RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Blass Bledsoe
By the Interim, Constance lost its independence. The Spaniards took the city Aug. 6, 1548, and made it an Austrian town, speedily crushing the Reformation. Blaurer left there Aug. 28, and preached in Biel (1551-59), Leutmerken, and finally at Winterthur, where he died. He declined calls to Bern, Augsburg, Memmingen, and the Palatinate, and influenced large circles by his correspondence. His twenty-two hymns give evidence of poetical power and fervor.
G. Bossert.
Bibliography: D. C. Pfister, Denkwilrdigkeiten der wurttembergischen und schwabischen Reformationsgeschichte, part 1, Tubingen, 1817; T. Keim, Ambr. Blarer der schwab'ische Reformator, Stuttgart, 1860; T. Pressel, Ambrosius Blc.urer's Leben und Schriften, ib. 1861; Leben und ausgewahlte Schriften der Vater der reformierten Kirche, vol. xiv, Elberfeld, 1861; E. Schneider, Wurttembergische Reformationsgeschichte, Stuttgart, 1887; E. Issel, Die Reformation in Konstanz, Freiburg, 1898; F. Roth, Augsburgs Reformationsgeschichte, vols, i, ii, Munich, 1901, 1904; Zioingliana, 1900, no. 2, p. 163, 1902, no. 2, p. 317.
BLAURER, MARGARETHA: Sister of Ambrosius Blaurer (q.v.), one of the most intelligent and deeply religious women of the Reformation time; d. in Constance 1542. She became deeply interested in the person and work of Pilgram Marbeck (q.v.) during his residence in Strasburg (1528- 1532) and, whether she sympathized with his antipedobaptist teaching or not, reproached Butzer for his intolerant proceedings against Marbeck and refused to be convinced by Butzer's arguments that Marbeck was a heretic or a hypocrite. She died while ministering to the plague-stricken poor of Constance, and has the honor of being one of the first Protestant women to engage in diaconal service. A. H. Newman.
Bibliography: J. W. Baum, Capito und Butzer, passim, Elberfeld, 1860; C. Gerbert, Geschichte der Strassburger Sectenbewegung zur Zeitder Reformation, 1524-1534, pp. 97 sqq., Strasburg, 1889; and literature under Blaurer, Ambrosius.
BLAVATSKY, HELENA PETROVNA: Theosophist; b. at Ekaterinoslav (250 m. n.e. of Odessa), Russia, July 31 (O. S.), 1831; d. in London May 8, 1891. Supposed to have been the child of a Russian officer named Peter Hahn, she married, at the age of seventeen, a Russian official, Nicephore Blavatsky, from whom she separated after a very few months. For the next twenty years her life was a wandering one, mixed with spiritualism and similar cults. During this time she visited Paris, Cairo, New Orleans, Tokyo, and Calcutta, and she claimed to have resided for seven years in Tibet, whence she pretended to draw the mysteries of theosophy (q.v.). In 1858 she started a spiritualistic movement in Russia, and in 1873 was again in the United States. In 1875 she founded at New York, in collaboration with Col. Henry Steel Olcott, the Theosophical Society. Her chief works, which have run through repeated editions and have been translated into many languages, both in Europe and India, are I sis Unveiled : The Master Key to Ancient and Modern Mysteries, the standard text-book of the Theosophists (2 vols., New York, 1877); Secret Doctrine : The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy (2 vols., 1888); Voice of the Silence (1889); Key to Theosophy, in the Form of Question and Answer (1889); and the
posthumous From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan (1892; originally contributed to th e Russian Russky Vyestnik); Nightmare Tales (London, 1892) Theosophical Glossary (1892); and Modern Panarion Collection of Fugitive Fragments (1899).
Bibliography: E. Coulomb, Some Account of my Intercourse with Madame Blavatsky from 18/2 to 1884, London, 1885; A. P. Sinnett, Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky, ib. 1886; C. Wachtmeister, Reminiscences of H. P. Blavatsky and "the Secret Doctrine," ib. 1893; A. Lillie, Madame Blavatsky and her "Theosophy": A Study, ib. 1895; V. S. Solovyoff, Modern Priestess of Isis, from the Russian, by W. Leaf, ib. 1895 (an expose); H. Freimark, Helena Petrovna Blavatzky, Leipsic, 1907.
BLAYNEY, BENJAMIN: Church of England Hebrew scholar; b. 1728; d. at Poulshot (22 m. n.w. of Salisbury), Wiltshire, Sept. 20, 1801. He studied at Worcester and Hertford Colleges, Oxford (B.A., 1750; M.A., 1753; B.D., 1768; D.D., 1787); was appointed regius professor of Hebrew in 1787 and was made canon of Christ Church. He revised the text of the Authorized Version of the Bible to secure typographical accuracy and added to the marginal references; the edition appeared in 1769 and is the standard for the Oxford press. He also published A Dissertation by Way of Inquiry into the True Import and Application of the Vision Called Daniel's Prophecy of Seventy Weeks (Oxford, 1775); two sermons, on The Sign Given to Ahaz (1786) and Christ the Greater Glory of the Temple (1788); translations of Jeremiah and Lamentations (1784) and Zechariah (1797); and an edition of the Samaritan Pentateuch (1790).
BLEDSOE, ALBERT TAYLOR: American Southern Methodist; b. at Frankfort, Ky., Nov. 9, 1809; d. at Alexandria, Va., Dec. 8, 1877 He was graduated at West Point, 1830, became lieutenant of infantry, and resigned 1832; he became assistant professor of mathematics at Kenyon College, Gambier, O., 1834; entered the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was rector at Hamilton, O., and professor of mathematics at Miami University, Oxford, O., 1835-36; practised law in Springfield, 111., and in the United States Supreme Court at Washington, 1840-48; was professor of mathematics in the University of Mississippi, 1848-54, and in the University of Virginia, 1854- 1861 ; he entered the Confederate service as a colonel, but was soon made assistant secretary of war; lived in England 1863-66; after 1867 published The Southern Review at Baltimore, which under his management became one of the leading periodicals of the Methodist Church, South. He was ordained a Methodist minister in 1871, but never took charge of a church. He was a strenuous advocate of the doctrine of free will and a stern opponent of atheism and skepticism; the doctrine of predestination he considered a reflection upon the divine glory, and a cause of unbelief; his views are set forth in his Examination of Edwards on the Will (Philadelphia, 1845) and his Theodicy, or Vindication of the Divine Glory (New York, 1853). He also published Liberty and Slavery (Philadelphia, 1857); The Philosophy of Mathematics (1868); Is Davis a Traitor ? or was secession a constitutional right previous to the war of 1861 ? (Baltimore, 1866).
Bleek Blessigr