THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
a
tor of the Church of Our Lord, Victoria, B. C. (1895- 1901); and since 1901 has been professor of history and apologetics at the Reformed Episcopal Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. In theology he is a moderate Calvinist and a conservative, and has written Words from the Cross (sermons, Chicago, 1881) and Did Daniel Write Daniel? (New York, 1906).
WILSON, LUTHER BARTON: Methodist Episcopal bishop; b. at Baltimore, Md., Nov. 14, 1856. He was educated at Dickinson College (A.B., 1875) and at the School of Medicine of the University of Maryland (M.D., 1877). In 1878 he entered the Baltimore Annual Conference of his denomination and held pastorates at Hancock, Woodberry, and Baltimore, Md., and at Washington, D.C. He was presiding elder of the Washington District of the Baltimore Conference in 1894-1900 and of the West Baltimore District in 1903-04, and was elected bishop in 1904.
WILSON, MARGARET: One of the two “ martyrs of the Solway ”’; b. at Glenvernock (65 m. 8.8.w. of Glasgow), Scotland, 1667; drowned near Wigtown (75 m. s. of Glasgow) May 11, 1685. For refusing to conform to episcopacy, she, together with her younger sister Agnes, and Margaret Mac- Lachlan, a woman of sixty-three, was tried at the Wigtown assize and condemned to death by drowning in the Bladenoch. The younger sister was bailed out, but on May 11, 1685, the two other women were tied to stakes within the flood-mark of the water of the Bladenoch and were drowned by the incoming tide. The incident furnished the subject of Millais’ picture, ‘‘ The Martyr of the Solway ” (1871), now in Liverpool. An obelisk to the memory of the martyrs was erected on Windy Hill, Wigtown, in 1861, and there is another well-known monument at Stirling. See CovENANTERS, § 6. Bisiiocrapuy: A. Stewart, History Vindicated in the Case
of the Wigtown Martyrs, Edinburgh, 1869; R. Wodrow,
Hist. of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, ib. 1829-
1830; J. Anderson, Ladies of the Covenant, Glasgow, 1850,
New York, 1880; W. M. Hetherington, Hist. of the Church
of Scotland, pp. 281-282, New York, 1881; DNB, Ixii.
118-119; and literature under CovENANTERS.
WILSON, THOMAS: Church of England, bishop of Sodor and Man; b. at Burton (10 m. s. of Liverpool), England, Dec. 20, 1663; d. on the Isle of Man Mar. 7, 1755. He was graduated from Trinity College, Dublin (B.A., 1686; M.A., 1696); was ordained deacon, 1686; became curate in the chapelry of Newchurch Kenyon, Lancashire, 1687; was ordained priest, 1689, and remained in charge of Newchurch till 1692, when he was appointed chaplain to the Earl of Derby, who, in 1697, appointed him bishop of Sodor and Man, and he was consecrated, 1698. He accomplished two great reforms in his diocese: the first, of 1703, relating to the tenures of landed property, which had been very uncertain; and the second, accomplished by his Ecclesiastical Constitutions, to the rules and discipline of the church there. He had remarkable qualities as an administrator, and was, from his position, compelled to take a great share in secular affairs. He wrote comparatively little. In 1707 he issued at London his Principles and Duties of Christianity, commonly called the “ Manx Catechism,” in English and Manx; this
was the first, book ever printed in Manx. In 1735 he showed his interest in the missionary aspects of General Oglethorpe’s Georgia plantation scheme, by writing his Hssay towards an Instruction for the Indians, Explaining the most Essential Doctrines of Christianity . . . with Directions and Prayers. The Hssay, which was translated into French and Italian, and met with great favor, was published in 1740 at London. In 1749 he accepted from the Unity of the Brethren (q.v.) the office of honorary president of the reformed section of the Moravian Church. His age at the time debarred him from active service, but he was glad of the opportunity of publicly testifying to his interest in that people. His life was marked by rare unselfishness and devotion to duty. His works embrace devotional writings of extended private and public use, numerous sermons, and Short and Plain Instructions for the Better Understanding of the Lord’s Supper (2d ed., London, 1736; and often); Parochialia, or Instructions to the Clergy (Bath, 1821); and The Holy Bible, with Notes, by Thomas Wilson ... and various Renderings, by . . . C. Cruttwell (3 vols., London, 1785); His Works were first published in a collected edition, with his Life, by C. Cruttwell (2 vols., Bath, 1781; 4th ed., 4 vols., 1796-97; and best ed., with his Life by J. Keble, 7 vols., Oxford, 1847-63). BrisiioGRAPHY: Besides the accounts of the life in the col-
lected Works, ut sup., there are biographies by H. Stowell,
London, 1819; R. B. Hone, in Lives of Eminent Chris-
tians, vol. i., ib. 1833; W. H. Teale, in Lives of Eminent
Divines, ib. 1846. Consult further: J. Rosse, Hist. of
Wesleyan Methodism in the Isle of Man, Douglas, 1849;
M, Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, preface, London, 1869;
J. H. Overton and F. Relton, The English Church (1714-
1800), pp. 125-136 et passim, ib. 1906; DNB, Ixii. 139-142.
WIMPFELING, vimp’fé-ling (WIMPHELING), JAKOB: Humanistic theologian; b. at Schlettstadt (29 m. s.w. of Strasburg) July 25, 1450; d. there Noy. 17, 1528. He entered in 1464 the’ University of Freiburg, and in 1468 removed to the University of Erfurt; in the following year he went to Heidelberg where he became master of philosophy in 1471. In 1483 he was called as cathedral preacher to Speyer, where he remained fourteen years, though the pulpit work was done by others because of the vocal weakness of Wimpfeling; but as prebendary he wrote and worked in the interest of the church of Speyer and its clergy. His efforts were aimed at a better discipline of the clergy, a more frequent convocation of synods, and a devoted adoration of Mary. After 1487 he seems to have possessed the parish in Sulz near Molsheim as an inheritance from a paternal uncle. He refused prebends in the chapter of St. Thomas in Strasburg and at the cathedral in Mainz as hindrances to study in science and to contemplation. In 1498 he became professor of rhetoric and poetics at the University of Heidelberg, and in 1501 his friend Geiler von Kaisersberg induced him to remove to Strasburg, where he, Sebastian Brant, and Geiler were active in the interest of church and school and exercised a decisive influence upon the spiritual life of Strasburg which lasted until the days of Butzer, Capito, and Sturm. In 1503 Wimpfeling followed his friend Bishop Christoph von Utenheim to Basel, and soon went to the University of Freiburg, whence he had to remove because of his invectives against