MONTGOMERY, went-gum's-ri, HENRY: Founder of the Rerilonstrant Synod of Ulster in Ireland; b. in the parish of Killead (on Lough Neagh, 4 m. a. of Antrim), County Antrim, Jan. 16, 1788; d. at Dunmurray (4 m. s.w. of Belfast) Dec. 18, 1865. He studied at Glasgow College (M.A., 1807); was ordained minister of Dunmurray, 1809, and spent his life there. He combined teaching with his pastoral duties, from 1817 to 1839 was head master of the English school in the Belfast Academical Institution, gave lectures to divinity students from 1832, and in 1838 was appointed professor of ecclesiastical history and pastoral theology at Belfast for the association of Irish non-subscribing Presbyterians. During the greater part of his life he was the antagonist of Henry Cooke (q.v.), whose strenuous advocacy of orthodoxy drove him and his associates from the Synod of Ulster in 1829; as an orator and thinker he was Cooke's equal, but he lacked his power to persuade the majority. He was liberal in politics and his views of religious liberty were in advance of his time. His publications were sermons, speeches, and magazine articles.

Bibliography: J. A. Crosier, Life of . . . Henry Montgomery . . . with Selections from his Speeches and Writings, vol. i (no more published), London, 1875; idem, Henry Montgomery, ib. 1888; the literature under Cooke, Henry; DNB, acxviii. ,313-315.

MONTGOMERY, JAMES: English religious poet and hymn-writer; b. at Irvine (25 m. s.w. of Glasgow), Scotland, . Nov. 4, 1771; d. at Sheffield, England, Apr. 30, 1854. After attending school in Fulneck, the chief Moravian settlement in England, he settled at Sheffield (1792), where he became proprietor and editor of The Iris. In 1789 he was sentenced to three months' imprisonment and a fine of twenty pounds for having printed The Bastile, a poem surmounted by a woodcut representing liberty and the British lion. A little later he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment because of reflections upon a colonel of militia, published in his paper. In spite of these judicial condemnations his name was unaffected, and when he retired from the editorship of his paper, in 1825, he received public favors, and at his death had the honor of a public funeral. In 1830-31 he delivered a series of lectures on poetry and literature before the Royal Institution; and in 1846 a life pension was settled upon him of a hundred and fifty pounds. He made no public profession of religion till his forty-third year, when he united with the Moravians; but ever afterward, eminent for his piety, he was most active. in furthering all philanthropic and religious work.

He was one of the best sacred poets of his day. Among his works may be named: The Wanderer of Switzerland, and Other Poems (London, 1806); Poems on the Abolition of the Slave Trade (in collaboration with J. Grahame and E. Benger, 1809); The West Indies (1810); The World before the Flood (1813); Greenland (1819); The Songs of Zion, being Imitations of the Psalms (1822); The Christian Psalmist, or Hymns, Selected and Original (Glasgow, 1825); The Pelican Island, and Other Poems (London, 1827); The Christian Poet; or, Selections in Verse on Sacral Subjects (Glasgow, 1827); Journal of Voyages and Travels by the Rev. D. Tyerman and G. Bennet Esq., . . compiled by J. Montgomery (London, 1831); Lectures on Poetry and General Literature Delivered at the Royal Institution in 1830 and 1831 (1833); A Poet's Portfolio: or, Minor Poems (1835); Lines of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain and Portugal (in collaboration with Mrs. Shelley and others, 3 vols., 1835-37); Our Savior's Miracles. Six Original Sketches in Verse (Bristol, 1840); The Poetical Works of J. M., Collected by himself (4 vols., London, 1841); and Original Hymns for Public, Private, and Social Devotion (1853). He was a favorite lyric poet, and many of his works went through numerous editions. He was known chiefly for his hymns, of which the favorites are the missionary hymns, " O Spirit of the living God," " Hail to the Lord's Anointed," the fine advent hymn, " Angels from the realms of glory," and " Forever with the Lord."

Bibliography: The main biography is by J. Holland and J. Everett, 7 vols., London, 1854-58 (expanded to a tedious degree). Others are by J. W. King, ib. 1858; A. $. Patterson, in Poets and Preachers of the 18th Century, Glasgow, 1862; S. Ellis, ib. 1864; 8. C. Hall, in Book of Memories of Great Men and Women, pp. 81-93, ib. 1883; S. W. Duffield, English Hymns, pp. 481-483, New York, 1886; G. W. Tallent-Batsman, in Papers of the Manchester Club, 1889, .pp. 385-392, 435-440; Julian, Hymnology, pp. 763-764.