius IX [see 1846].
LOEHE, JOHANNES KONRAD WILHELM [1808-1872] – Educated in Erlangen and Berlin, he was ordained a Lutheran pastor in 1831. He spent his life in pastoral situations finally becoming the pastor at Neuendettelsau in 1837. Loehe sponsored foreign missions. He was responsible for sending missionaries to North America. Some of them were instrumental in founding the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. He also supported mission work in New Guinea. He was a strong supporter of the Innere Mission [see 1848] movement and founded a deaconess home in Neuendettelsau.
PLYMOUTH BRETHREN – Originating in Dublin they were so named because the first congregation was formed in Plymouth in 1831. The beginnings were essentially informal with many showing a desire to return to the simplicity of apostolic days in worship and to break down the walls that divided Christians. The movement was a protest against the prevailing conditions of spiritual deadness, formalism, and sectarianism marking the earlier years of the 19th century church. A group which included medical student Edward Cronin, Anthony Groves [see 1833], John Vesey Parnell, John Gifford Bellett, and John Darby [see 1845], formed an association. Their studies confirmed them in their belief that they could observe the Lord's Supper without an ordained clergyman. They broke bread simply and recognised the Lord, who was present, would guide by His Spirit as to audible participation in the gathering. Darby was the outstanding teacher of the group. The gatherings were marked by deep devotion to Christ, zeal for evangelism, and a strong leaning toward prophetic studies. Among the men who came under Darby's influence was Francis Newman [see 1822] and Benjamin Newton [see 1847]. Newton began a ministry in Plymouth with others and the group grew to be large and influential. Disagreeing on prophetical interpretations John Darby, who had been away on the Continent, initiated a breakaway on his return. There was also a more serious division affecting all the churches regarding Newman’s teaching on Christ’s humanity. Two members of the Plymouth church applied for fellowship at Bethesda Chapel Bristol where George Muller [see 1834] and Henry Craik were joint pastors. A few demanded that they should be refused as unsound because they had sat under Newton's teaching. Again there was a schism and from that time the Brethren became two distinct groups, the mainstream of the movement or Open Brethren maintaining its original principles, whilst the Darby group or Exclusive Brethren became increasingly centralised in government and separatist in relation to other Christians. Missionary concerns marked the Brethren from the first. Groves, his wife, and some friends journeyed to Baghdad, and later to India in the cause of the Gospel. From that small beginning has grown a missionary outreach with a missionary body of about 1200. The Brethren have exercised influence among evangelical Christians out of all proportion to their numbers and they can be found in most parts of the world today.
The TRINITARIAN BIBLE SOCIETY was founded in 1831 "to promote the Glory of God and the salvation of men by circulating, both at home and abroad, in dependence on the Divine blessing, the Holy Scriptures, which are given by inspiration of God and are able to make men wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." The Trinitarian Bible Society members separated from the British and Foreign Bible Society [see 1804] due to two controversies: [i] Inclusion of the Biblical Apocrypha in some Bibles published in Europe and [ii] Inclusion of adherents of Unitarianism as officers in the Society, and refusal of the Society to open meetings with prayer. The arguments came into the open during the Annual Meeting in May 1831 of the Society. The membership voted six to one to retain the ecumenical status quo. On December 7, 1831, over two thousand people gathered in Exeter Hall in London to form the Trinitarian Bible Society, explicitly endorsing the Trinitarian position, and rejecting the apocryphal books. E. W. Bullinger, the noted dispensationalist, was clerical secretary of the Society from 1867 until his death in 1913. Accomplishments of TBS during his secretariat include: [i] Completion of a Hebrew version of the New Testament under a TBS contract with Christian David Ginsburg after the demise of Isaac Salkinson with the first edition publication was in 1885.[ii] Publication of Ginsburg's first edition of the Old Testament along with his Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible in 1897 [iii] Formation of the Brittany Evangelical Mission Society under Pasteur Le Coat and translation of the Bible into the Breton language.[iv] First-ever Protestant Portuguese Reference Bible and distribution of Spanish language Bibles in Spain after the Spanish Revolution of 1868. Their primary function is to translate and disseminate worldwide Bibles in languages other than English. The translation of Bibles into non-English languages is based on the Hebrew Masoretic Text and Greek Textus Receptus which underlie the Authorised (King James) Version of the Bible and other Reformation-era Bibles. Some, owing to the Trinitarian Bible Society’s support of the King James Version of the Bible, have assumed that the Society is a part of the King-James-Only Movement. However, as the Society has publicly stated, ‘The Trinitarian Bible Society does not believe the Authorised Version to be a perfect translation, only that it is the best available translation in the English language’.
WHATELEY, RICHARD [1786-1863] – Archbishop of Dublin who was educated at Oxford graduating in 1808 and subsequently appointed a fellow in 1811. Fellow students of Whateley included Robert Peel, John Keble, and John Henry Newman. He ministered in Norfolk and in 1831 amid controversy was appointed archbishop of Dublin. He was a poor preacher but a leader in education at a time when four university colleges were established in Ireland. Whateley was a stern disciplinarian who made many enemies but he did much to raise the standard of theological education and was a prolific author.
1832
BEECHER, LYMAN [1775‑1863] – American Presbyterian educator who graduated from Yale in 1797 and was ordained two years later. In 1832 he became professor and president of the Lane Theological Seminary. He was liberal in theology, and a founder of the American Bible Society. Beecher was an eloquent preacher whose emphasis on revival brought conversions. He had a large family and among his thirteen children were Henry W Beecher [see1847] and Harriet Beecher Stowe [see 1851].
CAMPBELL, ALEXANDER [1788‑1866] – Son of Thomas Campbell [see 1807]. Scottish born American minister who with his brother Thomas [1763‑1854] founded the Disciples of Christ and the Churches of Christ [see below] for groups which split from the Baptists. They founded Bethany College, West Virginia in 1840 to educate the clergy, with Alexander being its director [1840‑1866].
CHURCHES OF CHRIST was made a denomination in the United States in 1832, and was organised into a denomination in Great Britain with fifty congregations and 1300 members ten years later, although the first known church was at Dungannon Ireland in 1804.
GLADSTONE, WILLIAM EWART [1809-1898] – British prime minister, educated at Oxford where he distinguished himself in classics and mathematics. His father was a member of Parliament and planned a political career for his son. He entered Parliament in 1832 and continued a member with one brief interruption until 1895. He supported Catholic Emancipation, not because of religious indifference, but from principle. He knew his Bible and called one of his books “The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture”. He was also known to visit hospitals on Sundays to give the gospel to patients.
LOVEJOY, ELIJAH PARISH [1802-1837] – American Presbyterian editor and abolitionist born in Maine. He was educated at Waterville College and converted in 1832 through the ministry of Presbyterian abolitionist preacher David Nelson. He attended Princeton Seminary, edited the Presbyterian weekly “St Louis Observer”, and gradually adopted abolitionist views. He staunchly defended the freedom of speech, the press, and petition. He became the focus of controversy in St Louis which was proslavery, where his establishment was assaulted because he had denounced the lynching of a black man. Moving to Illinois and protesting the 1836 Presbyterian General Assembly's failure to endorse abolition he continued to distribute abolitionist papers and he was eventually shot to death at the printing press that he was protecting after already having two destroyed.
