Hopkins

the satisfaction of reestablishing his school. In
January 1851, at Buffalo, N. Y., he delivered a
lecture on Slavery: Its Religious Sanction, Its
Political Dangers, and the Best Mode of Doing
It Away, published that same year, in which he
maintained that slavery was not a sin, because
not forbidden in Scripture, but that its abolition
was urgently important, and should be effected
by fraternal agreement. This argument he sev-
eral times reiterated in pamphlets and periodi-
cals. Though loyal to the Union, he maintained
throughout the Civil War an irenic attitude
toward the South which enabled him, when he
became presiding bishop in 1865, to take a lead-
ing part in effecting the reunion of the Church.

In 1867 he attended the Lambeth Conference
of bishops in communion with the Church of
England, and on Dec. 3 of that year was awarded
the degree of D.C.L. by Oxford University.
Upon his return to his diocese, he undertook a
winter visitation during which prolonged ex-
posure to severely cold weather brought upon
him an attack of pneumonia which resulted in his
death.

A dose student of patristic literature in the
original, Hopkins was a high churchman who
held that the Reformation was necessitated by
the innovations of Rome. He was always ready
to stand quite alone in advocacy of what he be-
lieved to be true or right; but he showed sensi-
tive consideration for the rights of those who
differed with him. He published more than fifty
books, sermons, and pamphlets, including Chris-
tianity Vindicated (1833) ; The Primitive Creed
(1834); The Primitive Church (1835); The
Church of Rome in Her Primitive Purity Com-
pared with the Church of Rome at the Present
Day (1837); Sixteen Lectures on the Causes,
Principles, and Results of the British Reforma-
tion (1844) ; History of the Confessional (1850);
"The End of Controversy" Controverted (2 vols.,
1854), an answer to an argument by the Roman
Catholic, John Milner; The American Citizen
(I857); A Scriptural, Ecclesiastical and His-
torical View of Slavery (1864); and The Law
of Ritualism (1866). Throughout his career
Hopkins had the devoted cooperation of his wife.
His Autobiography in Verse (1866) was pub-
lished on the occasion of their golden wedding.
Of their thirteen children, three became clergy-
men; two, musicians; and one, Edward A. Hop-
kins [g.z/.], a diplomat

[J. H. Hopkins, Jr., The Life of the Late Rt. Rev.
John Henry Hopkins (1873) > Churchman, Jan. 18,
1868, containing an editorial on Hopkins and an ex-
tended obituary reprinted from the Burlington Times,
Jan. 11, 1868; estimate in W. S. Perry, The Episcopate
in America (1895); F. C. Morehouse, Some Am.
Churchmen (1892); H. C. Williams, Biaff. Encyc. of

Hopkins

Vt. of the Nineteenth Century (1885) ; Hiram Carle-
ton, Geneal. and Family Hist, of the State of Vt
(1903), vol. IJ

HOPKINS, JOHNS (May 19, 1795-Dec. 24,

1873), merchant, philanthropist, was the second

son of Samuel and Hannah (Janney) Hopkins.

His first known ancestor in America in the Hop-

kins line was William, who was living in Anne

Arundel County, Md, as early as 1657. His

mother was of the Tucker-Janney family of

Loudoun County, Va. From Richard Johns, his

great-great-grandfather, he derived his given

name. He was born on his father's tobacco plan-

tation, "Whitehall/' in Anne Arundel County,

and attended the South River school. Here he

was influenced by the unusually able master, an

Oxford graduate. He left school at the age of

twelve, because his parents, prominent in the

West River Meeting of Friends, freed their

slaves in 1807 and the boys of the family were

needed to work on the plantation. When he was

seventeen he was taken into the home of his

uncle, Gerard Hopkins, in Baltimore, to be

brought up in the latter's business, that of a

wholesale grocer and commission merchant

When he was nineteen his uncle was absent in

Ohio for several months, and the young man,

left in charge of the store, succeeded surprisingly,

in spite of the alarm which seized the city when

the British fleet arrived in Chesapeake Bay. By

1819, when Johns Hopkins was twenty-four,

differences had developed between uncle and

nephew. The latter fell in love with his cousin

Elizabeth, but Gerard Hopkins forbade the mar-

riage on the score of consanguinity. Neither of

them ever married and they maintained a close

friendship through life. The financial distress of

1819, furthermore, led many country customers

to ask the privilege of paying for their goods in

whiskey. Johns Hopkins favored this arrange-

ment, but his uncle would not consent "to sell

souls into perdition." The result was that Johns

Hopkins set up in the same business for himself,

his uncle indorsing for him to the extent of $ior

ooo, and in the first year he sold $200,000 worth

of goods. After a short partnership with Benja-

min P. Moore, he took his brothers Philip, Ge-

rard, and Mahlon with him into a new firm, Hop-

kins Brothers, in which his mother and uncle,

John Janney, invested each $10,000. The new

firm took whiskey in exchange for groceries, sell-

ing it under the brand "Hopkins' Best." For

this Johns Hopkins was turned out of Meeting,

but he was later reinstated. His business extend-

ed rapidly through the Valley of Virginia into

North Carolina and over the Alleghanies into

Ohio. Reaching into new ventures, he became a

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