SHIELDS, Patrick Henry, jurist, born in York county, Virginia, 16 May, 1778; died in New Albany, 6 June, 1848. In accordance with his father's will he was educated for the legal profession at Hampden Sidney and William and Mary colleges. Inheriting a large tract of land near Lexington, Kentucky, he removed to that state in 1801, but found the title to the estate defective. In 1805 he passed into Indiana territory, and joined his classmate and life-long friend, William Henry Harrison. He was commissioned the first judge of Harrison county in 1808, and it is recorded of him that he fought gallantly in the battle of Tippecanoe. His house was often the headquarters of the territorial authorities. He was a member of the Constitutional convention at Corydon in 1816, and filled judicial offices until the time of his death. Judge Shields, as one of the founders of the state, took an active part in reforming the territorial courts, in organizing the school-system, and in maintaining the congressional ordinance of 1787, which prohibited the indefinite continuance of slavery, though he was at the time himself a slave-holder. According to family tradition, he was the author of the constitutional article which confirmed Indiana as a free state.--His grandson, Charles Woodruff, educator, born in New Albany, Indiana, 4 April, 1825, entered Princeton as an advanced student, and was graduated with distinction in 1844. After a course of four years' study in Princeton theological seminary he was licensed to preach by the presbytery of New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1848. In 1849 he was ordained pastor of the Presbyterian church of Hempstead, L. I., and in 1850 he was installed as pastor of the 2d Presbyterian church of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania He had been early imbued with a philosophical spirit, and published in 1861 an elaborate treatise entitled "Philosophia Ultima," in which he expounded an academic scheme of irenical studies for the conciliation of religion and science. His friends, profoundly impressed by this exposition, created for him in Princeton a new professorship of the harmony of science and revealed religion. This chair was the first of its kind in any American college, and at the time of its establishment (1865) was so novel in theory that its utility and even its orthodoxy were questioned, but its usefulness as well as its timeliness was soon abundantly vindicated. He was appointed professor of modern history in 1871, but soon resigned this added chair that he might not be diverted from the aim of his life, which he has pursued in college lectures, in papers before the philosophical society of Washington, in contributions to periodicals, and in elaborate published works. He received the honorary degree of D. D. from Princeton in 1861, and that of LL. D. from Columbian university, Washington, in 1877. Dr. Shields has advocated the restoration of theology, as a science of religion, to its true philosophical position in a university system of culture, as distinguished from the clerical or sectarian systems of education, and the placing of philosophy as an umpire between science and religion, as embracing without invading their distinct provinces. This view he has maintained at Princeton in systematic lectures and in his "Religion and Science in their Relation to Philosophy" (New York, 1875). He looks forward to the formulation of an ultimate philosophy, or science of the sciences, which is to be reached inductively from the collective intelligence of men working through successive generations This forms the argument of his great work, "The Philosophia Ultima," now (1888) passing through a revised edition, and of which vol. i. is an historical and critical introduction, while vol. it. is to treat of the history and logic of the sciences. Dr. Shields has been all earnest, advocate of the restoration of the Presbyterian prayer-book of 1661 for optional use by ministers and congregations that desire a liturgy. To this end he published "The Book of Common Prayer as amended by the Presbyterian Divines" (1864), with an append'ix entitled "Liturgia Expurgata" (1864). He looks forward to the organic union of the Congregational, Presbyterial, and Episcopal principles of the New Testament church in an "American Catholic Church" of the future. His irenical writings under this head embrace a series of essays entitled "The United Churches of the United States," "The Organic Affinity of Presbytery and Episcopacy," and "The Christian Denominations and the Historic Episcopate." No essays have excited wider remark in the theological world. The style of Dr. Shields is remarkable for lucidity of statement and graceful rhetoric. He divides his time equally between Princeton and his villa at Newport.