RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Wettstein Whately
his talent to the service of God and his Church, though some of his poems were polemical and had reference to the controversies of the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1852 he became an associate of the consistory of Niederbronn, and his efforts greatly aided the cause of Lutheranism, he being a strong and strict follower of that type of religious activity and thought. His poems reflected this tendency, and were often aimed against Baptists, liberals, and the like. Those which were adapted to worship found entrance over a wide range of church Peeuald (A. LimNHARD.)
BrsiiogRrapHy: W. Horning, Lebensbild von F. T. Horning, pp. 326-341, 4th ed., Strasburg, 1885; Hvangelischlutherischer Friedensbote, 1877, nos. 52-54,
WEYMOUTH, RICHARD FRANCIS: English Baptist layman and New-Testament translator; b. at Plymouth Dock (now Devonport, 2 m. w.n.w. of Plymouth), Devonshire, Oct. 26, 1822; d. at Brentwood (17 m. e.n.e. of London), Essex, Dec. 27, 1902. He was educated at University College, London (B.A., 1845; D.Lit., 1868), and after spending two years in France he was an assistant master in a private school at Leatherhead, Surrey, later founding a successful school for boys at Plymouth. In 1869 he was chosen head master of a non-conformist school for boys at Mill Hill, London, where he remained until 1886, then retiring from active life to devote himself to his translation of the New Testament into idiomatic modern English, his residence being successively at Acton (until 1891) and at Brentwood (until his death). He was an active member of the Philological Society, and to its journal and other technical periodicals he contributed a number of studies on philological and theological subjects. Besides an edition of Grosseteste’s Castell off Loue for this society (London, 1864) and a translation of Cynewulf’s Hlene (1888), as well as a work On Early English Pronunciation with Special Reference to Chaucer (1874), he is especially noteworthy for his Resultant Greek Testament (1886), exhibiting the text on which the majority of modern editors are agreed, and containing the variant readings of the more important of these editors. He will be remembered, above all, for his New Testament in Modern Speech (1903). This work he had practically completed in the rough draft before his death, but failing health compelled him to entrust the final revision and correction to E. Hampden-Cook (q.v.).
WEXELSEN, WILHELM ANDREAS: Norwegian Lutheran clergyman, educator, and statesman; b. at Klibu (a village near Trondhjem) June 5, 1849; d. at Trondhjem July 19, 1909. He was educated at the Cathedral School in Trondhjem (B.A., 1867) and the University of Christiania (cand. theol., 1872), and was then curate in Sparbu
- (1873-76) and Trondhjem (1876-77) and pastor in Kolverejd (1877-84) and Overhalden (1884-91). His efficiency as an administrator of municipal affairs led to his election to the Norwegian Storthing in 1882, and in 1891 he was appointed councilor of state and chief of the department for ecclesiastical affairs and public instruction. In 1892-93 he was connected with the Stockholm division of the council, and in 1896-97 was director of schools
in Trondhjem, being the same city’s representative to the Storthing in 1896, while in 1898-1903 he was again chief of the department for ecclesiastical affairs and public instruction, succeeding Jakob Sverdrup (q.v.). From 1905 until his death he was bishop of the see of Trondhjem.
Wexelsen rendered important services to the public school system of Norway, doing much to foster the growth of the national spirit, and, through legislation, to ameliorate the conditions under which the teachers and clergy were obliged to work; and he also advocated noteworthy measures for the relief of the poor and for modifying the laws relating to mairiage. Joon O, EvsEn.
WHATELY, RICHARD: Archbishop of Dublin; b. in London Feb. 1, 1787; d. in Dublin Oct. 1, 1863. He matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1805, was graduated B.A. in 1808, and took orders in due course. He was fellow of Oriel from 1811 till his marriage in 1821, and then held the living of Hales-
worth, Suffolk, till 1825, when he re-
Life and turned to Oxford as principal of St.
Character. Alban’s Hall. In 1829 he was ap-
pointed Drummond professor of political economy at Oxford, but resigned two years later to become archbishop of Dublin. He was consecrated Oct. 23, 1831, and enthroned the same day.
As a child Whately was delicate and precocious, exhibiting phenomenal powers ‘of arithmetical computation. Attendance at a school near Bristol from the age of ten strengthened his body and gave him wide intellectual interests than he had found previously in his father’s library and garden, so that he entered Oxford with nothing strikingly abnormal about him. He made a, few friends at Oxford, but only a few, and set conventions at scorn to a degree that made him notorious. So he went through life singularly independent and self-contained, rough and brusk in manner, outspoken, rashly regardless of popular opinions or prejudices. His biting wit spared neither friend nor foe, and his great powers of argumentation were exercised with more assiduity than judgment. He was master of a lucid expression, and as a thinker and scholar was acute and versatile, though not profound, and hampered by striking limitations. It is said he read a few favorite authors—Aristotle, Thucydides, Bacon, Shakespeare, Butler, Warburton, Adam Smith, Crabbe, Scott—and no others. For nature, music, and art, as well as for historic antiquity, he had no sense whatever. Consequently he found only fatigue in travel, and avoided it as far as possible. He never learned German, and read French with difficulty.
Yet, if he thus exemplified English insularity, it should be added that he represented the type in no unworthy manner. As duties came to him he performed them well. At Oxford he proved himself a good teacher, knowing how to discover and develop the dormant capacities of his pupils, and in a short time he raised St. Alban’s Hall from very low estate and made it a chosen home of reading men. He was a faithful parish priest. As archbishop he was scrupulously conscientious in the performance of his ordinary duties, and he grappled courageously and with fair success with the extraordinary difficulties of
Whately Whiston