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Dwight, Louis

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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Dwight, Sereno Edwards

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a Congregational minister, was born at Stockbridge, Massachussetts, March 25, 1793, and graduated at Yale College in 1813. He studied theology at Andover, but, fearing that his feeble health would unfit him for the pastorate, he accepted in 1819 an agency of the American Tract Society. In 1823 he became agent of the American Education Society. In 1824, his health failing seriously, he undertook a long journey on horseback, and combined with this pursuit of health a mission of mercy in supplying Bibles to prisoners in the various jails. He visited for this purpose the prisons of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and as far south as South Carolina. On his return to Boston in 1825, his reports of his mission gave rise to the American Prison Discipline Society, of which he was the first secretary, in which service he remained for thirty years. For years he preached the Gospel to the insane poor at South Boston. He died July 12, 1854; and the epitaph on his tomb sums up his labors in the phrases "a benefactor of man; a friend to the prisoner; a reformer of prisons; a preacher of the Gospel." — Sprague, Ann. 2:669.