Jennings, Samuel Kennedy

Jennings, Samuel Kennedy, a Protestant Methodist lay minister of great ability and distinction, was born in Essex County, N. J. June 6, 1771. He was educated at Rutgers (then Queens) College. After the completion of his collegiate course he studied medicine and for a time even practiced as a physician. In his youth he was a decided infidel, although he sprang from a family of ministers and zealous Christian workers. In 1794 he was converted, and two years after he entered the lay ministry, and served his Church very ably. In 1805 bishop Asbury ordained him a deacon, and in 1814 bishop M'Kendree made him an elder. In 1817 he took up his residence at Baltimore, after having filled in various places the position of physician and minister, and in this city also he made many friends by his Christian kindness and liberality. He was one of the prime movers for the introduction of lay representation in the Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was one of those who were expelled from the Methodist Episcopal Church, and finally organized the "Methodist Protestant Church." SEE LAY DELEGATION. He died Oct. 19, 1854. See Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, 7, 279; Stevens, Hist. Meth. Episc. Church. (J.H.W.)