HURST, John Fletcher, M. E. bishop, born in Dorchester county, Maryland, 17 August, 1834. He was graduated at Dickinson college in 1854. and after teaching for two years pursued theological studies at the universities of Halle and Heidelberg, Germany. He returned home in 1858 and entered on the work of the ministry in the Newark conference of the Methodist Episcopal church. In 1866 he again went to Germany, to become theological instructor in the Methodist mission institute at Bremen. Here he remained for three years, serving both as teacher and director of the institution. He also travelled extensively in Europe, Syria, and Egypt. In 1871 he returned to the United States, having been elected professor of historical theology in Drew theological seminary, Madison, New York, and in 1873 he was chosen president of that institution. Here he continued till 1880, when at the general conference in Cincinnati he was elected and ordained bishop. In the performance of his episcopal duties he has not only visited every part of the United States, but has spent much time abroad among the mission stations and conferences in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Bulgaria, and Italy, and also in India. He has been extensively occupied with literary labors, especially in the reproduction of the worlds of the best German authors in English translations. He has translated Hagenbach's "History of the Church in the 18th and 19th Centuries" (2 vols., 1869); Van Oosterzee's "Lectures in Defence of John's Gospel" (1869); Lange's "Romans" (1870); and Seneca's "Moral Essays." His original works are "History of Rationalism" (1865); "Martyrs to the Tract Cause" (1873): "Outlines of Biblical History" (1873); "Life and Literature in the Fatherland" (1874); "Our Theological Culture"; "Bibliotheca Theologica"; and "A General History of the Christian Church" (in preparation, 1887). Dickinson college has given him the degree of D.D., and Indiana Asbury university that of LL.D.