"Walsh, Henry, a Presbyterian minister, was born near Dublin, Ireland. Aug. b, 1824. He came to the United States in 1840; was educated at Oglethorpe University, Ga.; taught for several years; studied the- ologj' in the Princeton Theological Seminary; was li- censed by Raritan Presbytery in 1852; was pastor of the churches of Carmel and JMacedonia. N. C, one year; and then of Edmiston Cliurch (North Mississippi Pres-
bytery), Miss., until his death, Feb. 14, 18C1. See Wil- son, I'resb. Hist. Almcimtc, 1862, p. 121.
"Walsh, John, an English Wesleyan minister, was born at ( (rmskirk. Lancashire, in 1795. It was intend- ed by liis |iarents that he should become a Human Cath- olic priest, and his education was in reference thereto. Removing to Liverpool, he was led to Christ under the ministry of .loseph Entwisle. He was received into the ministry in 1814; labored two years on the Lancaster Circuit; was sent to Newfoundland; preaclied at Car- bonear, HIackhead, St. John's, and Harbor-Cirace; re- turned to England in 1825; was appointed to several im|)ortant circuits; became a supernumerary in 1851; and died Dec. 19, 1857. Although somewhat stiff in manner, he was a powerful preacher and a laborious minister. See Minutes of Wesleyan Corferences, 1858; ^Vilson, XeirfoHudland and its Missionaries, )i. 2ii8.
Walsh, Peter, a learned and liberal Irish Catholic, was born at Moortown, County Klldare, in the early part of the 17th century. He was probably educated at Louvain, where he became professor of divinity. He was also a Franciscan friar. On his return to Ireland, he became procurator of the Romish clergy ; and, at the restoration of Charles II, persuaded many of them to sign a remonstrance against the temporal supremacy of the pope and in favor of the king. For this course he was so persecuted by the opposition that he had to take refuge in England (in 1670). He went to London, where he received an annuity of one hundred pounds for life, and remained true to his early faitli, notwith- standing the persecutions he suffered. He died in Sep- tember, 1687. Mr. Walsh wrote several pamphlets of a controversial character, and a I/ision/, which was not important. See Chalmers, Biog. Diet. s. v.
Walsh, Thomas, one of the remarkable men in early JMcthodism, was born at Ballylin, near Limerick, Ireland, in 1730. He went to school until he was nine- teen years of age, when he commenced teaching on his own account. His parents were Romanists, and he was educated in the faith of their Church. His temper was constitutionally serious, bordering on melancholy, and he had deep religious solicitudes from his childhood. Devotion to the requirements of his Church brought him no relief. In his eighteenth year he became con- vinced of the errors of the Church, formally abjured its creed, and united with the Established Church. His religious anxiety was now deepened. He heard Swin- dells and other jMethodist itinerants; and in one of their assemblies '• he was divinely assured," to use his own words, "that God, for Christ's sake, had forgiven all his sins." He joined the Methodist Society in New Market, and in 1750 he commenced to preach. Perse- cutions awaited him, not only from Romanists and Churchmen, but even more severely from the Presby- terians of the North (see iNIorgan, Life, cli. iii). No man contributed more than Walsh to the spread of Method- ism in Ireland. "He went like a flame of fire through Leinster and Connaught, preaching twice or thrice a day, usually in the open air. The guileless peasants flocked to hear their own rude but touching language. They wept, smote their breasts, invoked the Virgin with sobbing voices, and declared themselves ready to follow him as a saint over the world" (Stevens). His name became famous throughout the country. The priests became alarmed ; they instigated mobs, circulated slan- ders; but in vain. The people still ran after him and wept aloud under his woni, as he proclaimed it in moun- tains, meadows, highways, market-places, prisons, and ships. In 1753 Weslej- called hira to London, where he had frecpient discussions with the .Jews, and preacheil to the Irish in Moorfields and Short's (iardens. ".Such a sluice of divine oratory ran through the whole of his language as is rarely to be met with" (Morgan). " I do not remember ever to have known a preacher," says Wesley, "who, in so few years as he remained upon earth, was the instrument of converting so many peo-
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pie." It was while in London he commenced the study of Greek and Hebrew. In these studies he progressed with incredible swii'tness. "No Catholic saint ever pored more assiduously and devoutly over his breviary than did this remarkable man over the original Script- ures during the rest of his life" (Stevens, lit infra, i, 291). His memory was a concordance. "The best Hebriean I ever knew," exclaims the enthusiastic and generous-hearted Wesley over this " blessed man," as he was wont to call him (^Sltnrt HiMonj of the Method- ists, par. 71). " I knew a young man who was so thor- oughly acquainted with the Bible that if he was ques- tioned concerning any Hebrew word in the Old, or any Greek word in the New, Test., he would tell, after a lit- tle pause, not only how often the one or the other oc- curred in the Bible, but also what it meant in every place. His name was Thomas Walsh. Such a master of Biblic knowledge I never saw before, and never ex- pect to see again" (Wesley, Sermovs, ser. xci). Young men from the University of Cambridge, when in Lon- don, chose W^alsh to initiate them into the Hebrew tongue. But young Walsh was burning the candle at both ends. The manner of Iiis preaching, intense study, habitual self-absorption, and excessive labor and fatigue broke him down, and his nervous sensibilities, at last, suffered great tortures. Wesley, a sagacious man, and who wrote excellent sanitary rules for his ministers, never seems to have admonished Walsh, for whom, in- deed, he seems to have had a sentiment of reverence, if not of awe. Walsh was seized with sickness at Bristol, in February, 1758, sailed for Cork as soon as his strength would permit, and was removed by his friends to Dub- lin, where, after suffering extreme mental anguish on account of a temporary eclipse of faith — occasioned, no doubt, by nervous disorganization — he died with words of rapture on his lips, April 8, 1759.