Elon Foster (1855)

A preacher in both the Troy and New York Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for a time Foster edited the Guide to Holiness with his mother-in-law, Phoebe Palmer.  He assembled several volumes of sermon illustrations that were very popular and reprinted multiple times.  He died in Brooklyn, NY, November 15, 1898.

Works:

• Foster, Elon. New Cyclopaedia of Prose Illustrations, Adapted to Christian Teaching Embracing Mythology, Analogies, Legends, Parables, Emblems, Metaphors, Similes, Allegories, Proverbs, Classic, Historic and Religions Anecdotes, Etc. First Series. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1872.
• Foster, Elon. Cyclopædia of Poetry: First Series: Embracing the Best from All Sources and on All Subjects. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1872.
• Foster, Elon. New Cyclopædia of Prose Illustrations, Adapted to Christian Teaching Embracing Allegories, Analogies, Anecdotes, Aphorisms, Emblems, Fables, Legends, Metaphors, Parables, Quotations, Similes, Biblical Types and Figures, Etc. Second Series. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1877.

Sources:

• Cary, Seth C. A Catalogue of the Alpha Chapter Boston University: Graduates of the School of Theology, 1850-1905. Boston: Published by the Biographical Secretary, 1906.
• Cooley, Steven D. “Applying the Vagueness of Language : Poetic Strategies and Campmeeting Piety in the Mid-Nineteenth Century.” Church History 63, no. 4 (December 1, 1994): 570-586.
• Minutes of the Forty-Second Session of the Troy Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, held at Schenectady, NY, April 15-21, 1874. Troy, NY: Brainerd & Brown, 1874.