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THO

1136

THO

Halle. In 1827 his declining health obliged him to leave Halle

for a time, and he was sent to Rome in the capacity of chaplain to the Prussian embassy. Here he made the acquaintance of Bunsen, and a friendship sprang up between these two eminent men, which was not without influence on the views and literary works of both. In 1829 he returned to Halle, where he has continued to labour ever since with a conspicuous degree of success and usefulness. His appointment was of course highly distasteful to Gesenius and the other rationalistic members of the theological faculty, and unpleasant collisions resulted from their hostility. But Tholuck was too strong a man to be extinguished even by the giants of rationalism; and he has lived to see Halle become again what it was in the days of Francke, one of the chief centres of German evangelical life. As a school of theology, it is second only in importance to the university of Berlin. Many thousands of young theologians have sat at the feet of Tholuck and his like-minded colleague and early friend, Julius Müller; and the extensive revival of evangelical faith and life which has taken place in Germany during the last thirty years has been very much owing to the influence of their teaching upon the young divines of the churches. Tholuck's activity as an author has been indefatigable and richly productive. His commentaries on the Sermon on the Mount, on the Psalms, the Gospel of John, and the Epistles to the Romans and Hebrews, have all been translated into English, and are well known to our own divines. His "Credibility of the Gospel History" was a reply to Strauss' Leben Jesu. His sermons, in several volumes, are valuable memorials of his labours as university preacher at Halle. For many years he was editor of the Literarische Anzeiger, a journal of christian theology and general science, now discontinued; and for several years back he has been engaged upon a history of German Rationalism, of which only the "Vor-Geschichte" has as yet appeared, extending to several volumes. If it is ever completed, it will prove his opus magnum. In varied knowledge and culture, and especially in his command of modern languages, Tholuck is one of the most accomplished men in Europe.—P. L. THOM, David, an eminent universalist minister, the eldest son of a Glasgow merchant, was born at Glasgow in February, 1795. He was educated at the grammar-school and university of his native place, and at the conclusion of his academic and theological curriculum, he was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Glasgow in 1820. After officiating a short time as assistant minister at Logic, near Stirling, he was chosen pastor of Oldham Street presbyterian church, Liverpool, by a large majority. The choice was not ratified by the trustees, and his supporters withdrew, and built a new place of worship for him in Rodney Street. He had not long preached in this place when a charge of heresy was made against him, and on a trial of the charge before the presbytery of Glasgow he was condemned, and the pastoral relation dissolved. Two years afterwards he was cited before that court again, but he declined its jurisdiction, so that he was ultimately suspended or deposed by the general assembly. In the mean time his adherents had erected a new church for him in Bold Street. Soon after this he began to advocate universalist views, and till his death he preached and maintained them with unwearying assiduity. The church in Bold Street was erected in 1828, and in 1851 it was disposed of advantageously, and property of the value of £2000 secured for him in Crown Street. His congregation had not grown, and in a small chapel in this property he officiated till April, 1860, when he was laid aside by an illness resulting in total blindness, and he died 27th February, 1862. The universities of Heidelberg and Jena gave him the degrees of Ph.D. and D.D. His pen was prolific, and his correspondence was large. His system of universalism, which he had thought out for himself, was ingeniously defended and illustrated by him; and his place of worship was called the Berean universalist chapel. Dr. Thom was a man of good mind and excellent culture, of amiable character and irreproachable life.—J. E. THOM, James, a popular Scottish sculptor, was born in Ayrshire in 1799. Whilst an apprentice to a stone-mason he taught himself to model and carve. Being—almost of course—a warm admirer of Burns, his earliest efforts in original sculpture were small figures and groups from the poetry of the Ayrshire Bard. The success these met with stimulated Thom to carve a pair, Tam o' Shanter and Souter Johnnie, in sandstone, of full life size. These had an extraordinary run of popularity, first in Scotland, and then in England. They were exhibited throughout the country; reduced copies in plaster were to be seen everywhere, and the sculptor received commissions for several replicas. He subsequently carved a group of "Old Mortality," and several single figures; but the novelty was worn off, and the sculptor had failed to profit by the opportunity afforded by his success to obtain the technical knowledge which was so painfully deficient in his first works, but which had been overlooked on account of their native simplicity, freshness, geniality of conception, and genuine though somewhat coarse humour. But though rudeness of execution, as well as of conception, might be tolerated in the first works of a self-taught artist, its continued repetition in sculpture was fatal, and Thom was neglected for a newer wonder. About 1835 he went to America, and settled in New York. There he repeated his "Tam o' Shanter" figures; made a copy of "Old Mortality and his Pony" for the Laurel hill cemetery at Philadelphia; executed a large freestone statue of Burns; and had, in short, a fresh season of popularity. But after a while he engaged in the business of stone-quarrying, and finding it profitable, he gradually abandoned the chisel. Later he tried his hand, without much success, on architecture; then built himself a house at Ramapo, Rockland county, New York, and cultivated a farm. He died at New York, April 24, 1850.—J. T—e. THOM, John Nicholls, known as "Canterbury Thom," was the son of a small farmer and maltster at St. Columb in Cornwall, and was born probably about the beginning of the century. He had been a maltster, and had then been lost sight of for some time, when in 1832 he appeared in Kent, calling himself Sir William Courtenay, and offering himself as a candidate for the representation of Canterbury, and of the eastern division of the county successively. Convicted of perjury in 1833, he was sentenced to transportation, but was confined as a lunatic in an asylum, from which unfortunately he was released in 1837. Haranguing the peasantry of Kent against the poor law, and representing himself as the Messiah, he gained a number of followers, at the head of whom, on the 28th of May, 1838, he sallied forth from the village of Boughton. He had shot a constable, and the military were sent for. When they appeared in front of his party, Thom shot the officer who commanded them. The soldiers fired; and Thom, with several of his followers, whom he had persuaded into a belief in his and their invulnerability, fell mortally wounded. That in the year 1838 Englishmen could be found to brave death for such a leader, was a fact which threw great light on the dense and dangerous ignorance of a section of the population at that date.—F. E. THOM, William, a rustic Scottish poet, was born at Aberdeen in 1799. His parents were very poor, and gave him a very scanty education. At ten years of age he was bound apprentice for four years to a weaver. He subsequently worked for seventeen years in a factory, and during that time acquired a thorough knowledge of Scottish song, and learned to play the German flute. He married about 1829, and was living with his family at Newtyle in Forfarshire when the great commercial disasters which took place in America in 1836 reduced many thousands of the working classes, and especially of the handloom weavers, to utter destitution. Thom with his wife and four children, after enduring great suffering, set off to walk to Aberdeen in the hope of procuring employment. One of his children died on the way. He obtained the means of support during the journey partly by playing the flute, partly by presenting at some houses a copy of his first poem, an address to that instrument. On reaching Aberdeen, he obtained employment first in that town and afterwards in Inverury. His wife died in 1840, and this new affliction drove him again to poetry; and one of his compositions entitled "The Blind Boy's Pranks," which was inserted in the Aberdeen Herald, attracted attention. Several other poems which he had by him were produced and admired, and some not quite judicious patronage was bestowed upon him both in London and in his own country, which exercised an injurious effect upon his habits. He published in 1841 a small volume of poems, entitled "Rhymes and Recollections of a Handloom Weaver," and died in great poverty in 1850. He had married a second wife, who survived him only a few months. Thom's verses are characterized by truthfulness of sentiment, melody of versification, and correct taste, rather than by originality of thought.—J. T. THOMAS, Antoine Léonard, a member of the French Academy, born in 1732. He had two brothers who distinguished

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