Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/1027

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

1010

SQUIEE.

Newmarket. Some of his relatives, who were Independents, proposed that he should enter one of their colleges, and undergo a training for the ministry; but as he held Anabaptist views, he joined the congregation which had been pre- sided over by the late Robert Hall, at Cambridge. Prom this period he became a village preacher and tract distributor at Teversham, a village near Cambridge ; under the designation of "the Boy Preacher," delivered his first sermon; and shortly afterwards accepted an in- vitation to become pastor at a small Baptist chapel at Waterbeach . The lad of seventeen became a well- known character ; the bam at Waterbeach was filled with audi- tors, while crowds contented them- selves with listening to the sound of his voice from the outside. In- vitations to preach were sent to him from the surrounding places, his fame reached London, and he was offered the chapel in New Park- street, in Southwark, in which Dr. Rippon at one time preached. Mr. Spurgeon made his first appearance before a London congregation in 1853, with so much success, that ere two years had elapsed it was con- sidered necessary to enlarge the building, pending which alteration he officiated for four months at Exeter Hall. That edifice was crowded, and hundreds were turned away from the doors. The enlarge- ment of the chax>el in Park-street, however, proved insufficient, and his hearers multiplied with such rapidity, that it became expedient to engage the Surrey Music Hall. A lamentable accident having oc- curred within its walls in Oct., 185G, his followers erected for him a large new chapel called the " Tabernacle,** in Newington Butts, which was publicly opened in 1861. Mr. Spurgeon, who has published hundreds of sermons, laid the foundation-stone of the Stockwell Orphanage in Sept., 1867. SQUIER, Ephraim Gbob«b, born

at Bethlehem, New York, June 17, 1821. In his youth he worked on a farm in summer, and taught school in winter. Subsequently he edited various local newspapers, and studied engp.neering. Removing to Ohio, he undertook, in conjunction with Dr. E. H. Davis, an explora- tion of the aboriginal monuments in the Valley of the Mississippi, of which the resiilts are g^ven in the first volume of the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge,*' 1848. He subsequently published " Abori- ginal Monuments of the State of New York,** 1849. In 1848 he was appointed Charge d' Affaires to the republics of Central America. In 1853 he went again to Central America to report upon a line for a proposed interoceanic railway, for which a company was formed, of which he was made secretary ; but the work has never been begun. He spent 1863-61 in Peru (as United States Commissioner), ex- amining the remains of the Inca works, of which he took hundreds of photographs. Returning to New York he began to prepare an ex- haustive work on the subject, but the completion of the work was for several years interrupted by a mental disorder, from which he however subsequently recovered so far as to be able to revise the por- tions already written, and to super- intend their publication, under the title "Peru: Incidents and Ex- plorations in the Land of the Incas," 1877. Besides nimierous reports and scientific papers, he has pub- lished : " Nicaragua ; its People, Scenery, and Monuments,** 1852 ; " Notes on Central America," 1854 ; "Waikna," a story of adventure, partly imaginary, on the Mosquito Shore, 1855; "The States of Cen- tral America,'* 1857, revised, 1870 ; " Monograph of Authors who have written on the Aboriginal Lan- guages of America,** I860; and " Tropical Fibres and their Econo- mic Extraction,** 1861. He has received the medal of the French