LOW COUNTRIES [see also 1609] – The era of religious apathy was not to last as after the French Revolution, revolutionary troops set up revolutionary regimes in the Low Countries and took away the privileges of Catholic priests in Belgium and the Reformed ministers in Holland. After the defeat of Napoleon the revolutionary allies planned to set up a strong state on the North borders of France. The Low Countries were briefly united as a kingdom under the Dutch leader William I. This however was an unstable situation and in 1832 Belgium was declared a separate country. In the Netherlands the Reformed Church was the major recognised religious body but there were splits there as well. The main emphasis of the Reformed Church as stressed by the “Groningen School” [see 1835] was on way of life rather than on dogma. A split also occurred under A Kuyper [see 1886].
MAITLAND, SAMUEL ROFFEY [1792-1866] – Anglican historian and writer educated at Cambridge but left without a degree. He first intended to pursue a legal career but in 1821 his religious views having changed Maitland was ordained deacon in the Church of England. He made significant contributions to the study of contemporary Judaism and in 1832 produced a masterly account of the Albigenses and Waldenses. Associated with the Clapton sect of High Churchmen he contributed notable historical essays to the “British Magazine” which he later edited.
MARTINEAU, JAMES [1805-1900] – English Unitarian minister and teacher who in 1832 became minister of a church in Liverpool and simultaneously professor of philosophy in Manchester New College. He became principal there in 1869. He began his career as a follower of Joseph Priestley [see 1767] holding the characteristic doctrines of Unitarianism because of their alleged biblical character. He became a popular figure in his attempts to harmonise religion and the modern thought of the Victorian era. He was also active in the temperance movement.
MONOD, FREDERIC [1794-1863] – French Protestant pastor and brother of Adolphe [see 1847]. He contributed heavily to the success of the French Protestant publication “Reveil” [see 1825] as editor, pastor and leader. His own faith was kindled under the teaching of Robert Haldane [see 1795] while a theological student at Geneva. He became pastor of the Oratoire Church in 1832. He was editor for 43 years of a Christian periodical. He fought against church subservience to the state and demanded a conservative Reformed creed. In 1849 Monod led dissident Reformed congregations into a union of free churches, based on strict orthodoxy, which still exist.
WINER, JOHANN GEORG BENEDIKT [1789-1858] – Protestant New Testament scholar who was born and educated in Leipzig where he became professor of theology from 1832 to 1858. Winer fixed the rules of grammatical interpretation of the New Testament.
1833
AMERICAN ANTI SLAVERY SOCIETY was established in Philadelphia in 1833 after the abolitionist movement began to organise and spread quickly as a religious and humanitarian crusade under William Lloyd Garrison. The abolition of slavery by the British Government in this year gave it further impetus. Influential evangelical supporters of the society were philanthropists Arthur and Lewis Tappan and Theodore Weld [see 1835]. Weld from Lane Seminary was successful in training effective anti slave agitators who converted whole communities to an awareness of the sinfulness of slavery and the need to abolish it. However splits between Garrison and others brought its effectiveness to an end by 1840.
FLEIDNER, THEODOR [1800-1864] – Founder of the deaconess’ organisation of the German Lutheran Church. As a young pastor he became acquainted with the Mennonite practice of appointing deaconesses, and in 1833 he established a home for ex-convicts which he placed in the charge of a woman. In 1835 he set up a school for children which also trained women teachers, and a hospital in 1836 which gave nursing instruction. By reviving the office of deaconess, Fleidner provided opportunities to unmarried women to be active in public life. He later introduced the idea also to the United States and Palestine.
GIOBERTI, VINCENZO [1801-1852] – Italian philosopher and statesman. He was ordained as a priest at the age of 24 and was soon known for his great scholarship, leading to his appointment as professor at the theological school of Turin University. Suspected and hated for his liberal ideas he was imprisoned and exiled to Paris in 1833. In exile he published works which praised Italy and its civilisation, and at the same time exhorted Italians to strive for unity and join in a confederation under papal leadership. The impact and success of his writings was great, and Pius IX’s liberal policies seemed to confirm Gioberti’s expectations. He returned to Italy and became a member of Parliament and prime minister of Piedmont during the first war of independence.
GROVES, ANTHONY NORRIS [1795-1853] – Plymouth Brethren leader who after studying chemistry, dentistry, and surgery in London, settled in dental practice first in Plymouth and then in Exeter. In 1826 he entered Trinity College Dublin to prepare for ordination but came to see that “ordination of any kind to preach the gospel is no requirement of Scripture”. In Dublin he associated with a group that included J.G. Bellett and J.N. Darby [see 1845], influencing the former to the view that the principle of union among Christians was “the love of Jesus instead of oneness of judgement in minor things”. Groves sailed with his party to Baghdad in 1829 and remained there for three years during which time his first wife died of the plague. After this for 19 years from 1833 he laboured in India, during which time he remarried. Watching with concern Darby's tendency for domination he wrote a letter to Darby in 1836 regarding setting more store on correctness than love. Unwell in 1852 he returned to England and died in George Mueller's house in Bristol. Groves strongly influenced early Brethren and was a pioneer of simpler, apostolic missionary principles.
HEFELE, KARL JOSEF [1809-1893] – Roman Catholic bishop and historian. He was ordained a priest in 1833 and after serving in minor academic posts was called in 1840 to succeed his own teacher J. Mohler [see 1828] as professor of church history at Tubingen. He was one of the most important Roman Catholic scholars of his day. He was appointed a consultant to the preparatory commission for Vatican Council I in 1868 and was consecrated bishop of Rottenburg the following year. He was a leader of the minority who opposed to the doctrine of papal infallibility, though he submitted eventually to that decision of the council.
KEBLE, JOHN [1792-1866] – Hymn writer and Tractarian. Educated at Oxford he became vicar of Hursley in Hampshire for life. Here he wrote a number of hymns including “Blessed are the pure in heart” In 1833 Keble preached his Oxford Assize sermon in which he denounced the contemporary way in which the state could interfere in church matters as “national apostasy”. Newman regarded this as the start of the Oxford Movement [Tractarianism] [see below]. Keble is remembered less for his many books than for his hymns and his life as a devoted Anglican vicar. In 1870 Keble College Oxford was founded in his memory.
KEIL, JOHANN KARL FRIEDRICH [1807-1888] – Lutheran scholar and exegete who was professor of Old and New Testament exegesis and oriental languages at Dorpat from 1833 to 1858. Keil helped to shape Lutheran ministerial thought in the Baltic provinces for 25 years. Vigorous advocate of conservative theology, he rejected the rationalistic, critical views of Scripture. He wrote a number of books including a biblical commentary on the Old Testament, and some New Testament books.
MILLER, WILLIAM [1782-1849] – Founder of the Adventist movement. Born in Massachusetts he educated himself and was a former deputy sheriff and justice of the peace. He gained the rank of captain in the War of 1812 and was converted from Deism in 1816 and after 14 years of Bible study decided that Christ would return in 1843. In 1833 he was licensed as a Baptist preacher. Disenchanted after the Lord not returning he dropped out of the Adventist movement in 1845.
