Morrison, John, D.D., a Scotch divine, noted as a hymnologist also, was born in the County of Alierdeen in 1749. He studied for the ministry, and in 17S0 en- tered upon his pastoral duties over the parish of Canis- bay, Caithness-shire. He was one of the committee of the General Assembly for revising the Church Para- phrases, and himself contributed some of the best ren- derings. Of these, the 19th, "The race that long in darkness pined," and the 30th, "Come, let us to the Lord our God," have been generally adopted by the church- es. In his early life he contributed verses to the Kdin- burr/h Wec/cli/ M<r//(izim>, over the signature of "^lusa- rus." He also published the second and fourth books of Virgil's yKneid, translated into English verse (1787). He died at Canisljay, June 12, 1798. (S. S.)
Morrison, John W., a Presbyterian minister, was born in Chester County, South Carolina, in 1811; was educated in the Indiana University, Bloomington. Ind.; studied theology under the late Rev. Hugh Mac^Miilan, of Xcnia, Ohio, and was licensed and ordained in 1841, as pastor of tlie Tliorn Grove Presbyterian Church, in Bloom, Cook Co., Indiana. This was his only charge. At the close of twenty-five years of pastoral duty he resigned this position to accept the agency in behalf of the frcedmen, feeling, as he expressed it, "that the
icallv impossible. Nor was his pen idle. He was one .
of the founders of a great paper, which is still in exist- , education of that people was the work to which God ence. He issued volumes from the press, which are ""^ calls the Church and the nation." He continued models of vigorous, idiomatic English. And all this fruitful work was done in the most unpretending way. Bishop Morris never thought of himself^ as a great actor in the world's affairs, a great preacher, or a great writer. The beauty of his character was that he never ajjpeared to think of himself at all ; his work was before him, and he did it; and that was the end of the matter." Bish- op Morris's only works of any special import are a vol-
to labor as an agent until he died, Jan. 5, 1867. Mr. jNIorrison was a man of great integrity, of noble dispo- sition, and of untiring effort in the service of Christ. He was an accurate classical scholar, a critical and pro- found expositor of Scripture, and an earnest and afTec- tionate preacher. See Wilson, Presb. Hist. Almanac, 1868, p. 391. (J. L.S.)
Morrison, Jonas S., a minister of the Jlethodist
MORRISON
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MORRISON
Episcopal Church, was born in Plattsburg, K Y., March 11, I80G ; was converted at the age of sixteen years ; li- censed to preach in 1857, and m the same year joined tlie Southern Illinois Annual Conference; was appoint- ed junior preacher on Collinsville Circuit; next year he was stationed at Main Street, Alton City; and thereafter successively at Chester, Gillespie, two years; Litchfield, Brighton, Highland, Carlyle, two years ; Greenville, Gil- lespie ; and, lastly, as presiding elder of Alton District. He died October 18, 1871. " The traits of his character were strongly marked. As a Christian and a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, he exemplified the purity of the one and the fidelity of the other. He rather lived than professed religion, and proved his ministry by the practical sympathy that carries the consolations of Christ to the abodes of poverty, of sickness, and of be- reavement. His pulpit ministrations were characterized by clearness, by fidelity to the Scriptures, by an adapta- tion of the truth to his hearers, and by a manner which demonstrated his own interest in his theme. Love for the Church was with him an absorbing passion." See Minutes of Annual Conferences, 1872, p. 137.
Morrison, Levi R., a Presbyterian minister, was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, July 3, 1805. His early educational advantages were very lim- ited, and lie had to struggle with poverty and its at- tendant trials and perplexities. He studied his Bible and such books as he was able to secure, and exercised his gifts as a speaker; was licensed in 1831, and began his labors in Spring Creek and Smyrna churches, Ten- nessee. In 1836 he was ordained, and became pastor of the churches at Sparta and McMinnville, Tenn. He subsequently labored at Mars Hill, Tenn., Glade Spring, Va., North Prairie and Springfield, Mo. His life was that of a toiling pastor and home missionarj% He died Dec. 28, 18G7. Mr. Morrison was a man of most amiable cliaracter, of strong and vigorous intellect, a verv acceptable preacher, and greatly blessed in his la- bors. See Wilson, Presb. Hist. Almanac, 18G8, p. 3-16. (J. L. S.)
Morrison, Robert, D.D., a distinguished English missionary to China, the first Protestant missionary to that country, and holding the same relation to it as Vanderkemp to Africa or Williams to the South Seas, was bom of humble but respectable parentage at Mor- peth, Northumberland, Jan. 5, 1782. After receiving some elementary instruction in English, writing, and arithmetic, in a school conducted by a maternal uncle at Newcastle, he was apprenticed at a very early age to his father, who was then engaged in last-making. But so devoted had the boy become to his books that he spent his leisure in close study. " For the purpose of securing a greater portion of quiet retirement," says his widow, " he had his bed removed to his workshop, where he would often pursue his studies until one or tAvo in the morning. Even when at work, his Bible or some other book was placed open before him, that he might acquire knowledge or cherish the holy aspira- tions of spiritual devotion while his hands were busily occupied in the labors of life." Amid such disadvan- tages Morrison hesitated not to commence a course of religious reading and study, and in 1801 was ready to study Hebrew, Latin, and theology under the superin- tendence of a Presbyterian minister of the town, by whom he was so much liked that ^lorrison was, in 1803, introduced by him to the committee and tutors of the Independent Theological Academy at Hoxton, as a fit person to be received into that institution to study the- ology. ^Morrison was admitted, and had not long been an inmate of the institution before he decided to de- vote himself to the missionary cause in heathen lands. Though his friends dissuaded him from such a step, he yet felt it his duty to devote the talent given him as Providence seemed unmistakably to point it out to him ; and in May, 1804, he offered his services as a missionary to the London Missionary Society, was promptly ac-