EEYNOLDS
KEYS
demned by a Council of Bishops ; yet it
was equally rejected by advanced Eation-
alists, as the author mixes a good deal of
mysticism with his humanitarianism. He,
however, entirely rejected Christian doc
trines. D. June 28, 1863.
REYNOLDS, Charles B., American lecturer. B. Aug. 5, 1832. Eeynolds s parents, who had recently come from England, died before he was five years old, and he got little education. He became a preacher for the First Day Adventists in 1868, and passed to the Seventh Day Adventists in the following year. He later became a Eationalist, and made his first appearance at the New York Freethinkers Convention in 1883. In the following year he was elected chairman of the executive committee of the American Secular Union. In 1887 he was prosecuted for blasphemy, and was eloquently defended by Ingersoll. It was one of the last trials for heresy in the States, and Ingersoll s speech (Trial for Blasphemy) is one of his finest. Eeynolds was fined, but he continued to lecture all over America. He has contri buted regularly to the Eationalist papers of America.
RHODES, The Right Honourable Cecil John, M.A., D.C.L., statesman and philan thropist. B. July 5, 1853. Ed. Bishop Stortford Grammar School and Oxford (Oriel College). His father, a clergyman, destined him for the Church, but he evaded the vocation. On account of his delicate health he was sent to South Africa in 1869, and he spent two years growing cotton in Natal. In 1871 he went to the Kimberley diamond fields, and laid the foundations of his fortune. Stubbornly resolved to com plete his education, he returned to England in 1873 to study at Oxford. He developed tuberculosis, but he contrived, between 1874 and 1881, to put in sufficient terms at Oxford to graduate, fostering his South African business all the time. He entered the Cape Parliament in 1880, and pressed his well-known Imperialist views. In
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1884 he got a Protectorate established in
Bechuanaland, and was appointed Deputy
Commissioner. Four years later he organ
ized the De Beers Company, and in 1889
the British South Africa Company. From
1890 to 1894 he was Premier at the Cape,
and in 1895 he was called to the Privy
Council. The subsequent years he devoted
to the development of Ehodesia. By his
will Mr. Ehodes left his whole fortune of
6,000,000, apart from a few bequests, for
public purposes, including a gift of 100,000
to Oriel, land for a university in Ehodesia,
and a hundred and fifty scholarships of
300 a year each at Oxford. Many affected
to be surprised by his idealism, but he had
been a most generous philanthropist and a
man of high ideals all his life. Marcus
Aurelius was his favoui ite author, and he
was sincerely convinced that in his Im
perialism he was working for humanity.
He was a great admirer of Gibbon, and
was himself an Agnostic. Sir T. F. Fuller
discusses at length his views on religion,
and tells us that he rejected the idea of a
future life and thought the chances about
equal whether there was a God or not
(The Eight Hon. Cecil J. Ehodes, 1910,
pp. 235-50). D. Mar. 26, 1902.
RHYS, The Right Honourable Sir John, philologist. B. June 21, 1840. Ed. Bangor Normal College and Oxford (Jesus College), Paris, Heidelberg, Leipzig, and Gottingen Universities. In 1871 he was appointed school inspector for Flint and Denbigh, and in 1877 professor of Celtic at Oxford University. He was elected a fellow of Jesus College in 1881. In 1886 he gave the Hibbert lectures, and in 1889 the Ehind lectures on Archaeology at Edin burgh University. He was made Principal of Jesus College in 1895, and Fellow of the British Academy in 1903. His title was given in 1907, and he entered the Privy Council in 1911. Sir John was the leading British authority on the Celtic languages, literature, and religion, and he was keenly interested in comparative mythology, from the Eationalist point of view. He was
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