OXFORD MOVEMENT – The title given to the movement within the Church of England which opposed the growth of liberalism in the mid-19th century. It had its roots in the High Church party of the 17th century. It was influenced by the Romantic Revival in its veneration of the mediaeval. Its leaders such as J.H. Newman [see 1845], J. Keble [see 1833], and E.B. Pusey [see 1828], some of whom came from evangelical families, were all members of Oriel College Oxford in the 1820s. The movement began with an attack on the English government's bill to reduce the number of bishoprics of the Church of Ireland. In their efforts to revive the church, the leaders of the movement published the first of the “Tracts for the Times” in 1833. The name Tractarianism was soon attached to the movement. The movement created wide hostility as it became clear that its teaching ran counter to the spirit of the Reformation. From 1840 onwards part of the movement led by Newman moved in a Roman Catholic direction. In 1841 Newman published tract 90 in which he argued for a Roman Catholic interpretation of the 39 Articles. While the other leaders of the movement approved the Tract they were startled by the instant storm of opposition. The defection of Newman to Roman Catholicism marked the end of the dominance of Oxford in the movement. While Pusey, an Oxford professor remained prominent, the titles “Anglo-Catholic” and “Ritualist” marked a new phase of the movement.
OZANAM, ANTOINE FREDERIC [1813-1853] – French Catholic literary historian founder of the Society of St Vincent de Paul in 1833 to work among the poor. The society formed at first by students of the Sorbonne in Paris and composed exclusively of non-clergy, was more than mere charity as it was an instrument to implement genuine social regeneration according to the Catholic faith. Ozanam became professor of law at Lyons and by the time of his death the society had nearly 3000 chapters in Europe, Africa, the Near East, and North America. As a literary historian he won a professorship in foreign literature at the Sorbonne in 1844. He also received doctorates in law and literature.
ROSE, HUGH JAMES [1795-1838] – Anglican high churchman who was educated at Cambridge and ordained a priest in 1819. Rose served in several parishes, was made professor of divinity at Durham in 1833, and principal of King’s College in 1836. He was a member of the Clapham Sect or Hackney Phalanx and in 1824 travelled to Germany and wrote a book exposing the dangerous trends of German radical criticism for which he was unexpectedly criticised by Pusey [see 1828]. A meeting at Rose’s Hadleigh Rectory in 1833 marked the beginning of the Tractarian Movement. Though critical of some of this group’s tendencies he managed to hold the Oxford and Clapham schools together until his death.
TRACTARIANISM – The name given to that stage of the Oxford Movement [see above] when the “Tracts for the Times” were being issued. The first three tracts were four-page leaflets published anonymously in 1833. In the first, J.H. Newman [see 1845] sounded a clarion call to the clergy of the Church of England to exalt their office because of its “Apostolical Descent”. The Tracts were distributed widely up and down the country vicarages by disciples of the Tract writers. The Tracts began to change in character when E.B. Pusey [see 1828] began to write in 1834 as he produced longer theological documents. The Tracts came to a sudden end in 1841 with Tract 90 by J.H. Newman when he attempted to interpret the 39 Articles in a Catholic direction and brought a storm of protest, forcing the closure of the series. A wide range of notable writers contributed to the Tracts.
WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF [1807-1892] – American Quaker poet and abolitionist who had little formal education but read extensively. His first book of poems was published in 1831 and in 1833 he entered politics as an abolitionist and was an important writer in the antislavery movement. He supported Lincoln for the US presidency. After the Civil War his main interest was poetry and late in life he turned to religious verse which included writing the hymn "Dear Lord and Father of mankind."
WILLIAMS, SAMUEL WELLS [1812-1884] – Early American missionary, diplomat and authority in China who having trained as a printer was sent by the American Board to Canton in 1833 where he co-operated with Elijah Bridgman [see 1830] in editing and printing “The Chinese Repository” and other literary works. Unsettled conditions caused him to move the press to Macau in 1835. He learned Japanese from some shipwrecked sailors and in 1837 was part of the expedition that tried to return to Japan. After 1853 he became involved with diplomatic affairs, as interpreter on Commodore Perry's visit to Japan, and then acted for 20 years as secretary and interpreter to the American legation in China. Williams was professor of Chinese language and literature at Yale from 1877 to 1884 as well as president of the American Bible Society, and president of the American Oriental Society.
WILSON, DANIEL [1778-1858] – Anglican bishop of Calcutta who was the son of a rich London silk manufacturer. He had intended a business career but experienced evangelical conversion and decided to enter the ministry. Wilson studied at Oxford and exercised several highly successful ministries one of which was at St Mary's Islington from 1824 to 1830. Through the influence of Charles Grant he was made bishop of Calcutta where he vigorously reorganised the diocese establishing his influence over chaplains and missionaries alike. He waged war on the caste system, built Calcutta Cathedral and many new churches, and secured in 1833 freedom of missionary activity from the control of the East India Company and created two new bishoprics at Madras and Bombay which gave him metropolitan status over the whole of India. He was in Serampore during the Mutiny and died in Calcutta.
1834
ALEXANDER, JOSEPH [1809‑1860] – American linguist, who entered the junior class of Princeton College at the age of 15 and graduated with highest honour at 17. In 1834 he became professor at Princeton Seminary in biblical literature and history, and after 1851, in biblical and ecclesiastical history producing a number of biblical commentaries which established his reputation in Europe as well as in America.
BULL, GEORGE STRINGER [1799‑1865] – Evangelical churchman who resigned from missionary school teaching due to ill health and became a clergyman in Yorkshire. He worked for temperance, emancipation of slaves and factory children and opposed the 1834 Poor Law legislation as injurious to workers.
CONSTANTIUS II – Patriarch of Constantinople [1834-1835] who succeeded Constantius I [see 1830]. There is no additional information readily available.
GRANT, SIR ROBERT [1779-1838] – Hymn Writer. He was the second son of Charles Grant, sometime Member of Parliament for Inverness, and a Director of the East India Company. He was educated at Cambridge, where he graduated in 1806. Called to the English Bar in 1807, he became Member of Parliament for Inverness in 1826; a Privy Councillor in 1831; and Governor of Bombay, 1834. He died at Dapoorie, in Western India, July 9, 1838. As a hymn writer of great merit he was well and favourably known. His hymn "O worship the King" is widely used in all English-speaking countries.
HEBICH, SAMUEL [1803-1868] – A founder of the Basel mission work in India. He went to Mangalore in 1834 and later moved south to Malabar. He had a remarkable ministry to British soldiers, making converts despite his poor English and eccentric manners. One regiment was termed “Hebich’s Own”. At the same time he was truly a missionary to the people of India. He left India in poor health in 1859 and died at Stuttgart.
