William Henry Clarkson
William Henry Clarkson [1]
an English Wesleyan minister, was born. at York. He was brought up in tile Established Church, but converted among the Methodists. He began his ministry at Rye, where his labors were signally blessed, and during a long course in the travelling ministry the same success attended him. He was for many years a superannuate at Canterbury, where he died, Dec. 28,1881, aged eighty-six years. See Minutes of the British Conference, 1882, p. 19. Clarus is the name of several eminent persons in early Christian history:
1. Bishop of Ptolemais, attended the synod of Caesarea, A.D. 198, convened by the metropolitan Theophilus and Narcissus of Jerusalem, with the view of settling the paschal controversy (Eusebius, Haer, 25).'
2. Bishop of Mascula, in Numidia.
3. Apostle of Aquitaine, a martyr, and, as some writers say, a bishop who came from Africa to Rome and was sent thence by pope Anacletus, in the 1st century, as a missionary to Aquitaine. He was martyred at Lectoure, in Gascony, and buried in the same place. He is commemorated June 1.
4. A presbyter and martyr, commemorated Nov. 4 in Usuard's Martyrology.
5. First bishop of Alby, and martyr flourished in the 3d century; commemorated at Alby on July 1.
6. Bishop of Nantes, apostle of Brittany in the latter part of the 3d century. He was the first missionary sent into Brittany, and first bishop of Nantes. There are various traditions respecting St. Clarus, that he associated with the apostles, or at least with two of them, Peter and Paul; that he was sent into Gaul by St. Peter, when that apostle was bishop of Rome; that he was sent into Gaul by St. Linus, the successor of St. Peter; that he brought with him the nail which fastened the right hand of Peter to the cross, etc. It appears: that he went from Rome into Gaul with the deacon Adeodatus about 280, and preached in the southern district of Brittany. According to an ancient tradition, he died in the diocese of Vannes. His relics were transported in 878 to the abbey of St. Aubin of Angers. He is commemorated Oct. 10.
7. A presbyter of Touraine, born at Auvergne in the middle of the 4th century; commemorated Nov. 8..
8. A saint of Loudun, where he is honored as a martyr. He flourished probably in the 4th century, and is commemorated Aug. 8.
9. Presbyter and abbot of Yienne, in France, was born in the beginning of the reign of Clotaire II, in that town, on the banks of the Rhone. He was abbot of the monastery of St. Marcellus of Vienne, which he governed over twenty years, and had at the same time the direction of the convent of St. Blandina, to which his mother had retired. Having been informed of the hour of his death by an apparition of St. Blandina, he caused himself to be carried into the church, where he lay extended on a hair-cloth, and ceased not to pray and sing praises to God until he breathed his last. He died about the year 660. His life has been written anonymously and published by Mabillon and Bollandus. He was buried in the Church of St. Blandina. His bones were scattered in the 16th century by the Huguenots. He is commemorated Jan. 1.
10. A priest and martyr, was a native of Rochester, and died about 894. He went to Gaun and established. himself in Le Vexin, where he soon acquired a high reputation. A beautiful woman, who did not succeed in making him comply with her passion, revenged herself by paying two criminals to assassinate him, in a borough which still bears his name, Saint-Clar, and which is famous for the treaty that ceded to Rollo the province of Neustria.
