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 indulged by the privy council on 18 Dec. 1679. Next year, while visiting his niece, Mrs. Kennedy, in Edinburgh, he baptised her child in St. Giles's Church, after preaching a weekday lecture there, on the invitation of the minister, Archibald Turner. For this offence Rule was brought before the privy council, and imprisoned more than twelve months on the Bass Rock. His health failed, and he was at length discharged, under a bond of five thousand merks to quit the kingdom within eight days. He repaired to Ireland, where for about five years (1682–1687) he acted as colleague to Daniel Williams [q. v.] at Wood Street, Dublin.

Returning to Scotland, he received a call on 7 Dec. 1688 to the ministry of Greyfriars church, Edinburgh; this was confirmed by the town council on 24 July 1689. Rule in the meantime had been in London, to forward the presbyterian interest, and had gained the special notice of William III. In 1690 he was appointed by the privy council one of the commissioners for purging Edinburgh University, and on the expulsion, in September 1690, of the principal, Alexander Monro (d. 1715?) [q. v.], Rule, while retaining his ministerial charge, was made principal by the town council. He distinguished himself by writings in defence of the presbyterian polity against Monro and John Sage [q. v.] He sat late at his studies while his friend, George Campbell (d. 1701), professor of divinity, rose early; hence they were known as the ‘evening star’ and the ‘morning star.’ Rule died on 7 June 1701, at the age of seventy-two. He married Janet Turnbull, and had issue, Gilbert, a physician; Andrew, an advocate (d. December 1708); and Alexander, professor of Hebrew from 1694 to 1702 in Edinburgh University.

He published, besides two single sermons (1690 and 1701): 1. ‘Disputatio … de Rachitide,’ &c., Leyden, 1665, 4to. 2. ‘A Rational Defence of Non-Conformity,’ &c., 1689, 4to. 3. ‘A Second Vindication of the Church of Scotland … Answer to Five Pamphlets,’ &c. [1691], 4to. (This and the foregoing are roughly handled in ‘The Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence,’ &c., 1692, 4to.) 4. ‘The Good Old Way defended against … A. M. D.D.,’ &c., Edinburgh, 1697, 4to. He was one of those who prefaced ‘A Plain and Easy Explication of the … Shorter Catechism,’ &c., 1697, 12mo. A broadsheet ‘Elegie’ on his death was published, Edinburgh, 1701.

[Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scoticanæ; Calamy's Account, 1713, pp. 514 seq.; Calamy's Continuation, 1727, ii. 676 seq.; Wodrow's Hist. of the Kirk (Laing), 1842, iii. 194 seq.; Armstrong's App. to Martineau's Ordination, 1829, p. 69; Grant's Hist. of the University of Edinburgh, 1884, i. 239, ii. 256 seq. 288.] 

RULE, WILLIAM HARRIS (1802–1890), divine and historian, born at Penrhyn on 15 Nov. 1802, was son of John Rule, by his wife Louisa, daughter of William Harris, a Cornish quaker. The father, a native of Berwick-upon-Tweed, was of Scottish parentage; while a surgeon in the army he was captured and detained for some years a prisoner in France; after his release he entered the naval packet service, and was stationed in the West Indies. When his son was seventeen years old he turned him out of doors in a passion. Young Rule took refuge for a time with an aunt. His education was much neglected, but he received some instruction in Latin from the rector of Falmouth, Thomas Hitchens. He very soon left Cornwall, and tried to make a living as a portrait-painter in Devonport, Plymouth, Exeter, and finally in London, where he cheerfully bore great privations. Early in 1822 he left the church of England for the Wesleyan body, and became a village schoolmaster at Newington in Kent. He was ordained a Wesleyan preacher on 14 March 1826. During his probation he devoted much time to classical study. On 22 March he left England with his newly married wife on a projected mission to the Druses of Mount Lebanon, which, however, he abandoned. Rule acted for more than a year as resident missionary in Malta. During this time he studied Italian and learned some Arabic. While in the island he was several times stoned by the mob as a supposed freemason. On 31 May 1827 he left Malta. He was sent in November 1827 by the Wesleyan Missionary Society to the island of St. Vincent. In March 1831 he came home, and was next year appointed Wesleyan pastor at Gibraltar, where he founded the first charity school, besides four day and evening schools, and had both English and Spanish congregations. He also lectured in Spanish on protestantism, prepared Spanish versions of the four gospels, the Wesleyan Methodist catechism, and Horne's ‘Letter on Toleration,’ and compiled a Spanish hymn-book, which obtained a large circulation in Spanish America. A Wesleyan mission established by Rule at Cadiz was suppressed by the Christinist government in 1839; but subsequently, with the help of Sir George William Frederick Villiers (afterwards Lord Clarendon) [q. v.], the English ambassador, he obtained a royal order repealing the edicts which prohibited foreigners from taking part in Spanish education. While on a visit to Madrid he met George Borrow [q. v.], by whom he was intro-