HANNA, WILLIAM: Free Church of Scotland; b. at Belfast, Ireland, Nov. 26, 1808; d. in London May 24, 1882. He was educated at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, was ordained pastor of the parish of East Kilbride, near Glasgow, in 1835, and was translated to the parish of Skirling, Peeble ahire, in 1837. He was an active supporter of Thomas Chalmers in the ecclesiastical controversy of the time; and at the disruption of 1843 he joined the Free Church, taking his entire congregation with him. In 1847 he was entrusted with the prep aration of the official life of Chalmers, and in the same year he was appointed editor of the North British Review. In 1850 he became the colleague of Thomas Guthrie (q.v.) in the St. John's Free Church, Edinburgh, where he preached to many devoted hearers till his retirement in 1866. His principal works are Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1849-52); Wycliffe and the Huguenots (1860); and Our Lord's Life on Earth (6 vols., 1869). He edited The Pos thumous Works of Thomas Chalmer: (9 vols., 1847 1849); also A Selection from the Correspondence of Thomas Chalmers (1853); and the Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen (2 vols.,1877).

Bibliography: DNB, asv. 300-301.

HANNAH (Hebr. Hannah, "grace, winsomeness ") A Hebrew feminine name, occurring in the Bible and Apocrypha in three instances: (1) The mother of the prophet Samuel (q.v.). (2) The wife of Tobit, of the tribe of Nephthali (Tobit i.9). Ac cording to the Vulgate the wife of Raguel bears the same name (Tobit vii. 2, 8, 14, 16, viii. 12; LXX., Edna). (3) A"prophetess" of the tribe of Asher (Luke ii. 36-38, where the English versions repro duce the Greek form Anna). It is said in praise of her that after seven years in marriage she had continued in widowhood to her eighty-fourth year. Being at all times ready and receptive for divine revelations, she could draw near, like Simeon, at the right hour to greet in the infant Jesus the Re deemer of Israel, prefiguring the widows described in I Tim. v. 5.

Arnold Rüegg.

Bibliography: DB, ii. 299; JE, vi. 219-220, and the literature cited under Samuel.