KNOX-LITTLE, WILLIAM JOHN: Church of England; b. at Stewartstown (12 m. n. of Armagh), County Tyrone, Ireland, Dec. 1, 1839. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1862), and was ordered deacon in 1863 and ordained priest in the following year. He was curate of Christ Church, Lancaster (1863-64), assistant master of Sherborne School (1865-70), curate of Turweston, Bucks (1870-74), and of St. Thomas, Regent Street, London (1874-75), and rector of St. Alban's, Cheetwood, Manchester (1875-85), and vicar of Hoar Cross, Burton-on-Trent (1885-1907). He has also been canon of Worcester since 1881, proctor for chapter in Convocation of Canterbury since 1888, and subdean of Worcester since 1902. He has written: The Three Hours' Agony of Our Blessed Redeemer (Manchester, 1877); Sermons preached far the most Part in Manchester (London, 1880); Characteristics and Motives of the Christian Life (1880);

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with Schleiermacher and especially Neander. In 1833 he was called to the Johanneum at Hamburg as professor of Biblical philology and philosophy, and in 1840 he became professor of theology at Rostock, where he remained until the end of his life. He lectured chiefly on systematic and practical theology. He was also elected preacher of the university and leader of the homiletical seminar, in 1844 a member of the theological board of examiners, and in 1851 a member of the consistory. He took a very active part in the affairs of the university, being elected six times its rector. His life work tended throughout toward the practical side of religious and churchly life. He made it his chief task to combat rationalism in the theological faculty, and in the State Church of Mecklenburg; and he was especially in harmony with Kliefoth's efforts (see KLIEFOTH, THEODOR FRIEDRICH DETHLOF) for the reassertion of the Lutheran confession and the Lutheran church order. His most important dogmatic work is Die Lehre von der Sünde und vom Tode in ihrer Beziehung zu einander und zu der Auferstehung Christi (Hamburg, 1836). According to Krabbe, Schleiermacher with his doctrine of the activity of the redemption of Christ had firmly founded an essential basis of Christian conviction, but because he ignored the essence and importance of sin, he had not penetrated to an adequate understanding of atonement and redemption. Krabbe developed on the basis of the Old and New Testament the Biblical doctrines of the original condition, of the fall and its consequences, emphasizing the fact of the resurrection of Christ in its central importance. Other works are: Vorlesungen über das Leben Jesu (1839); Die evangelische Landeskirche Preussens und ihre öfentlichen Rechtsverhältnisse (Rostock, 1849); August Neander (Hamburg, 1852); Die Universität Rostock im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert (Rostock, 1854); Aus dem kirchlichen und ausserkirchlichen Leben Rostocks. Zur Geschichte Wallensteins und des dreissigjährigen Krieges (Berlin, 1863); Heinrich Müller und seine Zeit (Rostock, 1866); David Chytraeus (1870); Wider die gegenwärtige Richtung des Staatslebens im Verhältnis zur Kirche (1873).

(K. SCHMIDT.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Allgemeine evangelisch-lutherische Kirchenzeitung, 1874, pp. 99 sqq.; Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, 1874, pp. 209 sqq.