BAKER, David (Augustine), Benedictine ascetical writer: b. 1575; d. 1641. The most original and ablest spiritual writer among English Catholics during the first half of the 17th century. Having finished his studies at Oxford he devoted himself to law at Lincoln's and later at Inner Teinple. In his 40th year he became a convert to the Catholic faith, and a few years later was ordained priest and was subsequently. received into the Benedictine Order by the Italian fathers in England. Dug dale and Dodsworth are indebted to his his torical labors for much of the data found in their monumental works. It was Father Baker who discovered that the old English Benedic tine monastery of Saint Peter at Westminster was legally continued in the person of an old priest, Dom Robert (Sigebert) Buckley, who had suffered 44 years' imprisonment for refus ing the oath of supremacy. By this sole sur vivor David Balcer was professed into the monastery of Westminster, and thus be came one of the first three priests to form the connecting link between the old and the new congregation in England. It was
as spiritual director at Douai and Cambrai that he composed his admirable treatises on the spiritual life. Consult Wood,
soldier and politician: b. London, England, 24 Feb. 1811'; d. 21 Oct. 1861. He came to the United States in 1816, was elected to the Il linois leOslature in 1837, became a State sena tor in 1840, and was sent to Congress in 1844. He served under General Scott in the war with Mexico and commanded a brigade at the battle of Cerro Gordo, and was elected United States senator from Oregon in 1860. He entered the Federal army at the outbreak of the Civil War and was killed at the battle of Ball's Bluff while leading a charge. Consult Glazier, William, 'Heroes of Three Wars) (1880).