HEDBERG, FREDRIK GABRIEL [1811-1893] – Finish pastor and founder of the Evangelical Movement. As a schoolboy he experienced spiritual revival through influence from Herrnhut groups. In 1834 he was ordained as pastor of the Church of Finland, at which time he was a convinced theologian of the Enlightenment and mainly tried to improve people's ability to read. He soon found this foundation inadequate for it had nothing to offer souls in need. He came into contact with Pietism [see 1674] and this influenced him decisively. He eventually founded and became leader of the Evangelical Movement, based on the writings of Luther. In the centre are the grace and forgiveness of God, the redemption of Christ, and the appropriation of it through the means of grace.
MOTE, EDWARD [1797-1874] - Edward Mote was a pastor and hymn writer. His parents managed a public house and often left Edward to his own devices playing in the street. He was trained as a cabinet maker and worked in London for many years. Later he entered the ministry and was pastor at Rehoboth Baptist Church in Horsham, West Sussex for 26 years. He was well liked by the congregation in Horsham and they offered him the church building as a gift. Mote replied "I do not want the chapel, I only want the pulpit; and when I cease to preach Christ, then turn me out of that." He is remembered for his hymn “My hope is built on nothing less”
MULLER, GEORGE [1805-1898] – Pastor, philanthropist, and leader of the Christian Brethren movement. Born in Prussia, he trained for the Lutheran ministry. After a dissolute early life he was converted in 1825 at a prayer meeting in a private house. He came to London in 1829 to train for missionary service among the Jews. During a period of convalescence in Tynemouth he met Henry Craik who had been tutor to the children of A.N. Groves [see 1833] and through him heard many points of Groves’ teachings. As a result he amicably severed his connection with the Jews Society and accepted a call to minister at Ebenezer Chapel Tynemouth. Here he married Grove’s sister Mary. In 1832 Muller and Craik began a united ministry first at Gideon Chapel and then at Bethesda Chapel Bristol where he was to remain until his death. In 1834 he formed “The Scriptural Knowledge Institution for Home and Abroad” to stimulate education upon scriptural principles, to circulate Bibles, and help missionary work. Early in his life he had observed the orphan work of Auguste Francke [see 1687] in Halle and in 1835 he began in Bristol the orphanage for which he is chiefly remembered. This grew from a rented house to a great complex of buildings on Ashley Down Bristol. In later years he travelled widely with others. He was a leading representative of the more moderate tendencies of the Brethren movement which grew into what is now known as the Open Brethren. This was in contrast with the views of J.N. Darby [see 1845] which developed into the Exclusive Brethren. In his early ministry Muller adopted believer’s baptism, the weekly celebration of the Lord's Supper, and the principle of freedom to speak at meetings of the church. He renounced a regular salary and refused throughout the rest of his life to make any request for financial support either for himself or his philanthropic projects even though sometimes he was penniless. He can justly be claimed as the architect of the growth of independent Brethren.
MYNSTER, JAKOB PIER [1775-1854] – Danish bishop from a Pietistic background who turned his back on them in his youth adopting the theological and political radicalism of the so-called Enlightenment. Afterwards the influence of Kant [see 1770] and German Romanticism made him sceptical of rationalism. In 1803 he had a spiritual experience that led to personal conversion and his acceptance of the Christian faith. He developed into an eminent preacher and after holding certain positions became bishop of Zealand from 1834 to his death. By most of his contemporaries Mynster was regarded as the great central figure in Danish church life standing between rationalists on one side and revivalist on the other. He with H.L. Martensen [see 1854] and the national church as a whole was later attacked fiercely by S. Kierkegaard [see 1848].
NEW HAVEN THEOLOGY – An American theological position associated with N.W. Taylor [see 1812], his students, and Yale Divinity School in New Haven Connecticut. The New Haven Theology was developed at the time when the Unitarian controversy was dividing many New England churches. Taylor and his followers attempted to use a system that defended Trinitarianism and supported experiential religious conversion. There was reaction against New Haven Theology in 1834 and it led to the formation of Hartford Theological Seminary.
NOYES, JOHN HUMPHREY [1811-1886] – American religious and social reformer who was born in the Vermont, graduated from Dartmouth College, and after conversion studied at Andover and Yale. He developed perfectionist and Adventist views and was ousted from Yale and the ministry when he pronounced himself sinless in 1834. Noyes established two communes in which to practice and propagate his ideas of perfectionism, biblical communism, complex marriage, population control, mutual criticism, and education. Under public pressure he migrated to Canada where he died.
REUSS, EDWARD [1804-1891] – Biblical scholar who spent most of his life in Strasbourg and taught at the Protestant seminary there from 1834. When the seminary was incorporated in the theological faculty of the new German university in 1872 Reuss was the first dean.
TEN YEARS CONFLICT [1834-1843] – The Ten Year Conflict was the confrontation between the Evangelicals and Moderates [see 1733] in the Church of Scotland. Both parties believed in ecclesiastical establishment, but patronage was divisive, as it involved the presentation of a minister to a congregation upon the nomination of a patron in spite of the opposition of the congregation. The Moderates promoted this procedure and it was often enforced by a civil magistrate if the congregation showed any unwillingness to accept the minister. During the heyday of Moderatism the Church of Scotland lost almost 20% of their membership to secession groups. In 1834 the Evangelical party wanted to make the congregation’s consent essential to the issuing of a call, and by passing the Veto Act gave the congregations the right to refuse the patron's nominee. In 1843 the Disruption took place and the Ten Year Conflict ended with the birth of the Free Church of Scotland.
1835
AMERICAN PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL MISSION was founded in 1835 to increase work in the western frontier. Jackson Kemper was consecrated at convention as the first missionary bishop, and through his constant travels he laid the foundations of the Church in Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas. The first missionary bishop with a non-US jurisdiction was William Boone, elected in 1844 to be bishop of “Amoy and Other Parts of China”, where Episcopal missionaries had first arrived in 1835. Liberia received a missionary bishop in 1851 and its first African American missionary bishop, Samuel Ferguson, in 1884. In Japan, the third major area of 19th-century Episcopal mission, the three Episcopal missionaries who arrived in 1859 were the first non-Roman Christian missionaries in that country’s history, and Channing Moore Williams became missionary bishop in 1866. An extraordinary missionary bishop was Joseph Shereschewsky [see 1877] whose efforts in China were outstanding. In China boarding and day schools were established, a medical hospital opened, and Samuel Schereschewsky was set apart to prepare a new version of the Bible, in the Mandarin dialect, which he completed in 1875. There was also in Shanghai a medical school for the training of native physicians, surgeons and nurses, and a college for the training of native missionaries.
DROSTE-VISCHERING, CLEMENT AUGUST VON [1773-1845] – Archbishop of Cologne who was ordained into the Roman Catholic priesthood in 1798 and was elected archbishop of Cologne in 1835 at the suggestion of the Prussian government. Soon he came into conflict with the government by refusing to sanction the teachings of the Bonn professor, George Hermes, which had been condemned by Gregory XVI in 1835. When he further refused to approve the Prussian policy on mixed marriages between Protestants and Catholics he was imprisoned by Frederick William III in the Fortress of Minden in 1837, then restored to his former honour in 1838 but the administration of the diocese was given to a co-bishop who was more favourable to the crown.
GREGORY VI – Patriarch of Constantinople [1835-1840 1867-1871] succeeded Constantius II [see 1834]. There is no additional information readily available.
