Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/620

Rh 582 A L L - A L L seventh year ; and Joseph entreated his father that he might be educated to succeed his brother in the work of the ministry. His father consented, and he was immediately sent to Poulshot, then under a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford (William Spinage). In April 1649 he set out for Lincoln College, Oxford, in the pre sidency of Dr Paul Hood, with Dr John Owen as the vice-chancellor of the university. A Wiltshire place be coming vacant in Corpus Christi College, on the 3d Nov. 1651 he was chosen scholar of that house. Of his student life it was written contemporaneously, &quot;lie could toil terribly.&quot; On 6th July 1653 he took the degree of B.D., and thereupon became a tutor of his college. He became also chaplain of Corpus Christi, preferring this to a fellow ship. In 1654 he had offers of high preferment in the state, which he declined. The succeeding year (1655) brought him another offer, which he did not decline. George Newton, of the great church of St Mary Magdalene, Taunton, sought him for assistant ; and putting from him all other things, even forsaking further academical honours within his immediate grasp, he accepted the invitation by proceeding at once to Taunton, undergoing the accustomed probation, and at last being ordained as the associate of one of the most venerable of the later Puritan fathers. The ministry that resulted stands out lustrous and noble in the history of historical Taunton, and in the Life of the junior pastor, as told by Baxter and Stanford. Almost coincident with ordination came the marriage of the associate - pastor with Theodosia Alleine, daughter of Richard Alleine. Friendships among &quot;gentle and simple&quot; of the former, with Lady Farewell, grand-daughter of Pro tector Somerset bear witness to the attraction of Alleine s private life. His public life in preaching after the in tense, awakening, wistful type; in catechising with all diligence and fidelity ; in visitation among the poor and mean and sad ; in letter-writing, tender and sympa thetic; in devotional intercession through long consecrated hours of day and night was a model of pastoral devo tion. This is all the more remarkable as the pastor continued the student-toil of Corpus Christi, one monu ment of which was his Theologia Philosophica, a lost MS., establishing the harmony between revelation and nature, and whose learning classical, patristic, and recondite drew forth the wonder of Baxter. Alleine was no mere scholar or divine, but a man who asso ciated on equal terms with the patriarchs of the Royal Society, then laying those broad and deep foundations on which rests England s present scientific renown. These scientific studies and experiments, nevertheless, were ever kept in subordination to his proper work. The extent of his influence was, in so young a man, unique, resting fundament ally on the earnestness of his nature and the manifest power of his ministry. The year 1662 found senior and junior pastors like-minded, and both were of the Two Thousand. Alleine, when the Ejection blow fell, with John Wesley (grandfather of the celebrated John Wesley) for fellow- labourer, also ejected, carried on a kind of itineracy where- ever opportunity was found for preaching the gospel. For this he was cast into prison, indicted at sessions, and suffered as hundreds of England s noblest men have suf fered. His Letters from Prison were an earlier Cardi- phonia. He was released on 26th May 1664 ; and spite &amp;lt;of the Conventicle Act (Five Mile Act), he returned to his beloved work as a preacher of the gospel. He found himself again in prison, and again and again a sufferer. Tempestuous and troubled were his remaining years. Now in hiding, now in great bodily weakness, now coming to the front in some act of charity or patriotism, now at the waters of Bath, slowly but serenely wearing out. He died November 17, 1668; and the mourners, remember ing their beloved minister s words while yet with them, &quot; If I should die fifty miles away, let me be buried at Taunton,&quot; found a grave for him in St Mary s chancel. Pilgrims from over the sea read with dim eyes the brief Latin inscription on his stone. No Puritan-Nonconformist name is so affectionately cherished as is that of Joseph Alleine. &quot; Being dead he yet speaketh &quot; through his im perishable practical books. (Life, edited by Baxter; Joseph Alleine: his Companions and Times, by Charles Stanford, 1861; Wood s Athence; Palmer s None. Mem., s.v. ; Har- leian MSS., and Williams MSS.) (A. B. G.) ALLEINE, RICHARD, M.A., author of Vindidoe Pietatis, was educated at St Albans Hall, Oxford, where Anthony a Wood states he was entered commoner in 1627, aged sixteen; and where, having taken the degree of B.A., he transferred himself to New Inn, and continued there until he proceeded M.A. He and the like-minded William Alleine were sons of Richard Alleine, rector for upwards of fifty years of Dichet, Somerset. The younger Richard being ordained, became assistant to his venerable father, and immediately stirred the entire county by his burning eloquence. In March 1641 he succeeded to many-sided Richard Bernard as rector of Batcomb (Somerset). He declared himself on the side of the Puritans by subscribing &quot; The testimony of the ministers in Somersetshire to the truth of Jesus Christ &quot; and &quot; The Solemn League and Covenant,&quot; He continued for twenty years rector of Batcomb. On the Act of Uniformity being passed, he cast in his lot with the Two Thousand of the ejected. Upon the Five-Mile Act he removed to Frome Selwood, and preached there and around until his death on December 22, 1681. His works are all of the richest spiritual cha racter, with a wistfulncss of appeal that goes right to the heart. His Vindidw Pietatis (which appeared succes sively in 1660, 1663, and 1665) was refused licence by Sheldon, and was published, in common with other Non conformist books, without it. It was rapidly bought up, and &quot; did much to mend this bad world.&quot; Roger Norton, the king s printer, caused a large part of the first impres sion to be seized, on the ground of not being licensed, and to be sent to the royal kitchen. Glancing over its pages, he was struck with what he read, and on second thoughts it seemed to him a sin that a book so holy and so sale able should be destroyed. He therefore boiight back the sheets, says Calamy, for an old song, bound them, and sold them in his own shop. This in turn was complained of against him, and the shrewd publisher had to beg pardon on his knees before the council-table ; and the remaining copies were sentenced to be &quot; bisk d,&quot; or rubbed over with an inky brush, and sent back to the kitchen for lighting fires. Such &quot; bisk d &quot; copies occasionally occur still. The book was not killed. It was reissued, with additions, and a contribution by Joseph Alleine, and went forth on a mission which has endured to our day. (Calamy, s.v. ; Palmer s Nonconf. Mem. iii. pp. 167-8; C. Stanford s Joseph Alleine; Researches at Batcomb and Frome Selwood ; Wood s Athence, s.v.} (A. B. G.) ALLEN, BOG OF, the name given to a congeries of morasses in Kildare and King s County, Ireland. Clane Bog, the eastern extremity, is within 17 miles of Dublin, and the morasses extend westward almost to the Shannon. Their total area is about 238,500 acres. They do not form one continuous bog, the tract of the country to which the name is given being intersected by strips of dry cultivated land. The rivers Brosna, Barrow, and Boyne take their rise in these morasses ; and the Grand Canal crosses them. The Bog of Allen has a general elevation of 250 feet above the level of the sea, and the average thickness of the peat of which it consists is 25 feet. It rests on a subsoil of clay and marl