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FERRIS, ISAAC: American (Dutch) Reformed; b. in New York Oct. 9, 1799; d. at Roselle, N. J., June 16, 1873. He was graduated from Columbia College (1816) and the Rutgers Seminary (1820). He held pastorates in the Dutch Reformed Church at New Brunswick, N. J. (1821-24), Albany, N. Y. (1824-36), and the Market Street Church, New York (1836-53), and was president of the New York Sunday School Union (1837-73), also of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1842 he was sent to Holland on behalf of American missionaries in the Dutch East Indies. He was chancellor of New York University (185-70; emeritus 1870-73), and throughout his connection with the University he was professor of moral science and Christian evidences, also acting professor of constitutional and international law 1855-1869. Through his efforts the heavy debt under which the institution had labored since its foundation was removed, several new departments were added to the course of instruction, and the standard of scholarship materially raised. He was also principal of the Rutgers Female Institute and president of its board of trustees. He published numerous occasional sermons and addresses, including Jubilee Memorial of the American Bile Society; being a Review of its First Fifty Years of Work (New York, 1867), an address delivered at the Jubilee of the American Bible Society at New York in 1866.

FERRIS, JOHN MASON: Dutch Reformed; b. at Albany, N. Y., Jan. 17, 1825. He was graduated from the University of the City of New York (A.B., 1843) and the New Brunswick Theological Seminary (1849). He was pastor of the Reformed Church at Tarrytown, N. Y. (1849-54), the Second Reformed Church at Chicago (1854-62), and the First Reformed Church at Grand Rapids, Mich. (18625). In 1865 he was appointed corresponding secretary of tile Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in America, since 1883 has been editor of The Christian Intelligencer (New York), and treasurer of the Board of Foreign Missions since 1886.

FERRY, PAUL: French Protestant; b. at Metz Feb. 24, 1591; d. there July 28, 1669. He was educated at the seminary of Montauban and became pastor of the Reformed Congregation at Metz in 1612. Here he labored, as preacher and author, for fifty-seven years. He was a very prolific writer; but most of his works still remain in manuscript. His principal work is the CatEchisme gmEral de la R~ formation de la Religion (S6dan,1654), in which he showed that the Reformation was a necessary result of the corruption of the Church. This book called forth a refutation from Bosauet, then canon and archdeacon of Metz. The disputation thus begun led to mutual esteem between the contestants, and in 1666 Ferry carried on a lengthy correspondence with Boasuct in the interest of a fusion of Protestantism and Catholicism, which was then being considered by the French government. He had already labored in vain to secure a union of the various branches of Protestantism, and had even induced John Durie (q.v.) to come to Metz in 1662 to discuss the subject with him. His Lettre aux ministres de Gen'- (in Biblioth6que anglaise, Vol.

305

ii.), in defense of a poor lunatic who was burned at Geneva for blasphemies against the Trinity in 1632, has been called his best piece of writing. Ferry was an eloquent preacher, a man of learning, and had great influence among both Protestants and Roman Catholics.

Bibliography: H. M. Baird, Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, i. 359-385, New York; Liehten-

berger, ESR, iv. 717.

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