EWING, ALEXANDER (1814-1873), Scottish divine, was born of an old Highland family in Aberdeen on the 25th of March 1814. In October 1838 he was admitted to deacon's orders, and after his return from Italy he took charge of the episcopal congregation at Forres, and was ordained a presbyter in the autumn of 1841. In 1846 he was elected first bishop of the newly restored diocese of Argyll and the Isles, the duties of which position he discharged till his death on the 22nd of May 1873. In 1851 he received the degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford. Though hampered by a delicate bodily constitution, he worked in a spirit of buoyant cheerfulness. By the charm of his personal manner and his catholic sympathies he gradually attained a prominent position. In theological discussion he contended for the exercise of a wide tolerance, and attached little importance to ecclesiastical authority and organization. His own theological position had close affinity with that of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen and Frederick Denison Maurice; but his opinions were the fruit of his own meditation, and were coloured by his own individuality. The trend of his teaching is only to be gathered from fragmentary publications--letters to the newspapers, pamphlets, special sermons, essays contributed to the series of _Present Day Papers_, of which he was the editor, and a volume of sermons entitled _Revelation considered as Light_.
Besides his strictly theological writings, Ewing was the author of the _Cathedral or Abbey Church of Iona_ (1865), the first part of which contains drawings and descriptive letterpress of the ruins, and the second a history of the early Celtic church and the mission of St Columba. See _Memoir of Alexander Ewing, D.C.L._, by A.J. Ross (1877).
EWING, JULIANA HORATIA ORR (1841-1885), English writer of books for children, daughter of the Rev. Alfred Gatty and of Margaret Gatty (q.v.), was born at Ecclesfield, Yorkshire, in 1841. One of a large family, she was accustomed to act as nursery story-teller to her brothers and sisters, and her brother Alfred Scott Gatty provided music to accompany her plays. She was well educated in classics and modern languages, and at an early age began to publish verses, being a contributor to _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, which her mother started in 1866. _The Land of Lost Toys_ and many other of Juliana's stories appeared in this magazine. In 1867 she married Major Alexander Ewing, himself an author, and the composer of the well-known hymn "Jerusalem the Golden." From this time until her death (13th May 1885), previously to which she had been a constant invalid, Mrs Ewing produced a number of charming children's stories. The best of these are: _The Brownies_ (1870), _A Flat-Iron for a Farthing_ (1873), _Lob-lie-by the Fire_ (1874), _The Story of a Short Life_ (1885) and _Jackanapes_ (1884), the two last-named, in particular, obtaining great success; among others may be mentioned _Mrs Over-the-Way's Remembrances_ (1869), _Six to Sixteen, Jan of the Windmill_ (1876), _A Great Emergency_ (1877), _We and the World_ (1881), _Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales, Brothers of Pity_ (1882), _The Doll's Wash_, _Master Fritz_, _Our Garden_, _A Soldier's Children_, _Three Little Nest-Birds_, _A Week Spent in a Glass-House_, _A Sweet Little Dear_, and _Blue-Red_ (1883). Many of these were published by the S.P.C.K. Simple and unaffected in style, and sound and wholesome in matter, with quiet touches of humour and bright sketches of scenery and character, Mrs Ewing's best stories have never been surpassed in the style of literature to which they belong.