22 



ALLEN, WILLIAM. 



second President of Dartmouth College. In 

 1816 the Legislature of New Hampshire al- 

 tered the charter of Dartmouth College and 

 made it a university, of which Dr. Allen was 

 in 1817 appointed President, as successor to 

 his father-in-law. "When the legislation of the 

 State of New Hampshire in the famous " Dart- 

 mouth College Case" was annulled in 1819, 

 by the Supreme Court of the United States, 

 and the rights of the college were maintained, 

 Dr. Allen was appointed President of Bow- 

 doin College, in which office he served from 

 1820 till 1839, when he resigned and removed 

 to Northampton. In 1831 he was subjected 

 to serious embarrassment in his official rela- 

 tions in consequence of certain acts of the 

 Maine Legislature, touching colleges, which 

 virtually took from him the office of President 

 for about two years ; but the subsequent ac- 

 tion of the Supreme Court restored him to his 

 place, and he continued to discharge his duties 

 with all fidelity, till impaired health rendered 

 a change necessary. 



During his residence at Northampton, a 

 period of nearly thirty years, .he was constantly 

 engaged in literary pursuits, but for some 

 years preached occasionally in that and the ad- 

 jacent towns. In all the benevolent enter- 

 prises of the day he was actively interested, es- 

 pecially in the cause of foreign missions, being 

 a corporate member of the American Board, 

 and the senior member of that body at the 

 time of his death. He was an earnest advocate 

 of peace, and represented the American Peace 

 Society at the International Peace Congress, 

 which assembled at Paris in 1849. He de- 

 fended the rights of the African race through- 

 out the world. He believed in the utility of 

 planting colonies of free colored emigrants in 

 Africa, as a means of redressing the unutter- 

 able wrongs done to that quarter of the globe 

 by Christian nations, while he favored the 

 speediest possible emancipation of every slave 

 on earth. He was a careful observer of public 

 affairs and political parties. He sympathized 

 warmly with every token of progress in the anti- 

 slavery movement of the present century, his 

 memory covering the whole period of its his- 

 tory. His labors as a student and author were 

 such as few men have been able to perform, and 

 were undoubtedly too great for his health. He 

 was an elegant classical scholar, and well versed 

 in physical science, his knowledge of mineralogy 

 and botany in particular being very thorough. 

 Few men were more completely masters of 

 English politics, history, and literature, than 

 he, while his familiarity with modern lan- 

 guages enabled him to comprehend and enjoy 

 the politics and literature of the Continental 

 nations. In 1832 he published a revised and 

 enlarged edition of his American Biographical 

 Dictionary, in which the number of biographi- 

 cal sketches exceeded eighteen hundred, and 

 in 1857 he issued a third revision, including 

 seven thousand names. The preparation of 

 such a work, involving as it did an immense 



ALLIANCE, EVANGELICAL. 



correspondence, was itself the sufficient labor 

 of a lifetime ; but Dr. Allen's intellectual ac- 

 tivity enabled him to accomplish a vast amount 

 of additional labor. In 1828 he published an 

 elaborate essay entitled " Junius Unmasked, 1 ' 

 in which he attempted to demonstrate that Lord 

 Sackville was Junius. In 1845 appeared his 

 "Memoirs of Eev. Eleazar Wheelock, D. D.," 

 the first President of Dartmouth College; in 

 1848 his Historical Discourse at Dorchester, 

 on the Fortieth Anniversary of the Second 

 Church; in 1853 a "Memoir of John Codman, 

 D. D.;" in 1854 an "Address at the Close of the 

 Second Century since the Settlement of North- 

 ampton; " in 1856, " Wunnipoo, a Tale of the 

 Hoosatunnuk ; " in 1860, " Christian Sonnets; " 

 in 1866, " Poems of Nazareth and the Cross ; " 

 and in 1867, " Sacred Songs." In addition to 

 these, he had compiled a collection of "Psalms 

 and Hymns," many of the latter original, long 

 in use in Massachusetts ; contributed at va- 

 rious times to Webster's Dictionary more than 

 ten thousand words not found in other diction- 

 aries of the English language, and had pub- 

 lished at various times thirty-five other ser- 

 mons, addresses, essays, and extended poems, 

 besides numerous contributions to the Panoplist 

 and other periodicals. "He was," says an in- 

 timate friend, " a thorough gentleman of the 

 old school, a devout Christian, an old-fashioned 

 New-England theologian, an antislavery re- 

 publican, a wide and faithful student of New- 

 England history, and a good and warm-hearted 

 laborer in every true word and work." 



ALLIANCE, EVANGELICAL.* At the general 

 meeting of the Evangelical Alliance, held at 

 Amsterdam, in 1867, an invitation was presented 

 on behalf of the American branch, to hold the 

 next meeting in New York. The invitation 

 was favorably received, and a desire was 

 generally expressed to hold the next meeting 

 after a shorter interval than usual. The Brit- 

 ish branch, in particular, urgently recom- 

 mended the holding of the next meeting in 

 the year 1869. At a meeting held in London 

 on July 8th, a series of resolutions to that effect 

 was adopted assigning, among others, the fol- 

 lowing considerations, as having influenced 

 their opinion : 



1. The Council have rejoiced much in the laudable 

 readiness which has been of late manifested on both 

 sides of the Atlantic to seize upon every occurrence 

 in the ordinary course of Providence, that might be 

 improved for the purpose, to elicit the kind and gen- 

 erous sentiments cherished by the people of the two 

 countries toward each other ; and they cannot but think 

 that the Alliance will be wise to take advantage of 

 this state of public feeling, and by holding their 

 meeting sooner, perhaps, than was at first contem- 

 plated, contribute all the more certainly, under the 

 divine blessing, to strengthen and render it perma- 

 nent. 



2. The Council cannot look without anxiety on the 

 state of the European Continental nations, and the 

 many causes which, unless restrained by the Almighty 

 arm, may in an unexpected moment disturb the pres- 



* For a brief history of the Evangelical Alliance, see 

 the ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA for 1867. 



