JAY, REV. WILLIAM, was bore on the 8th of May 1769 at Tiabury, Wiltshire. His father, who WAS the son of a small farmer, worked as a stone-cutter aud mason, and young Jay's first employment was that of mason's boy. While still young he was placed under the tuition of the Rev. Cornelius Winter of Marlborough Academy, an institution connected with the Congregational body in which young men were trained for the ministry. his abilities soon became known, and he began to preach before he was sixteen years of age. For about a year he officiated as the minister of Lady Maxwell's Chapel at the Hotwells, Clifton ; and on January 31st 1791 ho was settled as pastor of the church assembling in Argyle Chapel, Bath, a position which ho maintained for the long period of sixty-two years. Mr. Jay retired from the pastorate iu Jauuary 1853, and died on the 27th of December in the same year, at the age of eighty-four. His reputation as a preacher was very high, and was by no means confined to his own denomination, that of the Independeuts. His published sermons have had very extensive circulation, and many a congregation throughout the kingdom has often listened to Jay's sermons without knowing to whom they were primarily indebted for tho instruction they were receiving. That which made his pulpit addressee so useful also in the family, and so well adapted for reproduction in other pulpits, was their simplicity of style, combined with a clear and methodical statement of the lessons sought to he conveyed. The effect of his own minis
trations wee much enhanced by his earnestness of manner, and by a full command of his excellent vocal powers. Mr. Jay's regular con gregation was large, and visitors to Bath usually repaired to his chapel to bear him preach. He generally made an annual visit to London and to the coast, and in the metropolis and elsewhere he attracted crowded congregations. When be had completed fifty years of his ministerial labours his people held jubilee services, in connection with which, at a public breakfast in the Assembly Rooms on the tad of February 1841, a handsome piece of plate and a purse containing 6501. were presented to Mr. Jay. Besides his sermons, of which several editions have been published, Mr. Jay wrote an ' Essay on Marriage;' 'Memoirs of the Rev. Cornelius Winter ;' Memoirs of the Rev. John Clark;' ' Lectures on Female Scripture Characters' (published alum his death); and en 'Autobiography,' from which and other sources a memoir of Mr. Jay was prepared by the Rev. Dr. Redford and the Rev. J. A. James, and published in 1854. A uniform edition of Mr. Jay's works was published under the author's superintendence in 1845-49 in twelve volumes, post octavo.