King, Alonzo

King, Alonzo a Baptist minister, was born in Wilbraham, Mass., April 1, 1796. His early educational advantages were few; but in 1818 he went to prosecute his studies in the family of the Rev. Leland Howard, then pastor of the Baptist church in Windsor, Vt., where he was converted to Christ. He afterwards entered Waterville College, Maine, and graduated in 1825. He was ordained pastor of the Baptist Church in North Yarmouth, Me., in 1826, subsequently of a small church in Northbgrough, Mass., and finally settled at Westborough, Mass.,where he died in 1835. King was a man of great humility, self-consecration, and self-abandonment. His preaching was never bold or startling, but always quiet, tender, persuasive. He had a talent for lyric poetry, and many of his productions are abroad without his name. His style as a writer was pure, with a decided cast of the imaginative or poetic, which was always apparent in his sermons and his printed productions. He compiled the Memoir of the distinguished missionary, Rev. George D. Boardman. See Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 6:747. (J. L. S.)