HALL, RANDALL COOK: Protestant Episcopalian; b. at Wallingford, Conn., Dec. 18, 1842. He was educated at Columbia College (A.B., 1863) and the General Theological Seminary (1866), and was ordained priest in 1870. He was instructor in Hebrew in the General Theological Seminary from 1869 to 1871, and from 1871 until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1899 was professor of Hebrew and Greek in the same institution. Since 1904 he has been chaplain of the House of the Holy Comforter, New York City. He has written Some Elements of Hebrew Grammar (New York, 1895).

HALL, ROBERT: Baptist; b. at Arnesby (7 m. s.s.e. of Leicester), Leicestershire, May 2, 1764; d. at Bristol Feb. 21, 1831. His father was Robert Hall (d. 1791), a Particular Baptist minister of some eminence, who joined Andrew Fuller and John Ryland (qq.v.) in opposing hyper-Calvinistic antinomianism in his denomination. The son was the youngest of a family of fourteen and as an infant was so frail that his life was despaired of. At the age of nine, however, he delighted to read the works of Jonathan Edwards. After a year and a half of classical study under Ryland and a period of theological study under his father, he entered Bristol College in 1778, and accomplished the course required in three years. He then entered Aberdeen University (M.A., 1784). In 1785 he returned to Bristol to assist Dr. Caleb Evans in the work of instruction in the college. His ministry in the Broadmead Church attracted great audiences; but the liberal tone of his teachings alarmed Dr. Evans and other conservative brethren, and Hail's consciousness of the possession of superior gifts and attainments, not being coupled with due humility of spirit, brought about such strained relations between him and the aged principal as to necessitate his withdrawal (1790). He had greatly offended his conservative brethren by expressing the conviction that God would not damn Joseph Pries

Unitarian the tarian leanings. The and death about this time of Robert Robinson (q.v.) of Cambridge, who from being a Calvinist had become Arminian and then Socinian, left vacant a church that was glad to secure the services of the brilliant young preacher. His fifteen years' pastorate in Cambridge was by

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far the most strenuous period of his life. His tendency toward excessive liberalism soon disappeared. The members of the church and congregation that were aggressively Sociman gradually withdrew. His ministry was thronged by professors and students of the university and by lovers of pulpit eloquence of all denominations. He soon gained recognition as the foremost preacher of the time, and in majesty of thought and expression and impressiveness of delivery it is doubtful whether he has ever heen surpassed. His Apology for Freedom of the Press (London, 1793) increased his popularity with lovers of liberty. His sermon on Modern Infidelity (Cambridge, 1800) passed through many editions and was regarded as the most powerful antidote to current skepticism of the French type. Successive attacks of extreme nervous prostration led to his resignation of the Cambridge pastorate in 1805. After a year of rest he accepted the charge of a church in Leicester, where for twenty years he ministered with remarkable power. In 1826 he accepted an often repeated call to the pastorate of Broadmead Church, Bristol, and spent the last five years of life amid the scenes of his earliest ministry. He followed in the footsteps of Robinson in his advocacy of open communion. His Works were collected in six volumes (London, 1832) and have been republished both in England and America.

A. H. Newman.

Bibliography: His biography by 0. G. Gregory is in vol. vi. of the Works, ut sup. Consult also the Life by E. P. Hood, London, 1881, and DNB, xiv. 85-87.