THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
LEE, ANN: Foundress of the sect of Shakers in America; b. in Manchester, Eng., Feb. 28, 1736; d. at Watervliet, N. Y., Sept. 8, 1784. Her father was a blacksmith and gave her no education, but put her at work in a cotton-factory; afterward she served as cook in the Manchester Infirmary. In 175S she married Abraham Standerin (so spelled in the register, but usually given as Standley or Stanley), a blacksmith, by whom she had four children, who died in infancy. In 1758 she had joined the Manchester society called the " Shaking Quakers," which had seceded from the Society of Friends and was under the leadership of James Wardley. Being naturally excitable, she was quickly affected by the religious exercises of the society, and began to practise austerities, to have visions, and to make revelations. But it was not until 1770 that she had the epoch-making revelation against marriage, and began her " testimony against all lustful gratifications as the source and foundation of human corruption and misery," a course which led to her imprisonment. It was then that Christ appeared to her in a vision, and revealed to her that she was the second incarnation of Christ, and thus the head of all women, as he was the head of all men. From that time forth she was called by her followers " Mother Ann," and believed by them to be perfectly righteous.
Henceforth she claimed to be directed by revelations and visions. In 1774 she came with her followers to America, and finally settled, in the spring of 1776, at Niskeyuna, later Watervliet, near Albany, X. Y. In 1775 or 1776 she and her husband parted, Shaker documents asserting that he deserted her after having been tenderly nursed through a dangerous illness. During the Revolutionary War she was accused of treasonable correspondence with the British and cast into prison, but was released by Gov. Clinton, 1777 At a later period (1780) she was again imprisoned for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the State of New York, which she could not conscientiously do, but was released without trial by the same governor. Persecution had the usual effect of increasing the numbers of the persecuted. Taking advantage of a revival of religion (1779), she gathered many converts, and in 1780 removed the community to New Lebanon, Columbia County, N. Y. From 1781 to 1783 she went through New England on a missionary tour. Her influence is still felt by the Shakers, who revere her memory. See Communism, II., 10.
Bibliography: Anna White and Leila S. Taylor, Shakerism, Its Meaning and Message, pp. 13-67, Columbus, Ohio, 1904; T. Dwight, Travels in New England, iii. 149 sqq., New York, 1822; DNB, xxxii. 343.
LEE, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: African Methodist Episcopal bishop; b. at Bridgeton, N. J., Sept. 18, 1841. He was educated at Wilberforce University (A.B., 1872), where he was professor of homiletics (1873-75) and president (1876-84). From 1884 to 1892 he was editor of The Christian Recorder, and in the latter year was elected bishop of his denomination.
LEE, FREDERICK GEORGE: Church of England; b. at Thame (13 m. e. of Oxford), Oxfordshire, Jan. 6, 1832; d. at Lambeth, London, Jan.
23, 1902. He studied at St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford (D.C.L., 1854), and was curate of Sunningwell, Berks, 1854-56, then for several years domestic chaplain to the duke of Leeds and earl of Morton, while from 1867 almost until his death he was vicar of All Saints', Lambeth. He was a High-churchman, and shortly before his death was received into the Roman Catholic Church. He was a prolific author, among his principal works being: The Beauty of Holiness (London, 1859); Notitia Liturgica (1866); The Validity of the Holy Orders of the Church of England Maintained and Vindicated (1869); The Christian Doctrine of Prayer for the Departed (1872); The Other World: or, Glimpses of the Supernatural (2 vols., 1875); Historical Sketches of the Reformation (1879); The Church under Queen Elizabeth (2 vols., 1880); History and Antiquities of the Church of Thame (1883); Reginald Pole, Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury (1887); The Church of Haddenham, Bucks (1888); King Edward the Sixth, Supreme Head (1889); The Sinless Conception of the Mother of God (1891); and The Church of St. Mary, Long Crendon (1891). He compiled A Glossary of Liturgical and Ecclesiastical Terms (London, 1877), while among the numerous works which he edited were the second and subsequent editions of the Directorium Anglicanum (London, 1865) and its abridgment, Manuale Clericorum (1874); Altar Service Book, according to the Use of the United Church of England and Ireland (1867); and The Communion Office of the Church of Scotland (Aberdeen, 1869).
LEE, JESSE: Founder of Methodism in New England; b. in Prince George County, Md., Mar. 12, 1758; d. at Hillsboro, Md., Sept. 12, 1816. He removed to North Carolina 1777, preached his first sermon in 1779, entered the itinerant ministry in 1783, and during the next six years labored in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey. In 1789 he was sent by conference to the Stamford circuit, Conn. For the next eleven years he traveled throughout the New England States, preaching often in barns, private houses, or on highways. In 1796 he became assistant to Bishop Asbury. He returned to the South in 1800.
Bibliography: L. M. Lee, Life and Times of Jesse Lee, Richmond, 1848; W. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, vii. 80-87, New York, 1861; J. M. Buckley, American Church History Series, vol. v., ib. 1896.
LEE, SAMUEL: English Orientalist; b. at Longnor (8 m. s. of Shrewsbury), Shropshire, May 14, 1783, d. at Barley (16 m. n.n.e. of Hertford), Hertfordshire, Dec. 16, 1852. He received his elementary training at a charity school, and at the age of twelve was apprenticed to a Shrewsbury carpenter. While working at his trade he became interested in the study of languages, and before he was twenty-five he had learned, without a teacher, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Samaritan, Syriac, Persian, and Hindustani. To these languages he subsequently added a dozen others. The accidental loss of his tools compelled him to look for other means of a livelihood, and in 1810 he became master of Bowdler's Foundation School, Shrewsbury. In 1813, under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society, he entered Queen's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1818; M.A., 1819; B.O.,