by Thomas Hamilton

“ The opposition of Governor Cornbury to Makemie continued after the trial, the governor writing of him as 'a preacher, a doctor of physic, a merchant, an attorney, a counsellor-at-law, and, which is worst of all, a disturber of governments.' In 1708 Makemie wrote a letter, by order of the presbytery of Philadelphia, inviting a minister in Scotland to settle in America. ”

“ After three years here he entered the Baptist College, Bristol, in September 1791, remaining there till May 1792, and then entering on the regular work of a preacher. He first took charge of a small baptist society at Newcastle-on-Tyne for three months in 1792. In the beginning of 1793 he went to Dublin to minister at a meeting-house in Swift's Alley. ‘The congregation,’ he tells us, ‘was very small when I commenced, and almost nothing when I voluntarily closed.’ This was the usual history, to the end of his life, of all congregations of which he had the care. ”

“ His parents were poor, but gave him a good school training, and in November 1845 he was entered at the old college in Belfast, with a view to becoming a minister of the unitarian body, with which his father was connected. His religious views soon changed, and he determined to enter the ministry of the presbyterian church of Ireland. His father's poverty forcing him to support himself by his own exertions, he learned shorthand and became a reporter in connection with the Belfast press. ”

“ After receiving a fair education in his native town, he was apprenticed to Thomas O'Neill, a Belfast wholesale draper, but in a short time left him, and, after undergoing a course of training in connection with the Kildare Place Society, Dublin, became teacher of Brown Street daily school in Belfast. In 1828 he abandoned teaching and commenced business as a bookseller in High Street, Belfast, where he soon had a thriving trade. ”

“ Encouraged by his success, in the end of 1797 he established in Edinburgh the Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home, a non-sectarian organisation chiefly intended for the promotion of itinerant preaching and tract distribution. Hitherto he had been a member of the Church of Scotland, but in January 1799, along with his brother and others, he founded a congregational church in Edinburgh, of which he was ordained pastor on 3 Feb. 1799, thus becoming the first minister of the first congregational church in Scotland. ”

“ A fine portrait of Lightfoot, who is described as ‘comely in his person, of full proportion, and of a ruddy complexion,’ is in the hall of St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. He wears a skull-cap and bands. An engraving by R. White forms the frontispiece of the edition of his works dated 1684. A memorial brass was placed in his honour in the church of Great Munden a few years ago by Joseph Barber Lightfoot [q. v.] , bishop of Durham, and Archdeacon Lightfoot, rector of Uppingham. ”

“ HOG, THOMAS (1628–1692) , Scottish divine, was born at Tain, Ross-shire, in the beginning of 1628, ‘of honest parents, native Highlanders, somewhat above the vulgar rank’ (Stevenson, Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Thomas Hog) . He was educated at Tain grammar school, and Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he proceeded to the degree of M.A. In 1654 he received license, and became chaplain to John, earl of Sutherland. On 24 Oct. 1654 he was ordained minister of Kiltearn, a parish six miles from Dingwall, on the shore of Cromarty Firth, and entered on the discharge of his duties with great ardour. ”

“ He and his brother, however, still devoted themselves to the advancement of religion all over the country, and retained the confidence of good men everywhere. In 1811 he published a treatise, suggested by the dissensions which had vexed him, entitled ‘The Duty of Christian Forbearance in regard to points of Church Order.’ Its issue involved him in another controversy, the Rev. William Jones, a baptist minister in London, and others, replying to it, and Haldane publishing a rejoinder to their strictures. ”

“ When another of their number, Robert Blair, arrived in the country in 1623, although he plainly apprised the bishop of his aversion both to episcopacy and the prayer-book, Echlin kindly said: ‘I hear good of you and will impose no conditions on you. I am old and can teach you ceremonies, and you can teach me substance. Only, I must ordain you, else neither I nor you can answer the law nor brook the land.’ Blair then tells us: ‘I answered him that his sole ordination did utterly contradict my principles ”

