Excerpt from Discourses and Memoirs, Addressed to Young Women
It may be as well to announce in the Opening chapter that the whole course will be of a decidedly religious nature. For all' the general directions and excellences of female character, I shall refer to the various works which on these topics have issued from the press. Mv subject is religion, my object is the soul, my aim is sal vation. I View you, my female friends, as destined to another world, and it is my business to aid and stimulate you, by patient continuance in well-doing, to seek for glory, honour, and immortality, and to Obtain eternal life. I look beyond the painted and gaudy scene of earth's fading vanities, to the everlasting ages through which you must exist in torment or bliss 3 and, God helping me, it shall not be my fault if you do not live in comfort, die in peace, and inherit salvation.
John Angell James was an English Nonconformist clergyman and writer, born at Blandford Forum. After seven years apprenticeship to a linen-draper in Poole, Dorset, he decided to become a preacher, and in 1802 he went to David Bogue's training institution at Gosport in Hampshire. A year and a half later, on a visit to Birmingham, his preaching was so highly esteemed by the congregation of Carrs Lane Independent chapel that they invited him to exercise his ministry amongst them; he settled there in 1805, and was ordained in May 1806. For several years his success as a preacher was comparatively small; but he became suddenly popular in about 1814, and began to attract large crowds. At the same time his religious writings, the best known of which are The Anxious Inquirer and An Earnest Ministry, acquired a wide circulation.
He was one of the founders of the Evangelical Alliance and of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. Municipal interests appealed strongly to him, and he was also for many years chairman of Spring Hill (afterwards Mansfield) College. He was also an ardent slavery abolitionist.
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