Hobart

tution of the Christian Church (1803), and pre-
pared in 1804 A Companion for the Altar. These
were followed by The Companion for the
Festivals and Fasts of the Protestant Episcopal
Church (1805) and The Clergyman's Companion
(1806). The trend of his thought and the argu-
ments used in his many controversies are indi-
cated in A Collection of Essays on the Subject
of Episcopacy (1806), and An Apology for Apos-
tolic Order and its Advocates (1807). Soon
after he was installed as assistant minister at
Trinity Church, he was elected a member of
the board of trustees of Columbia College and
served in this capacity for many years, becoming
a leader in the expansion of this educational in-
stitution. Early in his career he established the
Protestant Episcopal Theological Society (1806)
for the training of young men for the ministry:
this developed into the General Seminary. He
founded the Bible and Common Prayer-Book So-
ciety of New York (1809), and edited the
Churchman's Magazine after its removal from
New Haven to New York.

In 1811, when he was thirty-six years old, Ho-
bart was elected assistant bishop of New York,
and on May 29 he was consecrated. The condi-
tion of Bishop Moore's health was such that prac-
tically all the work of his office fell to his assist-
ant, and upon Moore's death in February 1816
Hobart became diocesan. He had continued his
duties as assistant minister at Trinity until 1813
when he was made assistant rector, and on Mar.
n, 1816, he was inducted as rector. His own
diocese was large in area and its demands exact-
ing, but until 1815 when John Croes was elected
bishop of New Jersey, Hobart performed episco-
pal duties in that state and for an interval, 1816-
19, in Connecticut. In 1821 he also became pro-
fessor of pastoral theology and pulpit eloquence
in the General Theological Seminary. Notwith-
standing the multiplicity of his activities he re-
organized his diocese and put new life into the
churches, visiting the various parishes and es-
tablishing new missions. He believed in very
definite instruction in matters of faith. Indefi-
niteness of conviction was to him a cause of in-
security of character. He saw dangers in liberal-
ism; and these drove him to conservatism and
orthodoxy as a stronghold against free thinking.
In 1810 he founded the Protestant Episcopal
Tract Society and in 1817 the Protestant Epis-
copal Press. By publishing many sermons and
The Christian's Manual of Faith and Devotion
(1814) he continued his work of training the
people. The formation of the New York Sunday
School Society (1817) was the accomplishment
of a cherished idea of the bishop for the better

Hobart

schooling of children in the doctrines of the
Church. In the first quarter of the nineteenth
century, when religion in the United States was
in a more or less inchoate state, friend and foe
alike bore testimony to Hobart's sincerity and
welcomed his activity in the cause of religious
stability. Many may have considered his teach-
ing unwise, but his energy and enthusiasm made
a positive contribution to the upbuilding of his
Church and the leading of men into spiritual cer-
tainties.

Never strong physically, he suffered from peri-
odic illness, and in September 1823 went abroad
where he remained about two years. Returning
in the fall of 1825, he resumed his work with his
accustomed energy. His death occurred five
years later in Auburn, N. Y., while he was on a
visitation to the western part of his diocese, and
he was buried beneath the chancel of Trinity
Church, New York.

[J. F. Schroeder, Memorial of Bishop Hobart (1831) ;
The Posthumous Works of the Late Rt. Rev. John
Henry Hobart (vols. II, III, 1832; vol. I, containing
memoir by Win. Berrian, 1833); John Me Vicar, The
Early Life and Professional Years of Bishop Hobart
(1838) ; W. B. Sprague, Annals of the Am. Pulpit, vol.
V (1859) J The Correspondence of John Henry Hobart
(6 vols., 1911-12).] D D. A.

HOBART, JOHN SLOSS (May 6, i73&-Feb.
4, 1805), Revolutionary leader, judge, son of
Rev. Noah and Ellen (Sloss) Hobart, was of
New England stock* Descended from Edmund
Hobart and his son, Rev. Peter Hobart, emi-
grants from Hingham, England, who settled in
1635 at Hingham, Mass,, he was born in Fair-
field, Conn., where his father had a lifelong ca-
reer as settled minister. From his mother's fam-
ily he inherited Eaton's (now Gardiner's) Neck
in the town of Huntington, Long Island, and his
public career was connected with the province
and state of New York. In 1757 he was grad-
uated from Yale College. For some time after-
ward he was in New York City, where, in June
1764, he married Mary Greenill (or Grinnell), a
resident of the city. At some time prior to the
outbreak of the Revolution they moved to Hunt-
ington. Hobart was prominent in revolutionary
activities in Suffolk County, serving as a mem-
ber of the Committee of Correspondence in 1774.
He was also deputy from that county to the
provincial convention of 1775 and to the four
provincial congresses of 1775-77. In the fourth
congress (July 1776-May 1777), which assumed
the style of "Convention of Representatives of
the State of New York/' he was a member of the
committees to prepare a form of government and
to report a plan for organizing that government.
He was also a member of the first Council of

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