Wilson, Daniel, Dd

Wilson, Daniel, D.D.

a colonial bishop of the Church of England, was born in Spitalfields, London, in 1778. Destined by his parents for trade, he was apprenticed at fourteen to his uncle, a silk merchant. He was then a giddy boy; but in 1797 he was converted, and determined to abandon trade. In 1798 he entered St. Edward's Hall, Oxford, where he graduated A.B. in 1802, and A.M. in 1804.. -He had previously been ordained in 1801, and began his ministry in that year as curate to Mr. Cecil in Chobham. "In 1803 he was appointed to a tutorship at Oxford, where he remained for about eight years and a half, during which time he was first curate of Worton, and then of St. John's Chapel, London, where he remained until the year 1824. He then became vicar of Islington, discharging the duties of that office until 1832, when, on the death of Dr. Turner, bishop of Calcutta, he was appointed his successor, and from that time to his death, in 1858, he was devoted to the arduous and indefatigable labors for the promotion of Christianity in India, which have made his name conspicuous in the history of missions. Bishop Wilson was a man of studious habits and solid learning, with little respect for forms or ceremonies, compared with inward experience; destitute of the elegant culture and graceful address of Heber, one of his most distinguished predecessors, he was stern in purpose and explicit in speech. His energy in the discharge of duty was almost without a parallel. Social in his disposition, fond of conversation, and exercising a generous hospitality, he appears to have had few attachments and intimacies. Free from worldliness, from every trace of self-indulgence, from all duplicity and guile, he found his highest glory in the progress of the faith; and in his zeal, courage, firmness, and self-devotion, must be regarded as a model of the missionary bishop." In theology he belonged to the evangelical party of the Church of England -the earnest school of Newton, Hill, and Cecil. He died at Calcutta, Jan. 2, 1858. A copious biography is furnished in Bateman's Life of Bishop Wilson (Lond. 1860, 2 vols. 8vo; Boston, 1860, 8vo). Besides occasional sermons, charges, etc., he published Sermons (5th ed. ibid. 1826, 8vo): — Evidences of Christianity (4th ed. ibid. 1841, 2 vols. 12mo): — Divine Authority of the Lord's Day (ibid. 1831, 12mo; 3d ed. 1840): Sermons Preached in India (ibid. 1838, 8vo): — Lectures on Colossians (ibid. 1845, 8vo): — Tour on the Continent (1825, 2 vols. 8vo). See Life, by Bateman; London Rev. July, 1860, p. 470; Amer. Ch. Rev. 1858, 2, 177.