WILLIAM

See also:

• JAY (Fr. geai)
• JAY, JOHN (1745-1829)
• WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853)

JAY (1769-1853)  , English Nonconformist divine, was born at Tisbury in Wiltshire on the 6th of May 1769 . He adopted his father's trade of stone-mason, but gave it up in 1785 in order to enter the Rev . Cornelius Winter's school at Marlborough . During the three years that Jay spent there, his preaching powers were rapidly developed . Before he was twenty-one he had preached nearly a thousand times, and in 1788 he had for a while occupied Rowland Hill's pulpit in London . Wishing to continue his reading he accepted the humble pastor-ate of Christian Malford, near Chippenham, where he remained about two years . After one year at Hope chapel, Clifton, he was called to the ministry of Argyle Independent chapel in Bath; and on the 3oth of January 1791 he began the work of his life there, attracting hearers of every religious denomination and of every rank, and winning for himself a wide reputation as a brilliant pulpit orator, an earnest religious author, and a friendly counsellor . Sheridan declared him to be the most manly orator he had ever heard . A long and honourable connexion of sixty-two years came to an end in January 1853, and he died on the 27th of December following . The best-known of Jay's works are his Morning and Evening Exercises: The Christian contemplated: The Domestic Minister's Assistant; and his Discourses . He also wrote a Life of Rev . Cornelius Winter, and Memoirs of Rev .

John Clarke . An edition of Jay's Works in.12 vols., 8vo, revised by himself, was issued in 1842-1844, and again in 1856 . A new edition, in 8 vols., 8vo, was published in 1876 . See Autobiography (1854); S . Wilson's Memoir of Jay (1854); S . Newth in Pulpit Memorials (1878) .