Gay Ebenezer
Gay Ebenezer [1]
a Unitarian clergyman, was born in Dedham, Mass., August 15, 1696. He graduated at Harvard College in 1714; was admitted into the ministry in 1718, and installed as pastor of the church in Hingham, which position he held till his death. While quite,a young man he gained a high reputation for scholarship, and he received many testimonials of public respect, both in his earlier and later days. He was opposed to all creeds and confessions of faith considered as binding, and is often mentioned as the father of American Unitarianism. He had no sympathy with the "great revival" of 1740. His name is signed to a paper entitled "The Sentiments and Resolutions of an Association of Ministers, convened at Weymouth January 15, 1745," in which they bear testimony against Whitefield's "enthusiastic spirit." In 1781 he delivered a sermon on his eighty-fifth birthday, which was published under the title of "The Old Man's Calendar." It has passed through several editions in this country, been reprinted in England, and translated into the Dutch language and published in Holland. He died March 8, 1787. He printed a number of occasional sermons.- Sprague, Annals, 8:1.
Gay de Vernon Leonard,
a French priest and politician, was born at St. Leonard (Limousin) in 1748. When the French Revolution broke out he was curate of Compeignac, a town near Limoges. Siding at once with the people, he was the first to place the Domine salvam fac gentem before the Domine salvum fac regem, and, in consequence, was appointed constitutional bishop of Haute-Vienne, March 13, 1791. Sent as deputy to the Legislature, he sided with Torne, metropolitan of Cher, in demanding that the clergy should be permitted to lay aside their peculiar dress. Having been re-elected to the Convention, he joined the extreme Republicans, and from the midst of "La Montague" cast his vote for the death of Louis XVI, and caused the arrest of some of the Girondists. In the Council of Five Hundred, of which he was a member, he maintained the same opinions. The Directory, to get rid of him, appointed him, June 9,1798, on a commercial mission to Tripoli, in Syria. He afterwards became general secretary of the Roman republic at Rome, but was deposed by Barras, and even forbidden to enter France. He nevertheless secretly came back, and remained hidden in the department of Doubs until June 18, 1799, when a change of government enabled him to obtain the repeal of the sentence of exile. About 1802 he founded a school in Paris, in connection with several other learned men, but was again exiled in consequence of the law of Jan. 12,1816. In 1819 he finally obtained leave to return, and died at Vernon, near Limoges, October 20, 1822. See Mahul, Ann. necrologique (1822, page 99); Thiers, Hist. de la Revolution. Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 19:756.