GRONINGEN SCHOOL – A theological movement which flourished in the Dutch Reformed Church in the middle third of the 19th century. After 1835, when the synod refused to censure them for their rejection of traditional Calvinism, their influence steadily widened. In its heyday around the mid century, the Groningen School was perhaps the dominant influence in the church. Its teachings emphasise living the Christian life rather than dogma and that God has revealed himself in Christ, who has taught us that our spiritual nature is fulfilled in love. The Trinity for example, is interpreted as a valuable symbolic insight rather than a statement of fact.
LINDLEY, DANIEL [1801-1880] – American missionary to South Africa who was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1832 and reached South Africa as an American Board Missionary in 1835. A mission to the Matabele was abandoned after a Boer attack in 1837 and he joined colleagues among the Zulu in Natal. From 1840 to 1846 he served as a minister to the Boers believing that this would ultimately benefit the Zulu mission. In 1847 he returned to mission work in the Inanda Location northwest of Durban where he remained until his retirement in 1873. His attitude towards tribal custom mellowed with the years and he welcomed the ordination of native pastors from 1869, in which respect he proved more liberal than his younger colleagues.
PERKINS, JUSTIN [1805-1869] – American Congregational missionary to Persia who was educated at Andover Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1833. He went to Persia under the American Board and laboured among the Nestorian Christians. In 1835 he established his mission in Urumiah and founded several schools and a mission press from which he issued many of his works, notably “Missionary Life in Persia” in 1861. A noted scholar Perkins translated the Bible into Syriac and was the first to reduce the Nestorian vernacular into writing.
STRAUSS, DAVID FRIEDRICH [1808-1874] – German theologian who studied under F.C. Baur [see 1845] at Tubingen. He achieved instant notoriety with his "Life of Jesus Critically Examined” [1835-36]. This publication destroyed any prospect of a career in theological teaching. The study consisted largely of the detailed examination of the events the Gospels making extensive use of the concept of myth already known to German theology. He said that the miracles of Jesus were virtually predetermined by popular expectation of how the Messiah should act. Strauss followed this by another book arguing that biblical teaching cannot be harmonised with modern knowledge and proposing a mixture of Platonic and Hegelian philosophy in its place. In his day Strauss had more influence on some freethinkers like George Eliot than on the mainstream of theology.
WELD, THEODORE DWIGHT [1803-1895] – American abolitionist who grew up in New York where he was profoundly influenced by Capt Charles Stewart principal of Utica Academy. Converted under C.G. Finney’s [see 1821] preaching he spent 2 years preaching then became deeply concerned about the abolition of slavery. He enlisted New York philanthropists Arthur and Lewis Tappan in the financing of Lane Seminary Cincinnati where Weld and some of Finney’s converts studied under the presidency of Lyman Beecher [see 1832]. When abolitionist activities were banned, Weld and his followers transferred to Oberlin College. After 1835 Weld was employed by the American Anti-slavery Society [see 1833] that he helped to found. After 1836 he focused his energies on the society’s publicity and lobbying in Washington DC. He wrote “The Bible Against Slavery” in 1837 and “American Slavery As It Is” in 1839 which provided a stimulus for H.B. Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in 1852.
1836
AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN MISSION was a missionary society operated by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, that was involved in sending workers to countries such as China during the late Qing Dynasty and to India in nineteenth century. The American Presbyterian Mission was opened at Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, in 1836. The Presbyterian Board of America transferred two of their missionaries from Singapore to China in 1843. It had four great centres. Guangzhou was entered in 1845, but it was sixteen years before they were able to baptise the first convert to Christianity. A medical hospital was a very important factor in the work of the Mission. Missions in Macau and Hainan were sustained from this centre. Hospital work had been a prominent feature in this Mission. Dr. Peter Parker commenced a hospital in 1835, which was transferred to this society in 1854, and placed under the care of Dr John G. Kerr. The Central Mission had five main centres which branched out in many directions. These included Ningbo, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Fuzhou, and Anqing. At Shanghai the extensive printing operations of the Society were carried on. These comprised not only several presses which were constantly at work, but a foundry where seven sizes of Chinese type, besides English, Korean, Manchu, Japanese, Hebrew, Greek and others, were cast. Much translation work had been done by this Society, and handbooks of Christian history and doctrine prepared by it were in use on most of the Protestant missions in China. The Shantung Mission extends from the capital city, Chi-nan-foo, northwards to Yantai, and had many stations which reported about three thousand members in 1890. Also the Allahabad Christian College in India, managed by the American Presbyterian Mission, was opened in 1902 and had 70 pupils in 1904.
BECK, JOHANN [1804‑1878] – German theologian who was ordained in 1827 and taught systematic theology at Basle [1836‑1843] then at Tubingen. He was a great Christian personality developing the work of Johann Bengel [see 1734]. He saw the Bible as the history of the work of the Spirit working towards the salvation of man and the revelation of the kingdom of God as a supernatural reality in history.
BROUGHTON, WILLIAM [1788‑1853] who was educated at Cambridge and ordained in 1818. Ten years later he was appointed second archdeacon of New South Wales and became the first Australian bishop appointed in 1836. Although he was a high churchman he was accepted by the evangelicals as non hostile. In 1850 he initiated discussions about self government for the Church of England in Australia.
The COLONIAL MISSIONARY SOCIETY was formed in May 1836 as a “distinct society for the Colonies” following the report of a deputation to Canada by representatives of Congregational churches from Britain. Its principal mission effort was directed towards promoting Congregationalist forms of Christianity among “British or other European settlers” rather than indigenous peoples. At first it functioned as part of the Congregational Union, which Andrew Reed, an early honorary secretary, described as ‘a crippled and dependent existence’. In time it became an independent body. Radical changes in the way Great Britain related to its former colonies after World War II, coupled with the growth of the ecumenical movement led to changes in the society’s identity during the mid 20th century.
KAISERSWERTH – A Rhineland town where Theodor Fliedner [see 1833] was pastor of a small Protestant community, and founded an institution in 1836 to train deaconesses for nursing, educational, and social work. Fliedner’s work was helped by Frederick William IV of Prussia and was linked with the Innere Mission [see 1848]. Florence Nightingale trained there. By the middle of the last century Kaiserswerth had become the mother house of an association of about 28,000 sisters in 72 houses.
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH [1807-1882] – American poet who became the most popular American poet of his day. On his return, after study and travel abroad, he was appointed Smith professor of literature at Harvard University in 1836. The tragic death of his second wife Fanny in a fire in 1861 encouraged him to undertake as a source of solace one of his greatest works, a translation of the “Divine Comedy”. Longfellow's poetry reflects the optimistic sentiment and humanitarianism of the day.
M’CHEYNE, ROBERT MURRAY [1813-1843] – Church of Scotland minister educated at Edinburgh University and was moved by the death of an elder brother to seek “a brother who cannot die”. In 1836 he was ordained to the charge of St Peter’s Dundee where the fruitfulness of his ministry and his own spiritual growth were the outcome of a strict daily programme of Bible study, prayer, meditation, visiting his people, and preparation of sermons despite his frequent illnesses. His missionary interest involved a visit to Europe and Palestine in 1839 to study the possibility of a mission to the Jews, the beginning of a notable Church of Scotland work. Dying at only 30 years of age he nevertheless had a great influence on Christianity in Scotland.
