The patron of the sect of the Moravians, was born at Dresden, in May, 1700. He studied at Halle and Utrecht. About the year 1721, he purchased the lordship of Bertholdsdorf, in Lusatia. Some poor Christians, the followers of John Huss, obtained leave, in 1722, to settle on his estate. They soon made converts. Such was the origin of the village of Herrnhut. Their noble patron soon after joined them.
From this period Count Zinzendorf devoted himself to the business of instructing his fellow-men by his writings and by [pg 384] preaching. He travelled through Germany, and in Denmark became acquainted with the Danish missions in the East Indies and Greenland. About 1732, he engaged earnestly in the promotion of missions by his Moravian brethren, whose numbers at Herrnhut were then about five hundred. So successful were these missions, that in a few years four thousand negroes were baptized in the West Indies, and the converts in Greenland amounted to seven hundred and eighty-four.
In 1737, he visited London, and, in 1741, came to America, and preached at Germantown and Bethlehem. February 11, 1742, he ordained at Oly, in Pennsylvania, the missionaries Rauch and Buettner, and Rauch baptized three Indians from Shekomeco, east of the Hudson, “the firstlings of the Indians.” He soon, with his daughter, Benigna, and several brethren and sisters, visited various tribes of Indians. At Shekomeco he established the first Indian Moravian congregation in North America. In 1743, he returned to Europe. He died at Herrnhut, in 1760, and his coffin was carried to the grave by thirty-two preachers and missionaries, whom he had reared, and some of whom had toiled in Holland, England, Ireland, North America, and Greenland. What monarch was ever honored by a funeral like this?
William Courtney.
Archbishop of Canterbury, the fourth son of Hugh Courtney, earl of Devonshire, by Margaret, granddaughter of Edward I. He was educated at Oxford, and, though possessed of abilities, owed his elevation in the church to the consequence of his family. When twenty-eight, he was made bishop of Hereford, and afterwards translated to London, where he summoned before him the great Wickliffe, in St. Paul's Cathedral, 1377. The bold reformer was on this occasion attended by his friends John of Gaunt and Lord Percy, who, in supporting his tenets, treated the prelate with such asperity, that a tumult was excited among the citizens [pg 385] of London. Courtney was made chancellor, 1381, and afterwards raised to the see of Canterbury. He was a violent persecutor of the Wickliffites, and condemned their tenets in a synod. He died at Maidstone, 1396, aged 55.
Richard Hooker.
An eminent divine of the church of England, was born in 1553, at Heavitree, near Exeter, and, under the patronage of Bishop Jewel, was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he was distinguished for his piety and exemplary conduct. An unhappy marriage, which he contracted before he was thirty, with a scold who had neither beauty, money, nor manners, lost him his college fellowship, and was a fertile source of annoyance to him. In 1585, he was made master of the Temple; but, weary of disputes with the afternoon lecturer,—a violent Presbyterian,—and longing for rural retirement, he relinquished this preferment, and obtained the rectory of Bishop's Bourne, in Kent, at which he resided till his decease, in 1600. His great work is the treatise on “Ecclesiastical Polity;” of which Pope Clement VIII. said, “There are in it such seeds of eternity as will continue till the last fire shall devour all learning.”