James, John Angell

James, John Angell an eminent Congregational minister, born at Blandford, Dorsetshire, June 6, 1785, was educated at the college at Gosport, and entered the ministry when only seventeen years old. He was a very popular preacher, and, before twenty, was settled as pastor of the "Church Meeting in Carr's Lane," Birmingham, where he remained till his death, October 1, 1859. "In the course of years Angell James came to be considered the most important and influential public man in connection with his own denomination, and on account of his evangelical views of religion, he was also much esteemed both by the Low-Church party in the English Establishment, and by Dissenters generally in Scotland and America." Mr. James published, besides a multitude of sermons, tracts, addresses, a number of small religious volumes, the best known being the Anxious Inquirer, Christian Fellowship, and Christian Professor, which had, and still have, a vast circulation both in England and in this country. See Dale's Life and Letters of John Agell James (London, 1862); Pen-Pictures of popular English Preachers (London, 1853, p. 274 sq.); New York Literary and Theological Review, 1, 595. (J. H.W.)