MAY, SAMUEL J. 



. MELVILL, HENRY. 



495 



Mr. "Washburn's majority over all competitors 

 was 1.3,465, and over the Democratic nominee, 

 27,404. 



MAY, Rev. SAMUEL JOSEPH, an American 

 clergyman, reformer, and philanthropist, born 

 in Boston, in 1798; died in Syracuse, N. Y., 

 July 1, 1871. He received his early education 

 in the Boston schools, entered Harvard Col- 

 lege at fifteen years of age, and graduated in 

 1817; studied divinity in the Cambridge Di- 

 vinity School, and in 1822 settled as a Unitarian 

 minister at Brooklyn, Conn. He elirly became 

 interested in the antislavery cause, and, leav- 

 ing his pastorate in 1829 or 1830, entered upon 

 active efforts for its promotion. In 1830, 

 he was mobbed in Syracuse and burnt in 

 effigy for advocating the doctrine of imme- 

 diate emancipation, and for several years sub- 

 sequently his life was often in danger from the 

 persons who dogged his steps and stirred up 

 u lewd fellows of the baser sort" to attack 

 him whenever he addressed public audiences. 

 Yet no kinder, gentler soul ever advocated 

 any measure of public reform. His love and 

 pity for those excited persons were very 

 touching, and in time, though it took long 

 years, he came to be loved and esteemed by 

 the entire community as few men ever have 

 been. He was one of the earliest members 

 of the New-England Antislavery Society, 

 formed in 1832, the first association ever or- 

 ganized in this country upon the principle of 

 immediate, in distinction from gradual, eman- 

 cipation. "When Prudence Crandall, a Quaker, 

 was persecuted and proscribed for admitting 

 colored girls to her school for young ladies at 

 Canterbury, Conn., in 1833, Mr. May was her 

 devoted and chivalrous defender. The late 

 Arthur Tappan, then a prosperous merchant 

 of New York, supplied him with the money 

 necessary for the prosecution of this war with 

 the spirit of caste, which at that time domi- 

 nated at the North scarcely less than at the 

 South. He was a member of the Philadelphia 

 Convention of 1833 which formed the Ameri- 

 can Antislavery Society, and his name is 

 among those appended to the noted "Dec- 

 laration of Sentiments," penned by Garrison, 

 and then adopted. Soon afterward, he left 

 the pulpit to become the General Agent of the 

 Massachusetts Antislavery Society a place 

 for which, by the singular union of gentleness 

 with courage that was ever the most distin- 

 guished trait of his character, he was pre- 

 eminently fitted. A few years afterward he 

 accepted a call to the pastorate of the Unita- 

 rian Church in South Scituate, Mass. In or 

 about 1842, at the earnest solicitation of 

 Horace Mann, he again left the pulpit, to take 

 charge of the Girls' Normal School at Lexing- 

 ton. As a teacher he was very successful, 

 winning the esteem and confidence of his 

 pupils, and awakening in them the high aspi- 

 rations which are the surest defence against 

 youthful frivolity and temptation. In 1845 he 

 again returned to the pulpit, accepting a call 



to the pastorate of the Unitarian Society in 

 Syracuse. There the remainder of his life was 

 passed, and he was identified with every move- 

 ment for the moral, intellectual, and social 

 improvement of the people, and came to b.o 

 regarded as the leading spirit in every measure 

 of benevolence. In all matters of education 

 he was very active, and to him, as much as to 

 any man in Syracuse, it is due that its public 

 schools are so successful and maintain so high 

 a character. He welcomed the establishment 

 of the Asylum for the Instruction of Idiotic 

 Children there, in an address of great elo- 

 quence and pathos. In 1868, having reached 

 his seventieth year, he resigned his pastorate, 

 but busied himself with missionary labors till 

 his death. He had published several occa- 

 sional sermons, addresses, essays, etc., and in 

 1868 a volume entitled " Recollections of the 

 Antislavery Conflict." 



MoPHAIL, Rev. GEORGE WILSON, D. D., 

 LL.D., an American clergyman and teacher, 

 born in Virginia about 1815 ; died at Davidson 

 College, N. C., June 28, 1871. He was edu- 

 cated at Yale College, from which he gradu- 

 ated in 1835, studied theology at Princeton, 

 and in 1840 was ordained pastor of a Pres- 

 byterian church in Fredericksburg, Va. After 

 several years in the pastorate he was called to 

 the presidency of Lafayette College, Easton, 

 Pa. The college was then struggling for ex- 

 istence, and, while Dr. McPhail did all that 

 could be done to increase its efficiency and 

 enlarge its endowments, he was compelled 

 eventually to relinquish the effort, and con- 

 nected himself for some years with Rev. Dr. 

 Saunders's Presbyterian Institute in West Phil- 

 adelphia. His sympathies drew him south- 

 ward at the commencement of the war, and 

 after various experiences he was called to the 

 presidency of Davidson College, N. 0., about 

 1866. He received the degree of D. D. from 

 Jefferson College, Pa., in 1857, and that of 

 LL. D. from the University of Mississippi in 

 1868. He was a man of decided ability and 

 of high mental culture, unassuming in man- 

 ners, a true gentleman and a true friend. 



MELVILL, Rev. HENRY, B. D., Canon of St. 

 Paul's, an eminent English clergyman and pul- 

 pit orator, born at Pendennis Castle, Septem- 

 ber 14, 1798; died in London, February 9, 

 1871. His father was a captain in the Royal 

 Army, and Lieutenant- Governor for some years 

 of Pendennis Castle. The son was educated 

 at St. Peter's College, Cambridge, where he 

 graduated B. A. in 1821, as second wrangler 

 and first Smith's prizeman, and soon after be- 

 came a Fellow and tutor. From 1829 to 1843 

 he was minister of Camden Chapel, Camber- 

 well, London ; was appointed Principal of East 

 India College, Haileybury, in 1843, which of- 

 fice he held until 1858 or 1859, and by the late 

 Duke of "Wellington chaplain to the Tower of 

 London in 1846, and incumbent of the church 

 within its precincts ; soon after (probably in 

 1848) he was elected to the Golden Lecture- 



