Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/40

Finlayson amuse us in observing them.' The earth he decides to be a perfect sphere, 'not shaped like a garden turnip, as the Newtonians make it;' the sun is a created body 'very different from anything we can make here below ;' the stars are 'oval-shaped immense masses of frozen water, with their largest ends foremost.'

Finlayson was reduced in extreme and widowed age to a parish allowance of 3s. 6d. weekly, supplemented by 5s. from Busby, in whose house Brothers had lived from 1806 to 1815. Prescot and John Mason (a brush-maker), though a disciple of Brothers, refused to assist him. He died on 19 Sept. 1854, and was buried in the same grave as Brothers at St. John's Wood. He married, in 1808, Elizabeth Anne (d. 1848), daughter of Colonel Basil Bruce (d. 1800), and had ten children. His eldest son, Richard Brothers Finlayson, who took the name of Richard Beauford, was a photographer at Galway, where he died on 17 Dec. 1886, aged 75.

Finlayson printed : 1. 'An Admonition to the People of all Countries in support of Richard Brothers,' 8vo (dated Edinburgh, 7 Sept. 1797). 2. The same, 'Book Second,' containing 'The Restoration of the Hebrews to their own Land,' 8vo (dated Edinburgh, 27 Jan. 1798). 3. 'An Essay,' &c. 8vo (on Dan. xii. 7, 11,12; dated London, 2 March 1798). 4. 'An Essay on the First Resurrection, and on the Commencement of the Blessed Thousand Years,' 8vo (dated London, 14 April 1798). 5. 'The Universe as it is. Discovery of the Ten Tribes of Israel and their Restoration to their own Land,' 1832, 8 vo. 6. 'God's Creation of the Universe,' 1848, 8vo (contains some of his letters to the authorities respecting his claims on Brothers's estate ; Mason and Prescot were angry at this publication, but Finlayson had 'a dream and vision' of Brothers, approving all he had done). 7. 'The Seven Seals of the Revelations.' 8. 'The Last Trumpet,' &c., 1849, 8vo (incorporates No. 7 ; there are several supplements, the latest dated 21 Feb. 1850). Also nine large sheets of the ground plan of the New Jerusalem (with its 56 squares, 320 streets, 4 temples, 20 colleges, 47 private palaces, 16 markets, &c.) ; and twelve sheets of views of its public buildings ; all these executed by Finlayson for Brothers (the original copper-plates were in the hands of Beauford, whose price for a set of the prints was 38l.) Finlayson's pamphlets are scarce ; he deposited his stock with Mason, after whose death it was destroyed.

[Finlayson's Works ; information from his eldest son, and from H. Hodson Bagg, M.D. ; tombstone at St John's Wood.] 

FINLAYSON, THOMAS (1809–1872), united presbyterian minister, second son of Thomas Finlayson, a farmer, was born at Coldoch, Blair Drummond, Perthshire, 22 Dec. 1809. He received his elementary education at the parish school of Kincardine in Menteith, and preparatory to entering college engaged in a special study of the classics at a school in the village of Doune in Kilmadock parish. At the university of Glasgow and at the theological hall of the united secession church he went through the usual course of training, and was licensed as a preacher of the gospel in April 1835 by the presbytery of Stirling and Falkirk. Part of his period of study was spent in teaching a school at Dumbarton, where he formed a friendship with the Rev. Dr. Andrew Somerville, who afterwards became the secretary of the foreign mission of the united presbyterian church. In November 1835 Finlayson was ordained minister of the Union Street congregation, Greenock, where he founded a missionary society, and in two years persuaded his people to pay off the large debt existing on the church. After twelve years of admirable ministerial work in Greenock he was called to be colleague and successor to the Rev. John m'Gilchrist of Rose Street Church, Edinburgh, and, having accepted the call, was inducted to the ministry there in September 1847. The congregation to which he now became minister was one of very few churches which at that time set an example and gave a tone to the whole church. They at once attached themselves to their new minister. He was elected moderator of the supreme court of his church in 1867, and shortly afterwards received the degree of D.D. from the university of Edinburgh. As one of the most ardent promoters of the manse fund, he was the chief agent in raising 45,000l., which led to the spending of 120,000l. in building and improving manses in two hundred localities. In the management of the augmentation fund he also took a deep interest. As a preacher he excelled in distinct and powerful exhibition of the truth; whatever he had to say came fresh from his own independent thought, went straight to the heart of the subject, and made an immediate impression on his hearers. The untimely death in 1868 of his eldest son Thomas, a promising advocate at the Scottish bar, caused him intense grief, from which he never fully recovered. On 7 Oct. 1872 his congregation celebrated the semi-jubilee of his ministry in Edinburgh. Having gone to Campbeltown to take part in an induction service there, he was suddenly attacked with failure of the heart's action, and was found