Winchester, Elhanan

Winchester, Elhanan a Universalist minister, was born at Brookline, Mass., Sept. 30, 1751. He was of Welsh descent, the son of a respectable and industrious mechanic, the eldest of a family of fifteen children; vas very precocious, naturally of a feeble constitution, and remarkably amiable; received a careful religious training and excellent educational privileges; joined the Baptists in 1769, united in marriage the same year, and soon after began his ministerial career. In 1771 he preached at Rehoboth, Mass., where his youth, extraordinary memory, eloquence, apparent zeal, and singular dress excited interest and drew multitudes to his meetings. His subsequent appointments were: Grafton, 1772; Hull, 1773-74; Welch Neck, S.C., 1775-79, meanwhile traveling and preaching extensively every summer in the Middle and Eastern States; Philadelphia, Pa., 1780, where and when he accepted the Restoration theory. He sailed to England in 1787, and continued his journeys in Europe until about 1795, when he returned to Philadelphia. He died of hemorrhage of the lungs in Hartford, Conn., April 18, 1797. Mr. Winchester was gentle and zealots in temperament; diligent and faithful by habit; exemplary in life; a thoroughly scriptural and evangelical and unusually fascinating preacher; and a voluminous, clear, captivating writer. His writings embrace, A Collection of Hymns (1784): — A Serious Address to Youth on the Worth of the Soul (1785): — Dialogues on Universal Restoration (1788): — Lectures on the Prophecies (1790-91, 2 vols. 8vo): — The Process and Empire of Christ, a Poem, (1793),: — Ten Letters to Thomas Paine, in Reply to his Age of Reason (1794): — Political Catechism: --Hymns on the Restoration (1795): besides many sermons. See Stone, Biography of Rev. Elhanan Winchester (Boston, 1836).