BROWN, JOHN NEWTON: American Baptist; b. at New London, Conn., June 29, 1803; d. at Germantown, Penn., May 15, 1868. He was graduated at Hamilton Institute (Colgate University), Hamilton, N. Y., 1823; preached at Buffalo, N. Y., Providence, R. I, Malden, Mass., and Exeter, N. H.; was professor of theology and church history in the New Hampton (New Hampshire) Theological Institution, 1838-45; pastor at Lexington, Va., 1845-49; editorial secretary of the American Baptist Publication Society 1849 till his death. He prepared (1833) and revised (1852) the "New Hampshire [Baptist] Confession of Faith." His most important literary work was the Encyclopœdia of Religious Knowledge (Brattleboro, 1835).

BROWN, PETER HUME: Scotch historian, layman; b. at Haddington (18 m. e. of Edinburgh), Haddingtonshire, Dec. 17, 1850. He was educated at Edinburgh University (M.A., 1873), and had originally intended to enter the Church. He gave up this plan, however, and ultimately turned his attention to history. In 1898 he was made editor of the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, and three years later was appointed to his present position of professor of ancient (Scottish) history and paleography in the University of Edinburgh. He has written: George Buchanan, Humanist and Reformer (Edinburgh, 1890); Early Travellers in Scotland (London, 1891); Scotland before 1700, from Contemporary Documents (Edinburgh, 1893); John Knox: a Biography (2 vols., 1895); History of Scotland (2 vols., Cambridge, 1898-1902); Scotland in the time of Queen Mary (Rhind Lectures for 1903; London, 1904); and George Buchanan and his Times (1906).

BROWN, PHŒBE ALLEN (HINSDALE): Hymnwriter; b. at Canaan, Columbia County, N. Y., May 1, 1783; d. at Marshall, Henry County, Ill., Oct. 10, 1861. She was left an orphan at the age of two, and in early life suffered great hardship and even cruel treatment at the hands of strangers; she first learned to write at the age of eighteen. In 1805 she married Timothy Brown (d. 1853) and moved to East Windsor, Conn. In 1813 the family went to the neighboring village of Ellington, and in 1818 to Monson, Mass. Her husband was a village mechanic, the family was poor, and her life was hampered by care; nevertheless she read much, kept up systematic Bible study, and found money to devote to Christian work, especially to the cause of missions. She wrote for her own amusement, but published newspaper articles, tracts, and a volume of tales, The Tree and its Fruits (New York, 1836); she left an autobiography in manuscript. Her best known hymn,

"I love to steal awhile away
From every cumbering care,"
is said to have been written at Ellington at a time when poverty and domestic duties left little opportunity for meditation at home and she was in the habit of going out for a walk every day at dusk; some thoughtless remarks of neighbors being reported to her, she wrote "An Apology for my Twilight Rambles." The second line originally read "From little ones and care." The poem was first printed (abridged and revised) in Nettleton's

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Village Hymns (New York, 1824). The tune "Monson," to which it is often sung, was written by her son, Samuel Robbins Brown.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. M. Bird, in The Independent for Jan. 6, Jan. 20, and April 14, 1881; S. W. Duffield, English Hymns, pp. 242-246, New York, 1886 (gives original text of the hymn mentioned in the text); Julian, Hymnology, p. 185.