Megapolensis, Joannes, a minister of the (Dutch) Reformed Church, was the second clergyman sent out by the Classis of Amsterdam to this country, under the patronage of the Dutch West India Company and the patroon Van Rensselaer (in 1642). He was also the frst missionarij to the Didiaiis, preceding the cele-
brated " apostle to the Indians," John Eliot, some three years. His original family name was Van Mekelen- BURG, which, after the pedantic fashion of the age, was Hellenized into Megapolensis. Leaving his two congre- gations in Holland, he engaged with the patroon to serve for six years, his outfit and expenses of removal to be paid, and at a salary of eleven hundred guilders per year (|i440). In addition to the usual duties of a missionary pastor at an outpost of civilization, like Rensselaerwyck, he soon interested himself in the Indians who came thither to trade, and learned what he called "their heavy language" so as to speak and preach fluently in it. The early records of the First Reformed Church in Albany contain many names of Indians converted, bap- tized, and received into the communion of the Church under his labors. Thus completely were the home and foreign missionary work and spirit combined in this apostolic man. In 1644 he wrote a tract (which was published in 1651 in Holland) on the Mohawk Indians in New Netherlands (now translated in the New York Historical Society's Collections, vol. ii, series i, p. 158). While our subject was residing in Albany, the celebrated Jesuit missionary, father Isaac Jogues, was captured on the St. Lawrence by the Mohawks, and subjected to horrible cruelties by the savages. The Dutch at Fort Orange tried to ransom him. At length, escaping from his captors, he remained in close concealment for six weeks. During this time Megapolensis was his con- stant friend, and rendered him every kindness that vras in his power. The Jesuit father was at length ran- somed by the Dutch, and sent to Manhattan, whence he returned to Europe. But in 1646 he came back again to Canada, and revisited the Jlohawks, who put him to a cruel death. Another Jesuit, father Simon le Bloyne, who discovered the salt springs at Onondaga in 1654, also became intimate with the dominie of Fort Orange, and wrote " three polemical essays" to convert his " Dutch clerical friend to the Romish doctrine." But the stanch minister wrote a' vigorous and elaborate replj', which, however, was lost in the wreck of the ship by which he sent it to Canada. At the close of his stipulated term of service Megapolensis proposed to return to Holland, but governor Stuyvesant persuaded him to remain in New Amsterdam (now New York) as pastor of the Dutch Church. Here, for twenty years, he labored as senior pastor, being assisted from 16(U to 1668 by his son Sam- uel. He died in 1670, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, retaining his pastoral relation to the last. "He was a man of thorough scholarship, energetic charac- ter, and devoted piety, and he is entitled to a high, if not pre-eminent position in the roll of earlj' Protestant missionaries among the North American savages. For nearly a quarter of a century he exercised a marked in- fluence in the affairs of New Netherlands. He saw the infancy of the Dutch province, watched its growth, and witnessed its surrender to overpowering English force. His name must ever be associated with the early his- tory of New York, towards the illustration of which his correspondence with the Classis of Amsterdam, now in the possession of the General Synod of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, and his sketch of the Mo- hawk Indians, form original and very valuable contribu- tions."— Hon. J. Romeyn Brodhead, in the A'^. Y. Hist, Society's Coll. vol. iii ; Rev. E. P. Rogers, D.D., Histori- cal Discourse ; Sprague, A minis, vol. ix. (W. J. Hi T.) Megapolensis, Samuel, son of the above, was born in l('io4. and was educated at Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass., where he spent three years ; after- wards went to the University of Utrecht, Holland, and there he graduated in 1659, having pursued a full theo- logical course. He next went to Leyden University, and, after a complete course in that most celebrated medical school of Europe, obtained the degree of doctor of med- icine. Returning to America, he was associate pastor of the Church of New Amsterdam with his venerable father for over four years— 1663-68. In 1664 he was appoint- ed one of the Dutch commissioners who prepared the
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terms of surrender to the English government. " Prob- ably it was through his influence that the rights of the lieformed Chirrch were so carefully guarded." In 1G68 he returned to Holland, and settled at Wernigerode, where he ministered seven years, 1C70 to 1677. After- wards, '■ being well skilled iji both the English and Dutcli languages," he served the English or Scotcli churches of Flushing (1G77-85) and Dordrecht (1C85- 1700), when he was declared e/nerittts, or honorably laid aside from his work, after a ministry of tlurty-seven years. The date of his death is not known. See Kev. Dr. De^^'itt, in Sprague's A nnals, vol. ix ; Corwin's Man- ual of the Kef. Church, s. v. (W. J. K. T.)
Megara, School of, one of the schools founded by (iisiiplci i)f Socraies, l)ut so modified in position from their teaclicr as to deserve the name of a peculiar society. Its principal supporter was Euclid of jNIegara, who was born about 440 iJ.C, and was himself a pupil of Parmen- ides, one of the most prominent leaders in the Eleatic School (q. v.). After the death of Socrates, his disciples, fleeing for safety from Athens, found a pleasant home in the house of Euclid, and there, guided by him, linallj' established principles which gave them the name of Megarists. They taught that ethics stands in the ser- vice of dialectics. The essence of good is unity — unity so entire as to embrace immobility, identity, and per- manence. Hence the sensi^ble world has no part in ex- istence. Being and good are thus the same tiling, viz. unity ; good therefore alone exists, and evil is but the absence of existence. It does not follow, however, that there is but a single being and a single sort of good, for miity may be found contained in various things. Euclid expressly taught that, in spite of their unity, being and good clothe themselves in different forms, present them- selves under different points of view, and receive differ- ent names, as wisdom, God, intelligence, and the like. Euclid also anticipated Aristotle in distinguishing the act from the power, and resolved, accorduig to his ideas of being, the relation between the two. Other support- ers of this school were Eubulicles, Alexinos, Diodorus, Chronos, Philo, and Stilpo. See Dyck, De Megai'icoi-um doctrinu (Bonn, 1827) ; liittcr, Ueber die Philosophie der Megarischen Schule ; Ueberweg, Uistori/ of Philosophy, vol. i.