BEMAN, Nathaniel Sydney Smith, clergyman, born in New Lebanon, New York, 26 November 1785; died in Carbondale, Illinois, 8 August 1871. He was graduated at Middlebury in 1807, studied theology, and about 1810 was ordained pastor of a Congregational Church in Portland, Maine A few years later he went as a missionary to Georgia, where he devoted himself to the work of establishing educational institutions. He became pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Troy, New York, in 1822, and continued as such for upward of forty years. He was actively interested in the temperance, moral reform, revival, and anti-slavery movements of his time. In 1831 he was moderator of the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church, and during the discussions that, in 1837, led to the division in that Church, he was the leader of the new-school branch. Resigning his pastorate in 1863, he passed the remainder of his life in retirement in Troy and in Carbondale. Besides sermons, essays, and addresses, which have been separately published, he was the author of a volume entitled "Four Sermons on the Atonement." He was also one of the compilers of the hymn-book adopted by the new-school branch of the Presbyterian Church.