Law, George Henry, D.D.. an English divine, second son of Edmund Law. D.D.. was born in 1761. He became l)ishoii of Chester in 1812, and of Bath and Wells in 1824. He died in 1845. Bishop Law publish- ed a- number of his Sermons, for a Ust of whicli, and a biographical notice of the author, see the London Gent. Mag. 1845, pt. ii, p. 529. — ^Vllibone, Diet. Brit, and A mer. Authors, vol. ii, s. v.
Law, Isaac, a minister of the Laiited Presbyterian Church, was born Sept. 5. 1815. at Salem, N.York, was educated at Union College (class of 1838), and became shortly after a student of theology at Canousburg, I'a.,
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and was licensed March 26, 1840. In 1842 he was or- dained missionary by tlie East Salem Presbytery, and labored in this capacity untij 1847, when he was ordain- ed pastor at Cambridge. He died Jan. 28, ISGl. Law '■proved himself 'a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.' ... As a minister, in the discharge of every public and private duty of religion he was exact, fixed, and regular." — Wilson, Presh. Hist. A Imaiiac, 1862, p. 22. Lavr, Joseph, a Methodist minister, was born in Washington C^ouiity, N. Y., Oct. 10, 1798 ; was converted in 1815, and admitted into the New York Conference in 1830, after eight years' service as a local preacher. Al- though he had not enjoyed the advantages of early ed- ucation, he soon, by unwearied perseverance, fitted him- self for usefulness in the ministry, and quickly gained distinction among his ministerial brethren and among the ])eoi)le, and he was honored with some of the best appointments in the Conference. He was for many years confined in his labors to the cities of New York and Brooklyn, and New Haven (First and Second Church) and Hartford. In the city of Brooklyn he wa# instrumental in the building of five large churches. He was superannuated in 1861, and died June 11, 1803. On his dying bed he frequently reciuested the sorrowing friends around him to sing; and a little before his spirit departed, as they were singing one of his favorite hymns — " On Jordan's stormy banks I stand," etc. — his eye kindled with rapture, and he gave the whispered as- surance, "All is well." — Smith, Sacred Memories, p. 243.
Law, Samuel "Warren, a Methodist minister, the son of the IJev. Joseph Law (q. v.), was born at Marlborough, Ulster County, N. Y., November, 1821, was converted in his fourteenth year, and in 1841 entered the itinerancy. He had many excellences, and was an able and successfid minister. His death, which occurred April 28, 1857, was such as his life had promised — calm, confiding, and peacefid. — Smith, Sac. Memories, p. 230.
LaTV, "William, an eminent English nonjuring di- vine and able religious writer of the mystic school of the last century, was born at Kingscliffe, Northampton- shire, in 1686, and educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he took his degree of M.A. in 1712, and became fellow in 1713. Shortly after this he began to preach, but was obliged to quit tlie ministry, and also to give up his fellowship, on the accession of George I in 1714, because of his refusal to take the required oath. He now became tutor to his relative and friend, Edward Gibbon, father of the historian, who s]ieaks of his piety and talents with unusual warmth. Later, two of his friends. Miss Hester Gibbon, sister of his pupil, and Mrs. Hutcheson, widow of a London barrister, having resolved to retire from the world, and devote themselves to works of charity and a religious life, selected Law for their al- moner and instructor. He accepted the position, and the three parties settled in a house at Kingscliffe, where Law died, April 9, 1761. Law's writings are tinged with what is commonly called mysticism, as he became an ardent follower of the noted mystic, Jacob Bohme. His princiijal work, and, indeed, one of the best books of the kind, is his Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1729), a treatise that first awakened the religious sensibilities of Ur. Samuel Johnson, who speaks of it in high "terms, and from which the brothers Wesley also derived much advantage. Next to the Serious Call, his most important works are his answer to Mande- ville's Fublc of Uie Bees (published in 1724 ; republished, with an introduction by the Kev. F. D. Maurice, in 1844), his letters to the bishop of Bangor, The Way to Knoicl- etlye, and The Spirit of Love. A collective edition of his works was published at London in 9 vols. 8vo in 1762. It has fallen to the lot of but few English Avrit- ers to elicit such general comment and commendation as has l)cen the fortune of William Law. The rationalistic Gilibon, the liberal Macaulay, the pious John Weslej-, and the morose Sam. Johnson, all were of one mind in their praise of William Law. Sec Eichard Tighe, Life
and Writiriffs of William Law> (1813, 8vo) ; Lond. Gent. May. vol. Ixx ; Theol. Eclectic, Jan. 1868 ; Contempora?!/ Review, Oct., 1867; Christian Examiner, 1869, p. 157; Chambers, Cyclop, s. v. ; AUibone, Diet, of British and A merican A uthors, ii, 1065 sq.
Lavrn Sleeves. See Eochette.
Lavrrence, Abbott, an eminent American mer- chant and philanthropist, was born at Groton, Mass., in 1792 ; was elected to Congress in 1839, and in 1843 was appointed commissioner to settle the north-east bound- ary question with Great Britain ; United States' minister to England in 1849 ; and died in 1855. Among his nu- merous and munificent donations was that of $100,000 to Harvard University, to found the scientific school called by his name. He also beciueathed the sum of |;50,000 towards erecting model lodging-houses. — Thom- as, Bioy. Did. p. 1384.