The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Hurst, John Fletcher

HURST, John Fletcher, an American clergyman, born near Salem, Md., Aug. 17, 1834. He graduated at Dickinson college in 1853, taught ancient languages two years at Ashland, N. Y., went to Germany and studied theology at Halle and Heidelberg, returned to the United States in 1858, and for eight years was pastor of Methodist Episcopal churches, chiefly in Passaic and Elizabeth, N. J. In the autumn of 1866 he took charge of the theological department of the mission institute of the German Methodist church in Bremen, Germany, which was afterward removed to Frankfort under the name of the Martin mission institute, where he continued to be its director for three years, meantime visiting Russia, the Scandinavian countries, France, Switzerland, Italy, Great Britain, Greece, Syria, and Egypt. In 1871 he returned to the United States to become professor of historical theology in the Drew theological seminary at Madison, N. J. In 1873 he was elected president of that institution, retaining his chair of historical theology. Dr. Hurst has published a “History of Rationalism” (1865), “Outlines of Bible History” (1873), “Martyrs to the Tract Cause” (1873), and “Life in the Fatherland: the Story of a Five Years' Residence in Germany” (1874). He has translated portions of Hagenbach's “History of the Church in the 18th and 19th Centuries” (2 vols., 1869), Van Oosterzee's “Lectures in Defence of St. John's Gospel” (1869), and Lange's “Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans,” with additions (1870).