JONES, SAMUEL PORTER: Methodist Episcopal Church, South; b. in Chambers County, Ala., Oct. 16, 1847; d. near Memphis, Tenn., Oct. 15, 1900. He was educated by private tutors and in boarding-schools, and, after serving in the Confederate Army in the Civil War, was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1869. He became addicted to liquor, however, and his career as a lawyer was seriously affected. He was converted in 1872 and was admitted to the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in the same year. He held various pastorates from 1872 to 1880, after which he was agent of the North Georgia Orphanage (1880-92). From that time until his death he was extremely active as a revivalist and advocate of total abstinence, and became one of the best-known Evangelists in the United States, attracting popular attention by his unconventional addresses, which abounded with witty and pregnant sayings. He wrote: Sermons and Sayings (Nashville, Tenn., 1883); Music Hall Series (Cincinnati, O., 1886); Quit your Meanness (1886); Sam Jones' Own Book (1887); St. Louis Series (1890); and Thunderbolts (1895).

JONES, WILLIAM, OF NAYLAND: English theologian; b. at Lowick (19 m. n.e. of Northampton), Northamptonshire, July 30, 1726; d. at Nayland (14 m. s.s.w. of Ipswich), Suffolk, Jan. 6, 1800. He studied at the Charterhouse and at University College, Oxford (B.A., 1749). Here, largely through the influence of his friend, George Home, he adopted the views of John Hutchinson (q.v.). After his graduation he was curate for a number of years, first at Finedon, afterward at Wadenhoe, Northamptonshire. In 1764 he was presented to the vicarage of Bethersden, and in 1765 to the rectory of Pluckley, both in Kent. On June 22, 1775, be was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1777 he obtained the perpetual curacy of Nayland, Suffolk, and exchanged Pluckley for Paston, Northamptonshire. Thenceforth he resided at Nayland and came to be known as Jones of Nayland. In 1788 he became chaplain to George Horne (bishop of Norwich). He was the originator, though not the editor, of the British Critic, a theological quarterly, of which the first number appeared in London in May, 1793. In 1798 he was presented by Archbishop Moore to the sinecure rectory of Hollingbourne, Kent. Jones was a man of vast learning and sound piety, and one of the most prominent churchmen of his time. The school represented by him is regarded as forming a link between the non-jurors and the Oxford school. His works, some forty in number, are written from the Hutchinsonian point of view. The best-known are: The Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity (Oxford, 1756; ed. J. L. F. Russell, London, 1866; published by S.P.C.K., 1899); An Essay on the First Principles of Natural Philosophy (Oxford, 1762); Physiological Disquisitions (London, 1781); Lectures on the Figurative Language of the Holy Scripture (1786; new ed., 1863); An Essay on the Church (1787; new ed., 1863); and Memoirs of . . . George Horne (1795). William Stevens collected and edited his Works (12 vols., 1801; reprinted in 6 vols., 1810). Some of his tracts were reprinted under the title, Tracts on the Church (Oxford and London, 1850).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: W. Stevens, A Short Account of the Life and Writings of William Jones, London, 1801; John Hunt, Hist. of Religious Thought in England, iii. 306-319, ib. 1873; L. Stephen, Hist. of English Thought in the 18th Century, viii. 18-20, xii. 89, 2 vols., New York, 1881; J. H. Overton, The Church in England, ii. 258, 290-91, London, 1897; J. H. Overton and F. Relton, The English Church (1714-1800), pp. 206-207 et passim, ib. 1906; DNB, xxx. 177-178.