American educator, born in Williamsburg, MA, on the 13th of March 1833; graduated at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, in 1853; became a minister in the Methodist Conference in 1855; and afterward studied theology at Andover, Berlin and Halle. After traveling in the East, he was appointed, in 1861, professor of systematic theology in the Methodist Mission Theological Institute in Bremen, Germany, in 1866 in the Boston Theological Seminary, and in 1873 president of the Boston University. He was appointed a member of the American committee for the revision of the New Testament, but did not serve. He was the author of two works, in German, on logic and theology. Among his other writings are True Key to Ancient Cosmology and Mythological Geography (1882); Paradise Found: The Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole; A Study of the Prehistoric World (1885); In the Footsteps of Arminius (1888); The Story of Gottlieb (1891); Constitutional Law Questions in the Methodist Episcopal Church (1894). His Quest of the Perfect Religion (1887) was translated into many languages, and largely contributed to the success of the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893.