REES, THOMAS [1815-1885] – Welsh religious historian who only had three months of elementary school as his education. He became a coal miner in 1835 but soon gave it up and opened a school. He was ordained in 1836 as minister of the Congregational church in Merthyr Tydfil and supplemented his stipend of ten shillings a month which he received from the 12 members of his church by opening a shop. This proved to be a failure and he suffered imprisonment as a debtor. His fortunes revived however and his subsequent career as a minister was a distinguished one. He was a prolific writer with his best-known to English readers being his History of Protestant Nonconformity in Wales in 1861 and one he also co-authored on the history of the Welsh Congregational churches which considering his lack of formal education his work as a historian was outstanding. Rees possessed a winsome personality and was in great demand as a preacher.
TRANSCENDENTALISTS – The American Unitarian Association was formed in 1825 but by 1836 the Boston churches were torn gain as rebellious young preachers, members of the Transcendental Club abandoned Unitarianism feeling it to be complacent and sterile in its rationalism. They tried to introduce a strong note of mysticism and contemporary Romanticism’s view of individual intuition and flashes of insight into truth as the highest form of knowledge. They saw every creative thing as possessing deep religious meanings.
1837
AUBURN DECLARATION which gave the Presbyterian New School case for its Calvinism in the U.S.A. which relied on a combination of free will and Divine will. The Old School believed that the New School had departed from the Calvinistic theology of the Westminster Confession and were too tolerant of the New Haven Theology [see 1834] which placed a greater stress on human initiative in the process of salvation than did orthodox Calvinism. The Auburn Declaration eventually brought the New and Old Schools back into unity in 1869.
BALA TRAINING COLLEGE founded for the Calvinistic Methodists.
EDWARDS, LEWIS [1809-1887] – Welsh Calvinistic Methodist minister. He had a patchy education in local schools, engaged in teaching himself, and went to Edinburgh University in 1833. In 1837 he and his brother-in-law David Charles [1812-1878] opened a school at Bala which was eventually adopted by the Calvinistic Methodists as the institution for training ministers. He spent the remaining 50 years of his life as principal there. He had a powerful personality and became the undisputed leader of his denomination, particularly in intellectual matters. He wrote books on the person of Christ and the doctrine of the atonement as well as a brief history of theology. As a theologian he sought to evade controversy while maintaining a somewhat moderate Calvinism. His son Thomas Charles Edwards was the first principal of University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.
FELLER, HENRIETTA [1800-1868] – Swiss missionary and educator. A Protestant, she arrived at St John's Quebec in 1835 and began spreading the gospel from house to house. In Grand Ligne she and her colleague Louis Roussy found a home to receive them, and she began a school in the attic for local children. During the rebellion of 1837 the two missionaries and their 63 converts were persecuted for being Protestants and forced to flee to New York. When peace was restored they returned and in 1840 they erected the first buildings of what was to be Feller College. Henrietta Feller also founded the first Canadian French Baptist Church in 1836.
FREEMAN, THOMAS BURCH [1809-1890] – First Wesleyan Methodist missionary to Ghana to survive for more than a short period. He worked as a gardener and botanist before offering for overseas service in 1837. He arrived at Cape Coast at the beginning of the following year and started work single-handed after the death of all his predecessors. His interests extended to architecture, botany, agriculture, and education, but his dominant concern was the geographical expansion of Christianity. He visited Kumasi, the capital of Ashanti in 1839 and Badagry and Abeokuta now sited in Nigeria in 1841-42, calling at the capital of Dahomey during his return journey. By 1856 he had built up a strong church and an educational system which included 35 schools, four of which were in Nigeria and Dahomey.
GUTHRIE, THOMAS [1803-1873] – Scottish minister and social reformer who was educated at Edinburgh, then refusing to renounce Evangelical principles in order to obtain a parish, studied medicine and social conditions in Paris. In 1837 he became the collegiate minister of Old Greyfriars, Edinburgh. He felt that the 1843 disruption was an inevitable response to the law that enslaved the church of Christ, and became a minister of Free St John’s until 1864. His social reform proposals were numerous and he championed especially the cause of Ragged Schools. He was one of the earliest supporters of the Evangelical Alliance [see 1846]. Guthrie's funeral in Edinburgh brought out some 30,000 mourners.
HOOK, WALTER FARQUHAR [1798-1875] – Dean of Chichester who was educated at Oxford. He served in Birmingham and Coventry and was from 1837 to 1859 a remarkably successful vicar of Leeds, frustrating Dissenters, increasing the number of parish churches in his see from 15 to 36, befriending the poor, and adapting Anglicanism to the challenge of the new urban areas. A High Churchmen, Hook helped attract the Tractarian [see 1833] party to consecrate St Saviour’s in Leeds in 1845 but later quarrelled with them over the ritualism practised there. He was so energetic that he was compared to Dr Samuel Johnson.
JASPER, JOHN [1812-1901] – American Negro Baptist preacher. Born into slavery on a plantation in Virginia he was employed as a slave in the Richmond tobacco factory of a prominent Baptist layman where he experienced a dramatic conversion in 1837. At his master’s urging he began preaching and after learning to read immersed himself in the Bible. After emancipation he took over regular congregations. Not a sensationalist he was known for his simple biblical faith, remarkable eloquence, and ability to relate tenderly to his parishioners.
PARKER, THEODORE [1810-1860] – American Congregational minister who was ordained in 1837 and three years later in a sermon denied biblical authority and the deity of Christ. He moved from Unitarianism to transcendental ideas that Christianity rested on universal truths gained by intuition transcending revelation or Christ. Religion was essentially morality growing out of moral oneness with God.
ROWNTREE, JOSEPH [1801-1859] – Quaker social reformer. Born in Yorkshire he left school at age thirteen and later became a grocer and a member of the Merchants Company, and had a lifelong interest in education. He was founder of the York Quarterly Meeting Boys and Girls Schools in 1828 – 1830. A founding trustee of the Flounders Institute in Ackworth for training teachers, he with Samuel Tuke helped to establish the Friends Educational Society in 1837 and served on the committee of the Friends Retreat for the insane at York. He wrote pamphlets on colonial slavery and on education, and helped to reform the marriage regulations of the Society of Friends so that marriage to a non-Quaker would no longer mean disownment.
WALTHER, CARL FERDINAND [1811-1878] – American Lutheran theologian was born in Germany and educated at Leipzig and ordained into the Lutheran ministry in 1837. He was profoundly influenced by Martin Stephan, a pastor in Dresden, and came into the newly awakened Lutheran confessional movement. He joined the migrants under Stephan, arriving in Missouri early in 1839 and was made a pastor there. Walther was the first president of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, founded in 1847, and first president of the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America founded in 1872. His chief theological writings were on the question of church and ministry. Walther is regarded as the outstanding Lutheran theologian in America in the 19th century.
