exchange with a clergyman, and resided for a time in Edinburgh. The 'Life' came out in four successive octavo volumes (1849-52), to which was added a fifth, containing extracts from Chalmers's 'Correspondence.' Hanna likewise edited the 'Posthumous Works of Dr. Chalmers,' which extended to nine volumes 8vo. The 'Life' was received with great approval. In token of the value placed on his labours he received in 1852 the degree of LL.D. from the university of Glasgow.
Hanna had always been a man of culture, and in 1847 was appointed editor of the 'North British Review,' a journal started in 1844 by the Rev. Dr. Welsh, and designed to combine the usual range of literature and science with a liberal spirit in politics, and a cordial recognition of evangelical Christianity. The 'Review' never had a very easy career, and Hanna soon relinquished the editorship.
Having resigned his charge at Skirling, Hanna removed permanently to Edinburgh, where in 1850 he was called to be colleague to Thomas Guthrie [q. v.], as minister of St. John's Free Church. Though in temperament and gifts they differed widely from each other, their relations were remarkably harmonious. A more thoughtful mode of teaching and a quieter manner characterised Hanna, while his style of thought, coupled with the quiet pathos of his tone and the vivid clearness of his style, won him many devoted hearers. In 1864 he was made D.D. by the university of Edinburgh. In 1866 he retired from the active duties of the ministry. He died in London, 24 May 1882.
Besides editing the works and publishing the life of Chalmers, Hanna published (among other books): 1. 'Wycliffe and the Huguenots,' 1860 (originally forming two series of lectures at the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh). 2. 'Martyrs of the Scottish Reformation.' 3. 'Last Day of our Lord's Passion,' 1862 (this volume reached a circulation of fifty thousand). 4. 'The Forty Days after the Resurrection,' 1863. 5. 'The Earlier Years of our Lord,' 1864. 6. 'The Passion Week,' 1866. 7. 'Our Lord's Ministry in Galilee,' 1868. 8. 'The Close of our Lord's Ministry,' 1869. 9. 'The Resurrection of the Dead,' 1872. Hanna likewise edited in 1858 a volume of 'Essays by Ministers of the Free Church of Scotland,' Dr. Charles Hodge's 'Idea of the Church' in 1860, and in 1877 the 'Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen.' Among works for private circulation were a brief memoir of a warm personal friend, Sir Alexander Gibson Carmichael of Skirling, bart., a young man of singular promise, and a similar tribute to Alexander Keith Johnston [q. v.] He was a frequent contributor to the 'Sunday Magazine,' 'Good Words,' the 'Quiver,' &c.
The tendency of Hanna's sympathies was indicated by his editing of Erskine's 'Letters.' On the day of his funeral the general assembly of the established church suspended its sittings. A high tribute to his consistency and independence was entered on the minutes of the Free church assembly 30 May 1882.
[Scott's Fasti; Scotsman, 25 May 1882; Acts and Proceedings of General Assembly of Free Church, 1882; family information and personal knowledge.]
HANNAH, JOHN, D.D., the elder (1792–1867), Wesleyan methodist minister, born at Lincoln on 3 Nov. 1792, was the third son of a small coal-dealer. His parents were Wesleyan methodists, then a very humble community, in Lincoln. He received his early education from various local teachers, but chiefly from the Rev. W. Gray, a senior vicar of the cathedral. He obtained a respectable knowledge of the classics, and studied French, mathematics, and Hebrew with enthusiasm and success. From his earliest years his thirst for knowledge was insatiable, and his powers of acquisition remarkable. In the intervals of his studies he helped his father in his trade. At an early age Hannah became a Wesleyan preacher in the villages about Lincoln, preaching his first sermon at Waddington. The warm interest he felt through life in foreign missions was awakened early, and when in 1813 Dr. Thomas Coke [q. v.] was about to start with seven young men for India, on the voyage on which he died, Hannah accepted an offer to fill a vacancy which was anticipated, but did not occur. In 1814 Hannah was received into the Wesleyan ministry, and was speedily recognised as a preacher of unusual eloquence and ability. When only in his thirty-second year (1824) he was sent out to America in company with the representative of the Wesleyan conference of Great Britain to the general conference of the methodist body in the United States. On his return from America he was in 1834 appointed theological tutor of the institution for training candidates for the ministry, in the establishment of which he had taken an important part. This post he filled with signal success, first at Hoxton and afterwards at Stoke Newington. From 1840 to 1842 and from 1854 to 1858 he was secretary, and in 1842 and again in 1851 president of the Wesleyan conference. In 1843 he was appointed to the theological tutorship of the northern branch of the institution for training ministers at Didsbury in Yorkshire, which he held till within a few
