Elijah Hoole
Elijah Hoole [1]
an eminent Wesleyan missionary, was appointed in 1819 to Bangalore, in the Mysore country, to which, in 1823, Seringapatam was added. "He rapidly acquired an accurate knowledge of the Tamil, one of the first-fruits of which was a translation of the Methodist Hymns. It was thus that he laid the foundation of that proficiency as an Oriental scholar which was afterwards duly acknowledged by the Royal Asiatic Society and other learned bodies; at the same time travelling widely and laboring with unwearied diligence in his evangelical efforts, and enduring hardship as a good soldier of Christ." After nine years he returned to England sick, and was never afterwards free from pain. From 1830 to 1835 he was superintendent of schools in Ireland. Removing to London, he was, in 1834, appointed assistant secretary, and in 1836 one of the general secretaries of the Missionary Society, a position he held to the end of his life. In the administration of missionary affairs his punctuality, suavity, and' diligence rendered him singularly efficient, and his unobtrusive services became more and more valuable every year. He was also honorary secretary of the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews, and also for the Home of the Asiatics, in London. Gentle, uniformly cheerful, Dr. Hoole was to the end of life a diligent student. He died in London, June 17, 1872, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. Dr. Hoole wrote, Madras, Mysore, cad the South of India: — A Narrative of a Mission to those Countries, from 1820 to 1828 (2d ed. Lond. 1844, 12mo): — The Year Book of Missions. (Lond. 1847, 8vo): — The Missionary, a poem from the Swedish, edited by Dr. Hoole (1851, 24mo): — Byron and the Wesleys (1864): — Ladies' Tamil Book (1860). See Minutes of the British Conference, 1872, page 32; Stevens, Hist. of Methodism, 3:346; Osborn, Meth. Bibliography, page 117.