ZILLERTHAL EVANGELICALS – Protestant residents of Zillerthal, one of the Tyrol valleys, who seceded from the Roman Catholic Church and migrated to Prussia in 1830. They had been subject to the archbishop of Salzburg for centuries. A Baptist movement had been totally suppressed early in the 17th century but a strong Lutheran group would not yield to the Catholic pressures. Two brothers named Stainer preached evangelical doctrine in the Ziller valley with such effect that the Catholic hierarchy were alarmed. Over a period of several generations they attempted by various means including both teaching and harassment to regain the people's loyalty but their efforts never fully succeeded. When a Prussian court preacher named Strauss visited there he was so favourably impressed that he arranged for them to migrate to Prussia. In 1837 they set out in six wagons arriving in Prussia in October of that year, establishing a colony at Erdmannsdorf.
1838
ATTWOOD, THOMAS [1765‑1838] – English composer who trained with Mozart and produced a number of anthems. Organist of Chapel Royal and St Paul's Cathedral he was influential in introducing the music of J.S. Bach to England.
DORNER, ISAAC AUGUST [1809-1884] – German Lutheran theologian who was the son of a pastor and educated at Tubingen and became professor of theology there in 1838. He became successively professors at a number of institutions in Germany between 1829 and 1862. Heavily influenced by Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Kant, he brought these philosophic insights to the study of doctrine, which he interpreted in an evangelical and historical sense. He is among the most distinguished of German Christological scholars whose work is still significant.
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO [1803-1882] – American “Transcendentalists” minister. Descended from nine successive generations of ministers, he graduated from Harvard College and attended the Divinity School there before accepting a pastorate in 1829 in Boston. He struggled with fears over his faith and his vocation. In 1832 he resigned from the pastorate but it was his address before the Harvard Divinity School in 1838 which clearly drew the lines of the Unitarian controversy. Emerson's Christ was strictly human; he advocated a faith in man not in Christ, but like Christ's. The battle over Christology and miracles was in the open. Emerson’s religious thought was essentially pantheistic and advocated a religion of self. Despite his reformist philosophy he kept aloof from the slavery controversy until the 1850s.
GOODRICH, CHAUNCEY ALLEN [1790 – 1860]. American Congregational clergyman educator and lexicographer. Graduated from Yale where he was a student of Timothy Dwight [see 1795]. He published “The Elements of Greek Grammar” in 1814, the year he was ordained. Three years later became professor of Rhetoric at the Yale helping to establish the theological department in 1822. He was professor of preaching and pastoral work from 1838 until his death.
HUPFELD, HERMANN CHRISTIAN KARL FRIEDRICH [1796-1866] – German Old Testament scholar educated at Halle under H.F.W. Gesenius [see 1811], staying on as instructor before going back to Marburg as professor of theology in 1825. In 1838 he returned to Halle and remained there until his death. His four volume work on the Psalms was the first modern commentary on that book. In contrast with the rationalist of his day he preserved more of the sense of revelation in the Old Testament.
MCCULLOCH, THOMAS [1777-1843] – Presbyterian minister in Nova Scotia. Educated at Glasgow University he was ordained and migrated to Pictou, Nova Scotia where he founded a church and Pictou Academy in 1808 which was incorporated in 1816 with McCulloch as principal. In 1838 he became president of Dalhousie College in Halifax a post he held to his death. He laboured in Nova Scotia to break the Anglican monopoly of higher education and thus access to the professions.
MAURICE, FREDERICK DENISON [1805-1872] – Christian socialist who was the son of a Unitarian minister. He entered Trinity College Cambridge in 1823 but as a Nonconformist was unable to take a degree. Influenced by Coleridge’s writings he accepted Anglicanism and decided to be ordained and went to Exeter College Oxford where he was attracted to Tractarianism [see 1833]. He was ordained in 1834 and in 1838 published his most important work “The Kingdom of Christ” in which most of his fundamental beliefs were expressed. He believed that Christ was the head of every man and universal fellowship and unity being possible in Christ alone. In 1840 was appointed professor of English literature and history at King's College London. He was later appointed to the chair of theology but his orthodoxy was being questioned and as a result of a publication in which he attacked the popular view of eternal punishment he was expelled from the college. In 1854 he started the first Working Men's College in London. Throughout his ordained life he was unwilling to attach himself to any church party. He is considered to be one of the greatest thinkers of the 19th century.
PARKER, PETER [1804-1888] – First medical missionary to China who was born in Massachusetts where he studied both medicine and theology. The American Board sent him out in 1834 and in the following year he opened an eye hospital in Canton, the first Christian hospital in the Far East. In 1838 he helped organise the Medical Missionary Society in China and opened a hospital and in Macao. Parker helped negotiate the first treaty between China and the USA in 1844. After spending the next decade in China ill health forced him to return to Washington and he was elected regent of the Smithsonian Institution and interested himself in Christian enterprises such as the American Evangelical Alliance.
PECULIAR PEOPLE – The term first appeared in Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament in 1526 and was so applied to themselves by the Quakers in the 17th century. The Tractarians applied this term in a derogatory manner to the evangelicals in the following century. Peculiar People or Plumstead Peculiars were a small sect of evangelical faith-healers founded by William Bridges in London in 1838 and they were largely confined to south-east England. The Society of Dependents of West Sussex is an offshoot of the Peculiars, founded by John Sirgood.
1839
BINGHAM, HIRAM SR. [1789‑ 1869] – American pioneer missionary who was a native of Vermont and sent to Hawaii, known then as the Sandwich Islands, by the American Board in 1820. He helped to create a written language for the natives and with others completed a translation of the Bible in 1839. He built the first church in Honolulu in 1821. He had to return to the United States in 1841 due to health problems of his wife.
LEGGE, JAMES [1815-1897] – Missionary and Chinese scholar who was born in Scotland and educated at Aberdeen. In 1839 he went to Malacca under the London Missionary Society to become principal of the Anglo-Chinese College, and three years later he founded a theological college in Hong Kong where he also revised part of the New Testament. He returned to England in 1873 and two years later became the first professor of Chinese at Oxford University translating a large amount of classical Chinese literature.
PRATT, GEORGE [1817 -1894] was a Missionary to Samoa who was sent by the London Missionary Society and lived in Samoa for forty years from 1839 - 1879, mostly on the island of Savai'i. He also served in Niue, the Loyalty Islands and New Guinea. In Samoa, Pratt lived at a mission station in Matautu on the north coast of Savai'i island. Pratt is particularly notable for being the first person to document the Samoan language. He authored the first grammar and dictionary of the language “A Grammar and Dictionary of the Samoan Language with English and Samoan Vocabulary” which was first printed in 1862 at the Samoa Mission Press. He also collected Samoan songs and myths and translated them into a publication “Some Folk-songs and Myths from Samoa”, published in 1891. In this work is a section “Samoan Custom: Analogous to those of the Israelites”, where he wrote about cultural similarities including the importance of the number 7, embalming, natural eloquence, rod or staff of office, heads cut off in war, the use of slings and stones in war, possessions by evil spirits, the 'near sacred' relationships between brothers and sisters, calling the name of the chief who is to drink during ceremony, the giving of names and circumcision. Pratt's valuable Samoan work records many old words of special interest, specialist terminology, archaic words and names in Samoan tradition.
