HILL, ROWLAND: Popular English preacher; b. at Hawkstone Park (11 m. n.e. of Shrewsbury), Shropshire, Aug. 23, 1744; d. in London Apr. 11, 1833. He was educated at Eton and at St. John's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1769), where he came under the influence of the Methodists. For preaching in the open air in and around Cambridge without a license he was opposed by the authorities and frequently assaulted by mobs. Finally, in 1773, after he had been refused ordination by six bishops, he was ordained by the bishop of Bath and Wells to the curacy of Kingston, Somersetshire, but was subsequently denied priest's orders. Having come into an inheritance throughthe deathof his father, Sir Rowland Hill, he built in 1783 Surrey Chapel, London. Here he preached to immense audiences almost up to the time of his death. Attached to the chapel were thirteen Sunday-schools, with an enrolment of over 3,000 children. In the summer Hill preached through the country, even visiting Scotland and Ireland, and attracting large crowds wherever he went. He was one of the founders of the Religious Tract Society and an active promoter of the interests of the London Missionary Society and of the British and Foreign Bible Society. He was an early advocate of vaccination, and published a tract on the subject in 1806. His principal work is Village Dialogues (London, 1801; 34th ed., 1839).

Bibliography: W. Jones, Memoir of Rowland Hill, ed. Sherman, London, 1840; E. Sidney, Life of Rev. Rowland Hill, ib. 1845; James Sherman, Memorial of Rowland Hill, ib. 1857; V. J. Charlesworth, Rowland Hill: his Life, Anecdotes and Pudpit Sayings, ib. 1879; E. Broome, Rowland Hill: Preacher and Wit, ib. 1883; DNB, xxvi. 411.

HILLEL: Jewish rabbi in the time of Herod. He was called "the Elder" to distinguish him from other persons of the same name, and was descended from a poor Babylonian family which, as a later Jewish legend relates, traced its pedigree back to David. According to Siphrg on Deut. xxxiv. 7, he was forty years old when he emigrated from his native country to Palestine in order to devote himself in Jerusalem to the study of the law. His poverty compelled him to become a daylaborer. It was said that he used half of his wages to provide the fees for instruction under the most celebrated rabbis of his time. He distinguished himself not only by his zeal for knowledge, but also by his great patience and gentleness both in word and in deed. The "Sayings of the Fathers" and other sources have preserved many a beautiful sentence under the name of Hillel, and many examples of his noble deeds are recorded in the Talmud. But he can not be called a reformer; his

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mode of thought was casuistic, and could in no way be compared to that of Jesus. The name of Hillel was little known among Christians until E. Renan in his Vie de Jesus (Paris, 1863) put him almost on a level with Jesus and called him his true teacher. A. Geiger and other rabbis, followed Renan. Delitzsch, however, in his monograph Jesus and Hillel (Erlangen, 1866) has convincingly shown that HilleI was overestimated and the unique importance of Jesus completely ignored by Renan and Jewish writers. The lack of even the most unimportant testimony is against the assumption that Jesus was influenced by Hillel.

(H. L. Strack.)

Bibliography: SchWer, GssWchte, ii. 359-383 et passim, Eng. transl., ll., i. 359-363 et passim; A. Geiger, Dos

Judenthum und seine Geschichte, i. 99-107, Brenlau, 1865: M. Nicolas, Des Doct»nes religieasea des juifs, part i., chap. iii., Paris, 1867; E. Stapler, Les 1d&s religieuses an Palestine h l'Evoque de Jbaus-Christ, chap. xii.. ib. 1878; G. Goitein, in Mapasin for die Wissenschaft des Juden- tums, a (1884), 1-16, 49-87; W. Bacher, Die Aqada der Tannaflan, i. 4-14, Strasburg, 1884; T. Leir, in &vus des Jtudea fuivea, xx:jd. 202-211; xxziii. 143-144; JE, vi. 897- 400.