William Rounseville Alger

"Rev. William ROUNSEVILLE Alger was born in Freetown, Mass., in 1823. Having pursued his earlier studies at Pembroke, N.H., and elsewhere, he entered the Divinity School at Cambridge, where he graduated in 1847. In the same year he was settled over the Mount Pleasant Society at Roxbury, Mass. He became the minister of the Bulfinch Street Church, in Boston, in 1855, and was afterward preacher at Music Hall, where Theodore Parker had stood from Sunday to Sunday during the last years of his memorable public ministrations. Mr. Alger received the honorary degree of Master of Arts from Harvard College, in 1852.

...His fame will perhaps rest principally upon his 'History of the Doctrine of the Future Life,' unquestionably the most learned and elaborate theological work ever produced in this country. Having devoted long years of arduous study and consulted not less than six thousand different authorities or books in its preparation, he presents us in his solid volume the opinions of men of all races and in every age and clime concerning the fate of the soul, and clothes all the endless details of fact and well-marshalled array of discussions with which he crowds his pages with a beautiful drapery that lends to his scholastic lore the fascination of romance. The Bibliographical Appendix, by Ezra Abbot, LL.D., embraces a description of more than five thousand distinct works, carefully arranged in chronological order and furnished with an Alphabetical Index, and is a vast repertory of the literature of the great theme which Mr. Alger treats.

In the latter part of the fourth and last edition of the 'Poetry of the Orient,' issued by his publishers, Roberts Brothers, in 1874, we find various hymns and poems which are entirely Mr. Alger's own productions. ...Those who are familiar with our author's works and know how fond he is of the best poetry of different countries, and how rare a vein of poetry enriches all his own productions in prose, will not be surprised that his pen has thus finely run also to verse."

--Alfred P. Putnam, Singers and Songs of the Liberal Faith (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1875), pp. 469-170. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/103020200