John Angell James (1785-1859) was one of the most prominent -
Nonconformist ministers in Britain during the first sixty years of the
last century. Trained for the ministry By the venerable Dr. Bogue at
the Gosport Independent Academy, James became minister of the Carre
Lane Church of Birmingham at the age of twenty and during his life-long
work with this congregation saw its membership increase to over a
thousand and the regular attendance at each service on Sunday rise to
almost two thousand. Pre-eminently a minister in the tradition of the
Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth century, he early distinguished
himself as a preacher of exceptional ability and from the beginning
determined to make the "conversion" and "care" of souls the goal of
his work. A prolific, popular writer, he was skilled in making the
evangelical message vital to the practical needs of people in his
time, but neither his training nor his ability enabled him to move in
the higher intellectual spheres. His most famous work The Anxious
Inquirer After Salvation Directed and Encouraged reached a circulation
of over a million copies and is representative of the practical
evangelical bent of his thought.As a pastor he had his weaknesses, but he did develop a
vigorous organizational program in his church and was instrumental in
the formation of several Congregational Churches in and around
Birmingham. As a Congregationalist he was undoubtedly one of his
denomination's most prominent leaders. By hia pen and through his
personal influence he took an active part in the movement toward and
formation of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, in the
framing of the Union'3 Declaration of Faith and Order, in the life and -work of Spring Hill College, and in the formation of a Pastor's •
Retiring Fund. But he was not sectarian in his denominationalism. He
identified himself with the most prominent Evangelical organisations
of his time and sought to bring Christians closer together by various
ways, but most notably through his leadership in the formation and work
of the Evangelical Alliance* He was a continual advocate of the need
for revival among Christians and was one of the most indefatigable
promoters of foreign missions. He was especially interested in China
and it was largely through his influence that funds were collected to
send over two million Hew testaments to the Chinese. The response in
China, however, soon made it inadvisable to print and distribute all of
the Hew Testaments at once, but the money collected in this scheme
provided for the total expenditure of the British and Foreign Bible
Society in China for twenty years. James's last gesture for China was
a call for one hundred missionaries, but this overture did not achieve
noticeable results. Taking all into consideration, therefore, it must
be said that James's significance in his own time was not in the realm
of intellectual achievement but in his devotion to Christ and in his
successful,practical efforts to extend and strengthen His Kingdom
