King, Jonas, Dd

King, Jonas, D.D.

an eminent Congregational missionary, was born at Hawley, Franklin County, Massachusetts, July 29, 1792. He graduated from Williams College in 1816, and from the Theological Seminary at Andover in 1819. At the foundation of the new college at Amherst, in 1821, he was elected professor of Oriental languages and literature, having spent a part of the intervening time in missionary labors in the Southern States, and visited France to better prepare himself for the duties of his professorship. He offered his services to the American Board for three years, and in September 1822, left Paris for Malta. In January 1823, he reached Alexandria, in Egypt. There, with others, he spent three months preaching, distributing tracts and copies of the Bible. After passing some time in the Holy Land, he returned to his native country in 1827. Having been invited to proceed to Greece in one of the vessels which was to carry out supplies to the afflicted. inhabitants of that country, he resigned his professorship, which he had nominally held six years. In 1830 he again put himself under the direction of the American Board, and in 1831 established a school at Athens, where he remained until his death, May 22, 1869. He wrote numerous works in modern Greek, and, on account of some sentiments thus expressed, he was sentenced to fifteen days' imprisonment and expulsion from the kingdom. The sentence, however, was not executed, on account of an official protest. His principal work is The Oriental Church and the Latin (N.Y. 1865). See Trien. Cat. of Andover Theol. Ser., 1870, page 1819; Memoirs of Amer. Missionaries, page 109; and his Memoir (N.Y 1879).