SECRETAN, CHARLES [1815-1895] – Swiss Protestant philosopher and theologian who studied in Munich which led him into a speculative mystic view of religion. From 1839 he held professorships at Lausanne, Neuchatel, and Lausanne again. With A.R. Vinet [see 1819] he was the leader of the liberal Swiss Protestant thought.
SIMPSON, SIR JAMES YOUNG [1811-1870] – Discoverer of the anaesthetic effect of chloroform. He was the son of a village baker in Scotland and qualified in medicine at Edinburgh University becoming professor of medicine and midwifery there in 1840. Ether was used in an operation in 1846 and Simpson experimented on himself and looked for more suitable compounds for use and discovered in 1847 the effect of chloroform. Violent controversy died out after 1853 when Queen Victoria was given chloroform at the birth of Prince Leopold. In his latter days Simpson was famous worldwide. As a student Simpson shown little interest in the church but he was converted soon after his marriage in 1839 and made good use of his detailed knowledge of the Bible which he had received from his home. In one of his books he argues that God himself used anaesthetic to prevent pain in Genesis 2:21.
STANLEY, ARTHUR PENRHYN [1815-1881] – Dean of Westminster who was educated at Rugby and Oxford where he came into touch with Pusey and the Tractarians. Stanley was ordained in 1839 and became professor of ecclesiastical history at Oxford. After he became dean of Westminster in 1863 he invited Keble, Liddon, and Pusey to preach; all refused, feeling that to do so would compromise them in view of Stanley's sympathy with German liberalism. He was a member of the New Testament revision committee in 1870, was widely travelled, and a prolific author.
VEUILLOT, LOUIS [1813-1883] – French Roman Catholic writer who was a self taught son of a cooper. Veuillot experienced a return to a living Catholic faith during a visit to Rome in 1839. Thereafter he devoted his exceptional journalistic skills to the defence of the Ultramontane [see 1814] cause in France. He became editor of the most powerful Catholic journal of the time and his influence was especially great among the conservative lower rural clergy. Residing in Rome during Vatican I he gave energetic support to the cause of the definition of papal infallibility
1840
ANTHIMUS IV [1840-41, 1848-52] Patriarch of Constantinople who succeeded Gregory VI [see 1835] There is no additional material readily available on this Patriarch.
CALVERT, JAMES [1813‑1892] – English Wesleyan missionary to Fiji where he spent 25 years [1840‑1865] arriving with John Hunt [see 1845] and Thomas Jaggar. He later went to the South African diamond mines as a missionary and in 1886 was able to return to Fiji to see what 50 years of work had accomplished in the Cannibal [Fiji] islands.
EVANS, JAMES [1801-1846] – Missionary and linguist who entered Canada as a Methodist missionary from England in 1823 and five years later began teaching at the Rice Lake Indian Mission School in Upper Canada. Ordained as a Methodist minister in 1833 he went to the Ojibwa Indians and four years later published a grammar and translated Biblical extracts and some hymns into their language. In 1840 he became general secretary of all the Wesleyan Missionary Society’s Indian Missions in the Northwest. Extensive travel made him realise the need for a written Cree language. He invented a Cree syllabic alphabet in 1840, organised a group of translators and by 1861 they had translated the Bible into Cree. Opposition from the Hudson’s Bay Company and false charges led to his recall to England and death in 1846.
HAMLIN, CYRUS [1811-1900] – American Congregational missionary who went to Turkey under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In 1840 he founded a seminary at Bebek. Hamlin resigned from the American board and in 1863 opened Robert College, later moving it to Constantinople. Roberts, the school benefactor, was persuaded because of a misunderstanding to dismiss Hamlin as college president in 1877. He returned to America and lectured until his retirement in 1885.
HENGSTENBERG, ERNST WILHELM [1802-1869] – Lutheran scholar who studied at Bonn and taught at Berlin. During his early years at Berlin he was associated with an evangelicals such as August Neander and Frederick Strauss but after 1840 developed into an outstanding spokesman on Lutheran orthodoxy.
HOLINESS MOVEMENT, AMERICAN – A religious movement dating from the mid-19th century that tried to preserve the original thrust of the Methodist teaching on entire sanctification and Christian perfection as taught by John Wesley. This teaching expects that entire sanctification normally takes place instantaneously in an emotional experience similar to conversion. At this point one is cleansed from inbred sin and then one is able to live without conscious or deliberate sin. The 20th century has produced other holiness groups. Many of these denominations developed in the wake of the revival movement associated with Charles Finney [see 1821] with whose Oberlin Theology [a moderate form of Christian perfectionism] holiness theology has many affinities. Another parallel movement in the mid-19th century was the British Keswick movement [see 1875] whose teachings on the victorious life are distinguished from holiness thought primarily by their context in Reformed theology. Many interpreters fail to distinguish between the holiness movement and Pentecostalism. In the late 19th century holiness writers began to speak of entire sanctification as a “baptism of the Holy Spirit” on the model of Pentecost. It was from this that the Pentecostalism was born in America.
The IRISH PRESBYTERIAN MISSION was a missionary society that was founded in 1840 and involved in sending workers to countries such as China during the late Qing Dynasty.
MERCERSBURG THEOLOGY – This was the creation of Philip Schaff the historian [see 1870] and J.W. Nevin the theologian [see below] while professors at the small Mercersburg Theological Seminary in Pennsylvannia, a German Reformed Church seminary. Both men praised the sacramentalism of tradition, and found satisfaction in the centrality of the Eucharist, for only it, not the Bible or individual experience, gave the believer true spiritual knowledge. In the celebration of the Lord’s Supper the believer received the “spiritual real presence”, and this united the believer with a historical and organic church, and kept the church from being a mere aggregate of individuals. The Mercersburg Theology had little influence in its day and was strongest from 1840 until the departure of Nevin and Schaff.
NEVIN, JOHN WILLIAMSON [1803-1886] – German Reformed theologian, descendant of wealthy Scottish Irish farmers, Nevin prepared for Presbyterian ministry under Charles Hodge [see 1841]. While teaching at Western Theological Seminary he developed an interest in church history, particularly through the writings of J. Neander [see 1813]. In 1840 he was called to teach at the German Reformed Seminary at Mercersburg Pennsylvania. With Philip Schaff [see 1870], another convert to the German Reformed Church, he created the Mercersburg Theology [see above]. Plagued with illness he retired in 1853 and later taught at his church college where he was president [1866-1876].
SWAN WILLIAM [1791-1866] – Missionary to Siberia was born in Scotland and ministered with Edward Stallybrass [see 1817] under the London Missionary Society [see 1795] to the Buryat people. Translating scripture into the local languages was an important task for the LMS missionaries. From 1836 to 1840, they worked on translating scripture and publishing it at a mission press. In 1838, William Swan reported that the work on these translations was progressing. In 1840, the Mongolian translation of the Old Testament was published, and in 1846, Stallybrass republished his and Swan's Mongolian translation of the New Testament, a revision of an 1824 translation, in London.
