O'KELLY, Jars, 1757-1826; of Irish birth; a noted pioneer preacher in the Metho dist Episcopal church, and the leader in the first secession from it. He became a local preacher, and the people flocked to hear him. In 1778 he was admitted among the traveling ministers, and soon became prominent for earnestness and fervor. At the organization of the church in 1784 lie was ordained as an elder. One of his contempo raries speaks of him as "laborious, zealous, given' to prayer and fasting, . . . . and hard against negro slavery in private and from the pulpit and press." His labors and influence were confined chiefly to the southern counties of Virrinia and the border coun ties of North Carolina. In 1790 he began to show dislike to what lie thought the growing power of bishop Asbury. and called on him privately to suspend his episcopal func tions for one year, if lie did not wish to be publicly opposed. As this menace produced no effect he made the movement in the conference of 1791 that resulted in the withdrawal of himself and a few others from the church. At first they called themselves the repub lican Methodists, but afterwards changed their nanie to the Christian church. This company was soon divided and subdivided until only a few broken societies remained. O'Kelly lived many years, witnessing through them the failure of his plans. He saw his followers forsaking him and returning to the church which they had left. But he clung to his convictions to the last. See METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, DIVISIONS IN.
OXEN (originally OCKENFUSS), LORENZ, a celebrated German naturalist, was b. at Bolilsbach, Ang. 1, 1779. He studied at Wtlrzburg and Gottingen; became extraordinary professor of medicine at Jena in 1807, where his lectures on natural philosophy, natural history, zoology, comparative anatomy, vegetable and animal physiology. attracted much notice. In 1812 he was appointed ordinary professor of natural science; and in 1816 commenced the publication of a joiirnal partly scientific and partly political, called Iris, which continued to appear till 1848. The opinions pro mulgated in the Iris led to government interference, and Oken resigned his chair, and became a private tutor, devoting his leisure to the composition of works an natural history. In 1828 he obtained a professorship in the newly-established university of
Munich, but iu 1832 exchanged it for another at Zurich, where lie died, Aug. 11, 1851. Oken aimed at constructing all knowledge a priori, and thus setting forth the system of nature in its universal relations. The two principal works in which this idea is devel oped are his Lehrbnch der iVaturphilosophie (Jena, 180S-11), and his Lehrbveh der geschichte (3 vols. Leip. 1813-27). The former has been translated into English. and published by the Ray society under the title of Elements of Physio-philosophy. As Olien's philosophic system of nature was very peculiar, and quite unlike anything that had pre ceded it. Oken invented a nomenclature of his own, which, however, in many cases is forced and pretentious. composed for the most part of new-coined words. and difficult to remember. It therefore found little favor, and Oken was long regarded—particularly by French and Eniglish saVaits-4s a lucre dreamer and traDscendenial theorist; nor can i be denied that he is largely such, infected with the worst vices of the school of Sehel, Lag, to which he belonged; but some of his " intuitions"—if we may so term his scientific suggestions—were remarkably felicitous, and in the hands of rigorous demon strators, have led to great results. In his work Die Zeugung (On Generation, Bamb. 1305), he first suggested that all animals are built of vesicles or cells; in his Beitruge zur rergleieltenden Zoologie, Antztontie and Physiologic (1800), he pointed out the origin of the intestines in the umbilical vesicle; and in the same year lighted accidentally upon the idea, since so prolific of results, that the bones of the skull are modified vertebrae. On account of this discovery he has been termed "the father of morphological science." That Oken, and not G5the, was the original discoverer of the vertebral relations of the skull, has beep conclusively shown by Owen, in a valuable notice of Oken in the Eney eopadiu Britannia&