PRENTISS, GEORGE LEWIS ( 1816-1903). An American clergyman. He was born at Gorham, Me., graduated at Bowdoin College in 1835, and taught for a year in Gorham Academy. Follow ing this he went abroad and spent two years at the universities of Halle and Berlin. After a period in England, he returned to America and became pastor of the South Trinitarian Church, New Bedford, Mass., in 1845. From 1851 to 1358 he was pastor of the Mercer Street Presbyterian Church, New Yo•k, resigning to seek health by foreign travel. In 1860 he began the organiza tion of the :Murray Hill Church of the Covenant, New York, and served as its pastor from 1862 to 1873. when he was made professor of pastoral theology, Church polity, and mission work in Union Theological Seminary. In 1896 he became professor emeritus. His most important pub lished work is The Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, Historical and Bio graphical Sketches of Its First Fifty Years (1889), and a supplementary chapter dealing with the history of the veto power of the General Assembly over the election of professors of Union Seminary and its application to Dr. Charles A.
Briggs, entitled The Agreement Between Union Seminary the General Assembly (1891). llis wife, ELIZABETH PAYSON PRENTISS (1818.78), was born in Portland, Me., a daughter of the Rev. Edward Payson. She was educated in Portland and Ipswich, taught school for a few years, and was married to Dr. Prentiss in 1845. She was the author of books for children and several popu lar religious works, the most important of which was Stepping Heavenward (first published serial ly in the Chicago Advance, 1869). Her life and letters were published by her husband (New York, 1882).