Lincoln, Ensign

Lincoln, Ensign a noted philanthropist and lay minister in the Baptist Church, was born at Hingham, Massachusetts, January 8, 1779. He was brought into the Church when about nineteen years old, under the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Baldwin. He had been apprenticed to a printer, and in 1800 he commenced business on his own account. He also advanced the interests of Christian truth by preaching, for which he was licensed about 1801, and, though he was not ordained, and therefore never relinquished his secular profession, he preached, and prayed, and performed the ordinary offices of a minister of the Gospel with all the holy fervor of an apostle. He won the unaffected respect of all men, as a generous neighbor, an honest friend, and a virtuous citizen. He died December 2, 1832. "If I should live to the age of Methuselah," he remarked, "I could find no better time to die." Mr. Lincoln was prominent in the organization of the Evangelical Tract Society, the Howard Benevolent Society, the Boston Baptist Foreign Mission Society, the Massachusetts Baptist Education Society, and other institutions of a similar character. He edited Winchell's Watts, the Pronouncing Bible, and the series of beautiful volumes styled The Christian Library. His own Scripture Questions and Sabbath-school Class-book are well known. See Dr. Sharp's Funeral Sermons American Baptist Magazine, April 1833. (J.H.W.)