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EERESFORD, J. G. 



BETHUNE, G. W. 



cited them to rebuild their schoolhouses and 

 improve their schools, contributing largely of 

 his own means to aid them in these objects. 

 In this way ho opened and restored 120 dis- 

 trict schools, and aided by Dr. Gilly, then 

 dean of Durham, and other friends in England, 

 set himself to improve the parochial schools 

 and to enlarge the college and divinity school 

 at Torre. In 1846, encouraged by the liberal 

 policy of Charles Albert, he determined to at- 

 tempt the nationalization of the Waldensian 

 Church. The "Waldensians had since 1C20 

 spoken French, and used it in their schools 

 and religious services. He determined to en- 

 courage the use of Italian in both school and 

 pulpit, and for this purpose sent six young 

 pastors to Florence to acquire the pure Tuscan 

 dialect. This accomplished, they taught the 

 teachers of the schools in the valleys, and in 

 about two years the people became sufficiently 

 conversant with the language to attend relig- 

 ious services in it. In 1848 permission was 

 given to erect a Waldensian church or chapel 

 at Turin, and Gen. Beck with raised a sum suf- 

 ficient to build a tasteful edifice on the Viale 

 do Ee, and thenceforward made Turin his win- 

 ter residence, though his summers were spent 

 in the valleys visiting his schools and acting as 

 the father of the people. Late in life he mar- 

 ried an intelligent and amiable "Waldensian 

 damsel. For a few years past he had spent 

 some months at Calais for his health, but find- 

 ing his end approaching he hastened back to 

 Torre to lay his bones among his beloved Wal- 

 densians. 



BERESFORD, Right Hon. and Most Rev. 

 LORD Jonx GEORGE, Archbishop of Armagh, 

 Primate of all Ireland and Metropolitan, and 

 Chancellor of the University of Dublin, born 

 November 22, 1773, died at Auburn, County 

 Down, Ireland, July 18, 1862. He was the 

 second son of George, first Marquis of Water- 

 ford, and was educated at Eton and afterward 

 at Christ Church, Oxford. He was appointed 

 dean of Clogher in 1801, and in 1805 conse- 

 crated bishop of Cork. In 1807 he was trans- 

 lated to the see of Raphoe, in 1819 to that of 

 Clogher, in 1820 to the archbishopric of Dub- 

 lin, and in 1822 to the archiepiscopal see of 

 Armagh and the primacy of Ireland. In 1821 

 he succeeded Lord Manners as vice-chancellor 

 of the University of Dublin, and in 1851, on 

 the death of the King of Hanover, was elected 

 chancellor. He was a man of noble, command- 

 ing, and dignified person, of excellent judg- 

 ment and discretion, of genial affectionate dis- 

 position, of remarkable equanimity of temper, 

 and of a most generous and liberal nature. He 

 endowed the observatory of Armagh ; founded 

 a professorship in the University of Dublin, and 

 built the campanile for it at a cost of 3,000 ; 

 gave nearly 6,000 to the college of St. Colum- 

 ba near Dublin, restored the cathedral church 

 of Armagh at a cost of 30,000, sustained its 

 church service in the highest condition, and 

 made large contributions to the public library, 



the royal school, and for forty years con*rib- 

 uted 400 a year for the church education 

 schools of Armagh. His private charities, 

 never ostentatious in their character, and often 

 unknown except to their recipients, amounted, 

 it has been ascertained since his death, to over 

 2,000 per annum. At his death, men of all 

 denominations, even including the Roman 

 Catholic Primate, united in doing the last hon- 

 ors to his remains. 



BETHUNE, GEORGE W., D. D., an American 

 clergyman of the Reformed Protestant Dutch 

 Church, born in the city of New York in 1805, 

 died in Florence, Italy, April 27, 1862. He 

 was the son of Divie Bethune, a New York 

 merchant, distinguished alike for his eminent 

 business abilities and his unaffected piety and 

 philanthropy. His mother was the daughter 

 of the saintly Isabella Graham, whose memory 

 is embalmed in so many of the charitable insti- 

 tutions of New York. His youth was passed 

 in his native city, but at an early age he enter- 

 ed Dickinson College, Carlisle, Penn., of which 

 his father's former pastor, the eloquent John 

 M. Mason, D. D., had then recently become 

 president. Young Bethune's college career 

 was marked by no special incidents, and he at- 

 tained no great distinction as a scholar. But 

 near the close of his college course he became 

 the subject of a religious change, and soon after 

 graduating determined upon studying theology. 

 He accordingly entered Princeton theological 

 seminary in 1822, and after completing his 

 course was ordained as a Presbyterian minister 

 in 1825, having just completed his 20th year. 

 He accepted an appointment about the same 

 time as chaplain to seamen in the port of Sa- 

 vannah. In 1826 he returned to the North, 

 and transferred his ecclesiastical relations to 

 the Reformed Dutch Church, settling soon 

 after at Rhinebeck, N. Y., where he remained 

 four years, when he was called to the pastorate 

 of the First Reformed Dutch church in Utica. 

 In 1834 his reputation as an eloquent preacher 

 and an efficient pastor led to his receiving a 

 call from a Reformed Dutch church in Phila- 

 delphia, which, after deliberation, he accepted. 

 He remained in that city till 1848, and was 

 greatly esteemed as a preacher and a thorough 

 and critical "belles-lettres scholar. In 1848 the 

 "Reformed Dutch Church on the Heights" 

 in Brooklyn, N. Y., was organized, and Dr. 

 Bethune was earnestly solicited to become its 

 pastor. He consented, and its beautiful church 

 edifice was erected under his own eye. For 

 eleven years he continued in the pastorate of 

 this church, but in 1859 his impaired health 

 led him to resign and visit Italy. While resid- 

 ing at Rome he had charge of the American 

 chapel, at that time the only Protestant place 

 of worship in the " Eternal City." He return- 

 ed in 1860 with his health materially improved, 

 and was for some months associate pastor of a 

 Reformed Dutch church in New York city ; 

 but his health again becoming impaired he re- 

 turned to Italy in the summer of 1861, and 



