Bebee, Gilbert

Bebee, Gilbert a Baptist minister, was born at Norwich, Conn., in 1800. At the age of seven he became a Christian, and at sixteen began preaching in New York city. He was ordained there in 1818, and began his ministerial life as an itinerant preacher. In 1836 he became pastor of the Church in Middletown, N. Y., where he remained during the rest of his life. He commenced the publication, in New Vernont N. Y., in 1832, of the Signs of the Times, devoted to the Old-school Baptist cause, and continued his editorial charge of the paper after his removal to Middletown. He was a preacher of remarkable power and a vigorous writer. He was a disbeliever in the missionary and Sunday-school work, holding that God had no need of these. His physical powers and mental vigor he retained to the last, preaching on the day before his death, which took place at Middletown, May 2, 1881. (J. C. S.)