“ In 1704 he went to London to endeavour to obtain assistance against episcopacy, which was pressing hardly on the presbyterians in America. He was successful, bringing back with him to America two missionaries, John Hampton and George McNish, a Scotsman who with Makemie himself and four other ministers—viz. Jedediah Andrews, John Wilson, Nathaniel Taylor, and Samuel Davis—formed at Philadelphia in the spring of 1706 the first presbytery organised in America. Makemie is accordingly regarded as the father of presbyterianism in that country. He was made moderator of the presbytery. ”

“ GILBERT, JOSEPH (1779–1852) , congregational divine, born in the parish of Wrangle, Lincolnshire, on 20 March 1779, was son of a farmer who had come under the influence of Wesley. After receiving some education at a free school on the confines of the parishes of Wrangle and Leake, he was apprenticed to a general shopkeeper at Burgh. On the expiration of his term he became assistant in a shop at East Retford, Nottinghamshire, of which he by-and-by became proprietor. Here he began to associate with a small body of congregationalists, for whom he sometimes preached. ”

“ He was buried in the burial-ground attached to the Downend baptist chapel.
Foster held not a few peculiar opinions. He believed that ‘churches are useless and mischievous institutions, and the sooner they are dissolved the better,’ his wish being that ‘religion might be set free as a grand spiritual and moral element, no longer clogged, perverted, and prostituted by corporation forms and principles’ (letter, 10 Sept. 1828) . ”

“ After living little more than a year in Ireland, he went home, but returned to Dublin in 1795 to take charge of a classical and mathematical school, which after eight or nine months he gave up as a failure. His intimacy with some of the violent Dublin democrats exposed him to the imminent danger of imprisonment. ”

“ On leaving the navy he spent some time under Bogue's tuition, and then returned to Edinburgh University, where he remained for two sessions, following up his studies by making ‘the grand tour’ in the spring of 1785. In 1786 he settled down in his ancestral home at Airthrey, where for ten years he led a country life. The outbreak of the French revolution led him to take a keen interest in politics, but his mind became more and more engrossed with religion. ”

“ After graduating B.A. he spent two years as assistant at a school in Repton, Derbyshire, taught by his old master, Whitehead. Then, taking holy orders, he was appointed to the curacy of Norton-in-Hales, Shropshire, where he became acquainted with Sir Rowland Cotton of Bellaport, who appointed him his domestic chaplain, and encouraged him in the study of Hebrew and the cognate languages. When Cotton, shortly afterwards, removed to London, Lightfoot followed him. He next became rector of Stone, Staffordshire, where he remained about two years. ”

“ The first collected edition of Lightfoot's works—all translated into English—was published in London in 1684 (2 vols. fol.) , revised and corrected by George Bright, rector of Loughborough, dedicated to Mary, princess of Orange, and prefaced by a memoir of Lightfoot by John Strype, with an account of Lightfoot's papers. The second volume contains the ‘Horæ,’ which are described as ‘published by the care and industry of John Strype,’ and are specially dedicated to Henry Compton, bishop of London. ”

“ He thus managed to learn Greet and Hebrew, and before he was twenty-five had made some progress in Chaldee, Syriac, Samaritan, Persian, and Hindustani. He married early, and was temporarily compelled to discontinue his studies in order to obtain a better livelihood from his trade. The accidental loss of his tools soon obliged him to seek some new mode of subsistence, and he became teacher in Bowdler's Foundation School, Shrewsbury, giving at the same time private lessons in Persian and Hindustani. ”

“ He continued to minister at Diptford for about six years, succeeding the senior minister when he died, and endearing himself greatly to the people, not only by his earnestness, but by his easy dealings with them in the matter of tithes. In 1656 he removed to Dartmouth, though the Diptford emoluments were much greater. ”

“ He settled down once more to his work at Hurstpierpoint, but on the recovery of his health placed himself once more at the disposal of the Church Missionary Society. Its committee now resolved that the mission churches of Eastern Equatorial Africa should be placed under the superintendence of a bishop. The post was offered to Hannington. He accepted it, and on 24 June 1884 was consecrated at Lambeth. On 5 Nov. following he sailed for Africa again, visiting Palestine on the way, where he was commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury to do confirmation and other duty. ”

“ In 1839 four ministers of the synod of Ulster, of whom Goudy was one, published a reply entitled ‘Presbyterianism Defended, and the Arguments of Modern Advocates of Prelacy examined and refuted.’ The other authors were the Revs. W. D. Killen of Raphoe, afterwards professor of church history in the assembly's college, Belfast, William McClure and James Denham, ministers in Londonderry. ”

