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ROBERT WILLIAM DALE (1829-1895)

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Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 763 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ROBERT WILLIAM DALE (1829-1895)  ,
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English
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Nonconformist divine, was born in
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London on the 1st of December 1829, and was educated at Spring Hill College,
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Birmingham, for the Congregational
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ministry . In 18J3 he was invited to Carr's Lane
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Chapel, Birmingham, as co-pastor with John Angell James (q.v.), on whose
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death in 1859 he became
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sole pastor for the rest of his
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life . In the London University M.A. examination (1853) Dale stood first in philosophy and won the gold medal . The degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the university of
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Glasgow during the lord rectorship of John Bright . Yale University gave him its D.D. degree, but he never used it, " not because it came from
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America, but because I have a sentimental objection—perhaps it is something more—to divinity degrees." Dale displayed a keen
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interest in Liberal politics and in the municipal affairs of Birmingham; and his high moral ideal made him a
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great force on the progressive side . In 1886 he adhered to Mr Chamberlain in opposition to Irish Home
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Rule, but this difference did not diminish his influence even among those Liberals and Nonconformists who adopted the Gladstonian standpoint . In the
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education controversy of 1870 he took an important
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part, ably championing the Nonconformist position . When Mr Foster's
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bill appeared, Dale attacked it on the grounds that the
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schools would in many cases be purelydenominational institutions, that the conscience clause gave inadequate
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protection, and that school boards were empowered by it to make grants out of the rates to maintain sectarian schools . He was himself in favour of secular education, claiming that it was the only logical solution and the only legitimate outcome of Nonconformist principles . In Birmingham the controversy was terminated in 1879 by a compromise, from which, however, Dale stood aloof . His interest in educational affairs had led him to accept a seat on the Birmingham school board . He was appointed a governor of the grammar school, served on the royal commission of education, and was also chairman of the council of Mansfield College, Oxford, with the foundatioi} of which he had much to do .

He was a strong

advocate of disestablishment, holding that the church was essentially a spiritual brotherhood, and that any vestige of
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political authority impaired its spiritual
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work . In church polity he held that congregationalism constituted the most fitting environment in which religion could achieve her work . Perhaps the most effective contributions he made to ecclesiastical literature were those dealing with the
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history and principles of the congregational
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system . At his death on the 13th of March 1895 he
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left an unfinished MS. of the history of congregationalism, since edited and completed (1907) by his son, A . W . W . Dale,
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principal of Liverpool University . Dale's powers were fully appreciated by his colleagues in the congregational ministry, and at the early age of
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thirty-nine he was elected chairman of the Congregational union of England and Wales . His addresses from the chair on " Christ and the Controversies of Christendom," and the "
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Holy Spirit and the Christian Ministry " were remarkable for a keen insight into the conditions and demands of the age . For some years he edited the Congregationalist, a monthly
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magazine connected with the denomination . In 1877 he was appointed Lyman Beecher lecturer at Yale University, and visited America to deliver his " Lectures on Preaching." At the International Council of Congregationalists, meeting in London in 1891, the first gathering of the kind, Dale was nominated for the
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presidency . He accepted the honour and delivered an address on " The Divine Life in Man." As a theologian Dale occupied an influential position amongst the religious thinkers of the 19th century .

He ably interpreted the Evangelical thought of his age, but his Evangelicalism was of a broad and progressive type . His

chief contribution to constructive theological thought is his work On The
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Atonement, in which he contends that the death of Christ is the objective ground on which the sins of man were remitted . Among his other theological books are: The
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Epistle to the Ephesians (a series of expositions), Christian
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Doctrine, The Living Christ and the Four Gospels, Fellowship with Christ, The Epistle to James, and The Ten Commandments .

End of Article: ROBERT WILLIAM DALE (1829-1895)
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