William Rounseville Alger (1822-1905) was an American author, editor and active abolitionist. He entered the divinity school of Harvard University in 1844, and was graduated in the class of 1847. He was pastor of the Unitarian church in Roxbury, from 1847 to 1855, then settled in Boston until 1873 and was then four years minister of the Church of the Messiah in New York City. He held many offices and delivered many addresses in Masonic bodies and lectured for twenty-five years very extensively throughout America before lyceums and literary societies. He was co-editor of the Christian Examiner during the 1860s. His works include: The Poetry of the East (1856), A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life (1860), The Friendships of Women (1868) and The Destiny of the Soul (1878).