“ The climate of Canada, however, did not suit David, and in 1830 he returned to Ireland, and settling down again beside Ballymena, resumed his old occupation of weaving. Before emigrating he had begun to write poetry, and shortly after his return he commenced to send contributions to Belfast newspapers, and to the 'Dublin Penny Journal.' Encouraged by the success of these ventures, he published, in 1841, a volume entitled 'The Fate of McQuillan and O'Neill's Daughter, a Legend of Dunluce, with other Poems,' Belfast, 12mo, which was well received. ”

“ His family were originally congregationalists, but joined the church of England in 1867. At college as at school Hannington was more given to amusement than study. He became captain of the St. Mary Hall boat, and president of the Red Club. In 1870 he read with the Rev. C. Scriven, rector of Martinhoe, Devonshire. In June 1873, after some difficulty, he took his B.A. degree; he proceeded M. A. in 1875, and was created D.D. 31 Oct. 1884. In the following September he was rejected at the Bishop of Exeter's examination, but in the spring of 1874 succeeded, and was ordained deacon at Exeter. ”

“ On applying for priest's orders to the Bishop of Carlisle, with letters dimissory from the Bishop of Bath and Wells, he was, at the instance of the Archbishop of York, refused on account of his irregularities. He continued to preach wherever he could find an audience, in churches, chapels, tabernacles, and the open air, often to immense congregations, and sometimes amid great interruption and violence. ”

“ In 1829 appeared 'The Travels of Ibn Batuta,' translated from the Arabic (cf. Blackwood's Mag. xlix. 592) ; in 1833 a remarkable sermon on 'The Duty of Observing the Christian Sabbath.' in which he maintained that our Sunday is the same day of the week originally blessed as a Sabbath at the creation, the seventh-day Sabbath of the Jews only dating in his opinion from the Exodus. ”

“ Adam Clarke considered Lightfoot to be the first of all English writers in biblical criticism as regards learning, judgment, and usefulness. In his own day his eminence as a Hebrew scholar was recognised abroad, and Frederic Miege, Theodore Haak, J. H. Otho of Berne, Knorr, the Silesian cabbalistic scholar, and the younger Buxtorf, were among his correspondents or visitors. ”

“ A chapel was built for him at Wotton, Gloucestershire, and here he officiated for a part of every year during his life. In 1783 Surrey Chapel, London, was erected for him, and became henceforward the usual scene of his labours. His earnest, eloquent, eccentric preaching attracted large congregations. Attached to the chapel were thirteen Sunday schools, with over three thousand children on their rolls. In 1810 he issued his 'Village Dialogues,' which ran rapidly through several editions. In all the great religious and philanthropic movements of the time Hill look a prominent part. ”

“ George Gilfillan [q. v.] , was born at Comrie, Perthshire, on 11 May 1797, and, having received his early education at a school in his native village, entered Glasgow College in 1808, when only eleven and a half years old. After spending six sessions there he entered the divinity hall of the antiburgher synod in Edinburgh, and in 1821 was licensed by the Edinburgh presbytery of the united secession church. ”

“ In February 1796 he returned once more to Wadsworth Lane, and remained there until early in 1797 he became minister of a general baptist congregation at Chichester. About midsummer 1799 he removed to the house of an early friend, the Rev. Joseph Hughes, at Battersea, where he spent several months in preaching, and teaching twenty black boys whom Zachary Macaulay was training for mission work. In 1800 he took charge of a small congregation at Downend, near Bristol, and in February 1804 of one at Sheppard's Barton, Frome. ”

“ Anastasius was a London tradesman, and Thomas died young. Of the daughters, Joyce married, on 8 Jan. 1655–6, John Duckfield, rector of Aspeden, Hertfordshire; and Sarah became wife of a Staffordshire gentleman named Colclough.
He bequeathed his oriental books to Harvard College in America, where they were burnt in 1769. Many of his papers passed to his son-in-law, Duckfield, who communicated them to John Strype.
Lightfoot holds a very high rank among Hebrew scholars. ”