Schureman, John, Dd

Schureman, John, D.D., a (Dutch) Reformed minister, son of Hon. James Schureman, United States Senator from New Jersey, was born near New Brunswick, N.J., Oct. 19, 1778. Of pious lineage, he devoted himself to Christ in early youth. At seventeen he graduated from Queen's College (1795), and then studied theology with Dr. Livingston. He was licensed in 1800, settled at Bedminster, N.J., from 1801 to 1807, when he removed to the Church at Millstone, and in 1809 accepted a call to the Collegiate Dutch Reformed Church in New York at the same time with Dr. Jacob Brodhead. Here he sustained himself with satisfaction to his people, but, on account of feeble health, in 1811 he accepted the vice-presidency and chair of moral philosophy and belles lettres in Queen's College at New Brunswick. For a short time, 1813, he was pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church in that city, but disease soon obliged him to desist. In 1815 the General Synod appointed him professor of ecclesiastical history and pastoral theology in the theological seminary under their care in New Brunswick. Here for five years he fulfilled his duties with profit to the institution and honor to himself. He died in 1818 of typhus fever. Dr. Schureman was blessed with a clear, vigorous, accurate, and well-disciplined mind, and with an uncommonly amiable temper which made him, like Daniel, "a man greatly beloved." His piety was tender, devout, and universally acknowledged by all who knew him. His preaching partook of these characteristics, and was always popular, but not strong or brilliant. He was judicious, solid, calm, and full of unction. His short career gave promise of usefulness and of power, but was blighted by early death, and yet makes his memory very precious among the departed worthies of the Reformed Church. See Ludlow, Memorial; Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit; De Witt, Historical Discourse. (W.J.R.T.)