Bond, Thomas Emerson, Md

Bond, Thomas Emerson, M.D., distinguished as physician, editor, and preacher, was born in Baltimore in February, 1782. His parents removed to Buckingham county, Va., and his early education was received there and in Baltimore. After studying medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, he returned to Baltimore to practise medicine, becoming M.D. of the University of Maryland. He rose rapidly to distinction in practice, and was called to a professorship in the university, which, from a failure of his health, he never occupied. From his boyhood he had been a diligent student of the English classical writers, and had modelled upon them a chaste, masculine, and nervous English style. He was also curious in theological questions, and brought to their study a mind of singular acuteness, disciplined to severity by his studies in physical science. At an early ate he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in Harford county, Maryland; and, while practising medicine in Baltimore, he was licensed as a local preacher. From 1816 to 1830 the Church was agitated by questions of reform in its government, and Dr. Bond took a very active part in the discussion. In 1827 he published an Appeal to the Methodists (8vo), in opposition to the proposed changes, and in 1828 a Narrative and Defence (8vo) of the course of the Church authorities. From 1830 to 1831 he edited the Itinerant, a newspaper published in Baltimore for the defence of the Church. In all these publications Dr. Bond showed himself a master of the subject, as well as of the art of controversy, and his writings contributed signally to the' overthrow of the so-called Radical reformers. In 1840 lie was chosen editor of the Christian Advocate and Journal, published in New York, the chief weekly organ of the Church. Here for twelve years he found his greatest field of activity, and achieved the greatest success of his life. In skill of editorial writing he has yet been surpassed, it is thought, by no person engaged on the public press in America. The Methodist Quarterly also contains several important contributions from his pen. He died in New York 14th March, 1856., Bondage (some form of the root עָבִד, abad', to toil, or of בָּכִשׁ, balcash', to subjugate;, Gr. δουλεία), a state of slavery (Ex 1:14), servitude in captivity (Ezr 9:8-9). SEE SLAVERY; SEE CAPTIVITY.