Wise THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
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congregations by his Minhag America, though it was not until 1855 that his efforts were successful. The Minhag which then appeared was practically all prepared by Wise, who himself withdrew it on the issuance of the Union Prayer Book in 1894. In 1848 he began the agitation which, in 1873, resulted in the organization of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations; and to him is also due, after the short-lived Zion Collegiate Association (1855), the foundation, in 1875, of the Hebrew Union College (see THrotocicaL Seminaries, VI., 1), of which he was president until his death; while he was likewise the ultimate inspirer of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, over which he presided from its inception in 1889 until his death.
Besides editing the American Israelite and Deborah, and in addition to a number of novels in German and English (first appearing as serials in the two periodicals just mentioned), and even a couple of German plays, Wise wrote History of the Israelitish Nation from Abraham to the Present Time (Albany, 1854), Essence of Judaism (Cincinnati, 1861), Origin of Christianity, and a Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (1868), Judaism, its Doctrines and Duties (1872), The Martyrdom of Jesus of Nazareth (1874), The Cosmic God (1876), History of the Hebrews’ Second Commonwealth (1880), Judaism and Christianity, their Agreements and Disagreements (1883), Defense of Judaism vs. Proselytizing Christianity (1889), and Pronaos to Holy Writ (1891).
WISE, JOHN: Congregationalist; baptized at Roxbury, Mass., Aug. 15, 1652; d. at Essex, Mass., Apr. 8, 1725. He was graduated from Harvard, 1673; studied theology, and in 1683 became pastor of Chebacco parish in Ipswich, now Essex, and so continued the rest of his life. In 1688 he was imprisoned in Boston jail, fined, and deprived of his ministerial office by Governor Andros because he had led the citizens of Ipswich in refusing to pay certain taxes which they declared had been arbitrarily imposed. The town paid his fine, and the next year sent him to Boston as its representative at the convention to reorganize the colonial government. In 1710 he issued a satirical pamphlet, The Churches Quarrel Espoused (Boston, 3d ed., 1717), vigorously attacking “‘ The Proposals of 1705,” advocated by the Mathers and approved by many Massachusetts and Connecticut ministers, to give associations of ministers authority over individual churches. In 1717 he issued another pamphlet to the same intent, A Vindication of the Government of New England Churches. These tracts made a profound impression and powerfully contributed to block the scheme. ‘“ They are certainly,” says Walker, “the most able exposition of the democratic principles which modern Congregationalism has come to claim as its own that the eighteenth century produced” (Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, p. 492). The two pamphlets were reprinted with an introduction by J. S. Clark (Boston, 1860); and a portion of the second as Old South Leaflet No. 165 (Boston, 1908), with the title, The Law of Nature in Government.
Bristiocraruy: W. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, i. 188-189, New York, 1859; A. E. Dunning, Congregationalists in America, pp. 197, 207, 218-219, 270, ib.
1894; W. Walker, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 470, 490-494, ib. 1893; idem, in American Church History Series, iii. 209-212, 307, ib. 1894; F. F. Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Ipswich, 1905.
WISEMAN, NICHOLAS PATRICK STEPHEN: First Roman archbishop of Westminster, and cardinal; b. at Seville Aug. 2, 1802; d. at London Feb. 15, 1865. His father, an Irish merchant who had settled in Spain, died in 1804, when the family returned to Ireland. The future cardinal studied at St. Cuthbert’s College, Ushaw (near Durham), England, 1810-18, and then at the English College, Rome; and though he states that at St. Cuthbert’s he was “ dull and stupid, and never said a clever or witty thing,’ he was a diligent and good student, and in Rome his career was brilliant in scholarship. He received minor orders before leaving England, became doctor in divinity in Rome, 1824, and was ordained priest Mar., 1825. He assisted the Abbate Molza in the compilation of a Syriac grammar and lexicon and pursued independent studies in oriental languages, became vice-rector of the English College, Nov., 1827, was nominated professor supernumerary of Hebrew and Syro-Chaldaic in the archigymnasium of the Sapienza, Oct., 1828, and became rector of the English College the same year. In 1840 Pope Gregory XVI. appointed him coadjutor to Dr. Walsh, vicar-apostolic in England, and he was consecrated bishop of Melipotamus in partibus, and made president of St. Mary’s College, Oscott (in Staffordshire, 4 m. n. of Birmingham). In 1847 he visited Rome, returning to England the next year as the pope’s diplomatic envoy to Lord Palmerston. In 1849 he succeeded Walsh as vicarapostolic. On Sept. 29, 1850, Pius IX. issued an apostolic letter announcing the restoration of the hierarchy in England, and by a brief at the same time he elevated Wiseman (who had been summoned to Rome) to the archbishopric of Westminster. He was created cardinal the next day with the title of St. Pudentiana. The news was not acceptable in England, and feeling ran so high that in 1851 parliament forbade Roman Catholics to assume the title of bishop in the country, but the law remained inoperative and was repealed in 1872. Wiseman possessed undoubted scholarly and intellectual abilities (his linguistic attainments were remarkable), and he was gifted with a suave manner and, in general, with good judgment. By the end of his fourteen years’ archiepiscopate he had in large measure lived down the prejudices and passion of its beginning, as he also ultimately overcame opposition which at times developed on the part of his bishops and others of his own communion. He won a high reputation as a preacher early in his career in Rome, and later, in England, he was much in demand as a speaker on literary, artistic, and social questions.
Besides sermons, pastoral letters, addresses, etc., he published: Hore Syriace, seu commentationes et anecdota res vel litteras Syriacas spectantia (Rome, 1828); On the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion (2 vols., London, 1836), twelve lectures, dealing chiefly with geology, originally delivered in the drawing-room of Cardinal Thomas Weld in Rome during Lent, 1885; Twelve Lectures on the Principal Doctrines and Practices of the Roman Cath-