Beverley, John of, a celebrated English ecclesi- astic of the 7th and 8th centuries. He was one of the first scholars of his age, having been instructed in the learned languages by Theodore, archbishop of Canter- bury, and he was himself tutor of the Venerable Bedc.
The following works arc attributed to him : 1. Pro Lucd Etponendo, an essay toward an exposition of St. Luke, addressed to Bede :— 2. Homilice in Evangelia: — 3. Epistolce ad Herebaldum, Andenum, it Bertinum:— 4. Epistoloe ad Holdam Abbatissam. He was advanced to the see of Haguetold, or Hexham, by Alfred, king of Northumberland ; and on the death of Bosa, arch- bishop of York, in G87, he was translated to the vacant see. In 704 he founded a college at Beverley for sec- ular priests. In 717 he retired from his archiepiscopal functions to Beverley, where he died, May 7th, 721. — Fuller, Worthies; Engl. Cyclopedia.
Bewitch signifies to deceive and lead astray by juggling tricks and pretended charms (Acts viii, 9, 11), where the Greek verb jgun-tyxi means literally to put out of one's self, to be out of one's mind. See Simon (Magus). The word used by the apostle, in the pas- sage Gal. iii, 1, "O foolish Gal.itians, who bath be- witched you ?" is fiaaKaivw, which may be understood to mislead by pretences, as if by magic arts, to fascinate. See Sorcery.
Whan Christianity was first promulgated, the nations under the dominion of the Romans, which comprehend- ed the larger part of the civilized world, were greatly addicted to mysterious practices, supposing that thera existed in nature certain influences which they could control and manage by occult signs, expressed in dif- ferent ways and on different materials, and among the nations niost notorious for these opinions were the Jews and th2 Egyptians. It is not, therefore, surpris- ing that some should hive brought with them and en- grafted on Christianity such opinions and practices as they had formerly entertained. Accordingly, we see that the apostles found it necessary very early to guard their converts against such persons, cautioning them to avoid "profane and vain babblings and oppositions of science, falsely so called" (1 Tim. vi, 20); and in several other passages there are evident allusions to similar errors among the first professors of Christiani- ty. Nordic! the evil cease as the doctrines of the Gospel expanded themselves : a number of persons in succes- sion, for two centuries afterward, are recorded as dis- tinguished leaders of these wild opinions, who mixed up the sacred truths of the Gospel with the fantastic imaginations of a visionary science. See Possessed (with a Devil) ; Superstition.
Bewley, Anthony, one of the Methodist anti- slaverv martyrs of America, was born in Tennefsee, May 22, 1804. In 1829 be was admitted on trial for the' Methodist ministry in the Tennessee Conference, and in 1843 he entered the Missouri Conference. On the division of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844 on the slavery question, Mr. Bewley refused to join the Missouri' Conference in its secession, and preached for several years independently, supporting himself and his family by the labor of his own hands. Other preachers, faithful to the Church, gathered about him, and he was, by common consent, their "presid- ing elder." In 1848 the Methodist Episcopal Church in Missouri was reorganized, and Mr. Bewley entered its service. Persecution of the "abolitionist" preach- ers sprang up every where in the South-west, foment- ed by politicians of the slaveholding class. But Mr. Bewley held on his way, and in 1858 was appointed to Texas. He was compelled by violence to leave his work, but returned to it in 1860. His friends sought to dissuade him, but bis reply was to all, ':Let them hang or burn me on my return if they choose, hun- dred" will rise up out of my ashes." Accordingly he and his family, including his two sons-in-law, one of whom lived in Kansas and the other in Missouri, re- turned to Texas. Within a few weeks an increased excitement broke out, when he was threatened anew bv the people, and he concluded to leave Texas, be. lfeving he could do no good there ; for. as mob law had been established by the Legislature, he remember- ed the injunction of our Lord, "When they persecute
BEWRAY
T94
BEZA
you in one city, flee to another." After his departure
a reward of ^1 » was offered for his capture. He
D in Missouri in September, 1860, and carried back to Texas, and hanged on a tree at Fort Worth by the mob, on Sept. 13,1860.— Methodist Quarterly Review, Oct. 1863, p. 626.
Bewray (in Isa. xvi, 3, nbs, galah', to reveal, or disclose, as elsewhere rendered ; in Prov. xxix, 24, IM, nagad', to tell, as elsewhere ; in Prov. xxvii, 16, SO£, torn', to call, i. e. proclaim, as elsewhere; in Matt. xx\ i, 73, woikw 5rj\ov, to make < v \l< nt), an old English Word equivalent to "betray."
Bexley, Lord (Nicholas Vaxsittart), was the son of Henry Vansittart, Esq., governor of Bengal. He was born April 29, 17G6, was educated at Oxford, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1791. He entered Parliament for Hastings in 1796. In 1801 he was sent to Denmark as minister plenipotentiary, and alter his return he was appointed secretary of the treasury in Ireland, and in 1805 secretary to the lord lieutenant, and also a member of the Privy Council. He was chancellor of the exchequer under Lord Liv- erpool until January, 1823, when he was raised to the peerage under the 'title of Lord Bexley, of Bexley, Kent. Lord Bexley was a constant supporter of many «f the great religious institutions of our. age. He was a liberal contributor to the Religious Tract Society, and his services to the British and Foreign Bible So- ciety, especially amid its early difficulties, were of pre- eminent value. On the decease of Lord Teignmouth, February, 1834, he was chosen by the unanimous vote of the committee President of the Bible Society, an office which he held until his death in 1850, giving constant attention to the interests of the institution. A few weeks before his decease he presented to it a donation of £1000.— Timpson, Bible Triumphs, p. 379.