Allen, Henry

ALLEN, HENRY: Founder of the Allenites; b. at Newport, R. I., June 14, 1748; d. at Northhampton, N. H., Feb. 2, 1784. Without proper training he became a preacher, and while settled at Falmouth, Nova Scotia, about 1778, began to promulgate peculiar views in sermons and tracts. He held that all souls are emanations or parts of the one Great Spirit; that all were present in the Garden of Eden and took actual part in the fall; that the human body and the entire material world were only created after the fall and as a consequence of it; that in time all souls will be embodied, and when the original number have thus passed through a state of probation, all will receive eternal reward or punishment in their original unembodied state. He denied the resurrection of the body, and treated baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and ordination as matters of indifference. He traveled throughout Nova Scotia and made many zealous converts. The number of these, however, dwindled away after his death.

Bibliography: Hannah Adams, View of Religions, pp. 478-479, London, 1805.