MAURICE, Rev. JOHN FREDERICK DENISON, D.D., a distinguished divine of the. church of England, and one of the most influential thinkers of his age, was the son of a Unitarian minister, and was born in 1805. His reputation at the university for scholar ship stood high, but being at this time a dissenter, and otherwise not in a position to sign the thirty-nine articles, he left Cambridge without taking a degree, and commenced a. literary career hi London. To this period belongs his novel entitled Eustace Conway. He also wrote for the Athenceum, which had then been recently started by James Silk Buckingham. After the lapse of two years, a change came over his religious sentiments and opinions; his spirit was profoundly stirred and influenced by the speculations of Coleridge, and he now resolved to become a clergyman of the church of England. He did not, however, return to Cambridge, but proceeded to Oxford, where he took the degree of /c.a., and wa,s ordained a priest about 1828. From that time the aim of his whole life was the interpretation of Christianity in accordance with the most pure and spiritual conceptions of our nature; nor have his labors been without result. At the time of his death there was probably no clergyman in the United Kingdom more deeply rever enced and loved than he was by a large body of the thoughtful and cultivated portion of the religious laity. He also succeeded in gathering round him, within the church, a large number of adherents, especially among the younger clergy, who constitute what is com monly called the "Broad Church" party, though its members repudiate any sectional tendency, and do not associate for the purpose of carrying out any sectional schemes.
like the " Evangelicals" and Tractarians. Maurice's theological opinions, especially on the question of the atonement, are not considered " sound" by the " orthodox" portion: of the clergy; and the publication of a volume of Theological Essays, in which, among other heresies, he took the charitable view of future punishments, lost him the professor ship of theology in King's college, London. For many years Maurice was chaplain of Lincoln's Inn, but in 1860 he was appointed incumbent of the district church of Vere street, Mary-le-bone. He was always a warm and enlightened friend of the working classes, and founded the first working-man's college in London. Maurice became pro fessor of raoral philosophy at Cambridge in 1866, and died April 1, 1872. Ile wrote largely. All his works are written in the most exquisite English, and display a beauty and tenderness of Christian sentiment that are nearly faultless, but united with a subtlety of thought that frequently passes into mysticism. His principal productions are his Mental and Moral Philosophy; 1?eligions of the World; Prophets and Kings of the Old Tes tament; Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Te,stament; The Kingdom of Christ; The Doctrine of Sacrifice; Theological Essays; Lectures on the Ecclesiastical History of the First and Second Centuries; Gospel of St. John; and Social _Morality.