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Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Graham, William (1810-1883)

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1201044Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 22 — Graham, William (1810-1883)1890Thomas Hamilton (1842-1926)

GRAHAM, WILLIAM, D.D. (1810–1883), Irish presbyterian divine, the youngest of seven children of a small farmer at Clough, co. Antrim, was born there in 1810. A school in the neighbourhood gave him his early education, and his college training was obtained at the Belfast Academical Institution. Having received license, he was sent on missionary service to the west of Ireland. In 1836 he was ordained as minister of Dundonald, near Belfast, and proved himself so faithful and zealous that in 1842 he was appointed by the general assembly one of its first missionaries to the Jews. In this capacity he was stationed first at Damascus, then at Hamburg, and finally at Bonn, where he built a church and laboured diligently for thirty years. In 1883 he resigned, and on 11 Dec. of that year died at Belfast. He wrote several able works, the chief of which are: 1. ‘A Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians.’ 2. ‘The Spirit of Love, a Commentary on the First Epistle of John.’ 3. ‘A Commentary on the Epistle to Titus.’ 4. ‘On Spiritualising Scripture, or the Confessions of a Millenarian.’ 5. ‘An Appeal to Israel’ (written in four languages). 6. ‘The Jordan and the Rhine,’ London, 1854.

[Obituary notices; personal knowledge.]