JOHN

See also:

• WESLEY (FAMILY)
• WESLEY, JOHN (1703-1791)
• WESLEY, SAMUEL (1766-1837)
• WESLEY, SAMUEL SEBASTIAN (1810–1876)

WESLEY

See also:

• JOHN WESLEY ETHERIDGE (1804-1866)
• ETHERIDGE, ROBERT (1819-1903)

ETHERIDGE (1804-1866)  , English non-conformist divine, was born near Newport, Isle of Wight, on the 24th of February 1804 . He received most of his early education from his father . Though he never attended any university he acquired ultimately a thorough knowledge of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Syriac, French and German . In 1824 he was placed on the Wesleyan Methodist plan as a local preacher . In 1826 his affer to enter tie ministry was accepted, and after the usual probationary trial he was received into full connexion at the conference of 1831 . For two years after this he remained at Brighton, and in 1833 he removed to Cornwall, being stationed successively at the Truro and Falmouth circuits . From Falmouth he removed to Darlaston, where in 1838 his health gave way . For a good many years he was a supernumerary, and lived for a while at Caen and Paris, where in the public libraries he found great facilities for prosecuting his favourite Oriental studies . His health having considerably improved, he became, in 1843, pastor of the Methodist church at Boulogne . He returned to England in 1847, and was appointed successively to the circuits of Islington, Bristol, Leeds, Penzance, Penryn, Truro and St Austell in east Cornwall . Shortly after his return to England he received the degree of Ph.D. from the university of Heidelberg . He was a patient, modest, hard-working and accurate scholar .

He died at

Camborne on the 24th of May 1866 . His principal works are Horae Aramaicae (1843) ; History, Liturgies and Literature of the Syrian Churches (1847); The Apostolic Acts and Epistles, from the Peshito or Ancient Syriac (1849); Jerusalem and Tiberias, a Survey of the Religious and Scholastic Learning of the Jews (1856); The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel (1st vol. in 1862, 2nd in 1865) . See Memoir, by Rev . Thornley Smith (1871) .