Bible Encyclopedias
Baker, Osmon Cleander D.D.

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a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born at Marlow, N. H., July 30, 1812. His father, Dr. Isaac Baker, was noted for his intelligence and integrity. His mother was a woman of unusual excellence. Both were devoted Christians. At the age of fifteen he entered Wilbraham Academy; experienced conversion while there; received license at the age of seventeen; .entered Wesleyan University in 1830; was compelled to withdraw at the close of three years of successful study on account of failing health; became a teacher in Newbury Seminary, Vt., in 1834, its principal in 1839; and in 1844 was appointed pastor of the Church in Rochester, N. H., by the New Hampshire and Vermont Conference. The year following he was appointed to Manchester, N. H., the next year became presiding elder of Dover District, and one year later accepted a professorship in the Biblical Institute at Concord, in which city he resided during the remainder of his life. In 1852 he was elected bishop, and performed with exemplary diligence and success the various duties of that office until stricken down by paralysis in 1866. He partially recovered, and served two years longer. Finally a second stroke of paralysis caused his death, Dec. 20, 1871. In his home bishop Baker was eminently happy, and beautifully exhibited the excellences of his character — punctuality, devotedness, and uniform piety. He possessed a ready apprehension, sound judgment, retentive memory, moderate imagination, a calm temperament, deep religious convictions, and an all-controlling conscientiousness. He was never ostentatious, impetuous, or eccentric. As a teacher he was laborious, learned, lucid; as a preacher eloquent only in unction; as a bishop sagacious, solicitous, and strictly honest. His work on the Discipline exhibits his unwavering Methodistic characteristics. See Minutes of Annual Conferences, 1872, p. 140; Simpson, Cyclop. of Methodism, s.v.