Collier, Ezra W

Collier, Ezra W.

a (Dutch) Reformed minister, was born at Plymouth, Massachusetts, about 1832. He graduated at Rutgers College in 1849, and at New Brunswick Theological Seminary in 1854. He was noted in his student life for close application, literary culture, and scholarly enthusiasm. His first settlement was with Manhattan Reformed Church, New York city (1854-56). For the next ten years he was pastor in Freehold, N.J, His health being greatly impaired he removed to Coxsackie, N.Y.; but after a year was obliged to relinquish all active duties. He lingered in great feebleness until his death in 1869. He was one of the most brilliant and devoted of the younger ministers of his Church, and heroic in the utterance of his views a true scholar, and a Christian gentleman. His studies took a wide range beyond mere professional requirements. In 1865 he edited a volume of posthumous Sermons by his brother, Reverend Joseph A. Collier, to which he prefixed an interesting biographical sketch. (W.J.R.T.)