Smith, Robert A., a Methodist Episcopal minis- ter, was born in Robertson County, Tenn., in 1809; converted in 1828, licensed as a ktcal preacher in 1832, received on trial in the Tennessee Conference in the same year, transferred and stationed on Oakmulgee Cir- cuit in 1833, at Jones's Valley in 183-1-35, and admitted into full connection at Montgomery, in 1836, where he died, Oct. 25, 1836. He was a man of deep and ardent piety, a good preacher, and a most agreeable compan- ion. See Minutes if A nnuul Conferences, ii, 487.
Smith, Robert D., a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was born in Lancaster County, Pa., Oct. 21, 1802. In 1813 his family removed to Champaign County, O., where he lived till 1824, when he went to Mississippi to teach school. There he was converted, and united with the Church No\-. 9, 1824. He was licensed to preach in 1826, and preached under the presiding elder until 1828, when he was received on trial into the Mississippi Conference. He labored as missionary to the Choctaw nation for two years and six months. In 1831 he was stationed in Montgomery, Ala.; 1832, Mobile; 1833, Vicksbiirg; 1834, New Or- leans; 1835, Natchez ; 183G, Cole's Creek Circuit ; 1837- oS.Vicksburg District; 1839, Warren Circuit ; 1840-41, appointed president of the Elizabeth Female Academy at Washington; and in 1842 he was at Centenary Col- lege. In 1843-45 he labored as missionary among the colored people in Madison Parish, La., where he closed his life and work. May 16, 1845. See Minutes of An- nual Conferences of the M. E. Church, South, 1845, p. 33.
Smith, Samuel, an English clergyman and pop- ular writer of tracts, was born in or near Dudley, Worces- tershire, in 1588, and studied for some time at St. Mary's Hall, Oxford. He left without taking a <legree, and became Ijeneticed at Prittlewell, Essex, and afterwards, as Wood says, in his own county; but, according to Calamy, he had the perpetual curacy of Cressedge and Cound, Shropshire. On the breaking-out of the Rebell- ion he went to London, and sided with the Presbyte- rians. On his return to the country he was appointed an assistant to the conmiissioners for the ejection of "scandalous and ignorant ministers and schoolmasters." At the Restoration he was ejected from Cressedge. The time of his death is unknown, hut, according to Wood, he was living near Dudley in 1G63. Smith's works are, David's Blessed Man (Loud. 8vo): — The Great Assize (r2mo; thirty -one editions of which appeared before
1684):— /I Fold for Christ's Sheep (printed thirty-two times): — The Christian's Guide: — besiiles other tracts and sermons. See Allibone, Diet, of Brit, and A mer. A uthors, s. v. ; Darling, Cyclop, BiUiog. s. v. ; Chalmers, Bioi/. iJict. s. V.
Smith, Samuel Stanhope, D.D., LL.D., a dis- tinguislied divine ami educator of the Presbyterian Church, and son of the Rev. Robert Smith, D.D., was born in Pequea, Lancaster Co., Pa., iMarch l(i, 1750. At a ver\' early period he gave indications of possessing a mind of no common order. When he was only six or seven years old he commenced the study of the lan- guages in his father's school. " He made the best of his opportunities, and was distinguished for his im- provement in everj' branch to which he directed his attention." He became a communicant in the Church under his father's care while he was yet under the pa- ternal roof; and before he was eighteen years of age graduated at the College of New Jersey under circum- stances the most honorable and gratifying. After grad- uation he returned to his father's house and spent some time "partly in assisting him in conducting his school, and partly in vigorous efforts for the higher cultivation of his own mind." In 1770 he became tutor of the classics and of belles-lettres in the College of New Jer- sey, where he remained for upwards of two years, dis- charging his duties with great tidelity and acceptance, while at the same time he was pursuing a courseof • theological study privately. In 1773 he resigned the position of tutor, was licenseil to preach by the Presby- tery of Newcastle, and immediately went as a mission- arj' to the western counties of Virginia, where he soon became an almost universal favorite. So powerfid an impression did he make that some of the most wealthy and influential persons soon set on foot a project for detaining him there as the head of a literary institu- tion. A seminary was subsequently chartered under the name of Hampden Sidney College, and he took upon himself the double office of principal of the seminary and pastor of the Church, and the duties of both he discharged with the most exemplary tidelity. In 1779 he accepted the professorship of moral philosophy in the College of New Jersey. The college was then in ruins in consequence of the uses and al)uses to which it had been subjected by both the British and American soldiers; its students were dispersed, and all its oper- ations had ceased; but it is not too much to say that during this whole period, although Dr. Witherspoon's name could not fail to shed glory over the institution, and he was always intent upon the promotion of its interests, it was mainly by the energy, wisdom, and generous self-devotion of Dr. Smith that the college was speedily reorganized and all its usual exercises resumed. In 1783 Yale College honored him with D.D., and in 1810 Harvard University with LL.D. In 1785 he was elected an honorary member of the American Philo- sophical Society in Philadelphia; and the same year was appointed to deliver their anniversary address, and he met the occasion in a manner which, of itself, would have conferred lasting honor upon his name. The ad- dress was afterwards published in the Transactions of the society, and subsecjuently in an enlarged and im- proved form in a separate vohmie. With this work his reputation as a philosopher both at home and abroad is, in no small degree, identitied. In 1786 he was as- sociated with several of the most distinguished and venerable men in the Presi)yterian Church in prepar- ing the Form of Presbyterial Government. In 1794, Dr. Witherspoon having died, he became president of the College of New Jersey. He had now acquired a wide reputation as a pulpit orator. His baccalaureate discourses particularly attracted large numbers, even from remote parts of the country, to listen to them; but one of his most splendid performances was his oration, delivered at Trenton, on the death of Washington. The occasion roused his facidties to the utmost, and the re- sult was a production of great beauty and power. lu