Owen, William, a Congregational minister, was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, Oct. 23, 1844, and was educated at the Congregational Memorial College, Brecon, from 1868 to 1870. He was ordained for the ministry at Coalburgh, Ohio, in September, 1870, and became pastor of the Congregational society in that place. Too severe application to his studies in col- lege and overwork in the pastorate broke his constitu- tion, and he died of consumption Jan. 14, 1875, on his first charge.
Owens, Thomas, a minister of the JMethodist Epis- copal Church, South, was born in South Carolina Jan. 8, 1787, and was the son of Thomas and Frances Owens. His parents took him to the Natchez country when young, and settled in what is now Jefferson County. Thomas was in early manhood perverted to vicious purposes. In his t\\-enty-fourth year he became an earnest seeker of salvation from sin. As a preliminary step, he united with the Church in 1810, and was soon after converted while kneeling to receive the holy com- munion. He was soon encouraged by his brethren to take an active part in the social meetings of the Church, where he successfully commenced those extraordi- nary labors which made him so conspicuous in after- life. He was admitted into the travelling connection Nov. 1, 1813, as a member of the Tennessee Conference, and was effective seventeen years, during which time he travelled four years in Alabama, four years in Louis- iana, west of the Mississippi, and nine years in various parts of Mississippi. He was on the superannuated list thirty-eight j'ears, but most of that time he rendered efficient service as a self-supporting minister. All who have succeeded him in his different fields of ministerial labor know what a deep and lasting impression his preaching* and other kindred exercises made on the minds of all classes. He had learned by experience and practical observation all the avenues leading to the human heart, and he know how to touch every chord of human sympathj'. His native wit and genius crojiped out everywhere. He said what other men said, and preached the same doctrines his brethren preached, but it was all said and preached in his own peculiar and at- tractive style. His genial face, the indescribable into- nations of his voice, his apt illustrations and gestures, all combined to keep up an interest in his hearers. He died July 1, 18G8. But few men of his talents ever ac- complished a similar amount of good. See Minutes of
the Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, I'SGS.
Ow^ings, EiciiARD. See 0^^•EN, Richard.
Owl is the rendering in the English Version of several Hebrew words. In our identifications of them we cliiefi}' follow C. Hamilton Smith in Kitto's Cyclo- ptedia.
1. Yanshujih (C|>1\;33]^), which is mentioned in Lev. xi, 17 ; Deut. xiv, 16, among unclean water-fowl ; and in Isa. xxxiv, 11 (here written yanshoph, rjicp^), in the description of desolate Edom. The Sept. and Je- rome translate it ibis, i. e. the Egyptian heron, according to the older commentators; and Oedmann (Sammlung, vi, 27; comp. Oken, Lehrb. d. Naturg. HI, ii, 583) and others favor this rendering ; but it has been shown that the real ibis is a smaller bird, not of the heron species, the Ibis religiosa of Cuvier; a rare bird even about IMemphis, and unknown in Palestine. This, then, could not be the yanshi'iph of the Pentateuch, nor could the black ibis which appears about Damietta, nor any spe- cies strictly tenants of hot and watery regions, be well taken for it. See Iius. Bochart and others, who refer the name to a species of owl, appear to disregard two other names ascribed to owls in the 16th verse of the same chapter of Leviticus. If, therefore, an owl was here again intended, it would have been placed in the former verse, or near to it. On the whole, as the Sept. refers the word to a wader, and the older commentators to a species of ardea, we accept the view al- ready indicated bj' Ge- senius {Thesaurus, p. 922), on etymological grounds, that a heron is intended ; and the night-heron is the only one, perhaps, in all re- spects suited to the passages. It is a bird smaller than the com- mon heron, distin- guished by two or three white plumes hanging out of the black-capped nape of the male. In habit it is partially nocturnal. The Arabian Abu-onk (?), if not identical, is a close congener of the species, being found in every portion of the temperate and warmer climates of the earth : it is an inhabitant of Syria, and altogether is free from the principal objections made to the ibis and the owl. The Linna;an single A rdea nycti- corax is now typical of a genus of that name, and in- cludes several species of night-herons. They fiy abroad at dusk, frequent the sea-shore, marshes, and rivers, feeding on mollusca, Crustacea, and worms, and have a cry of a most disagreeable nature. This bird has been confounded with the night - hawk, which is a goat- sucker (caprimulgus), not a hawk.
2. Kus (013, Lev. xi, 17; Deut. xiv, 16; Psa. cii, 6), rendered "little owl" and "owl of the desert," is perhaps most applicable to the white or barn owl, Strix Jlammea. Bochart {llieroz. ii, 267) referred tliis name to the pelican, on account of the assumed signifi- cation of kos, "cup," by him fancied to point out the pouch beneath the bill (so Gesenius, Thesaur. p. 695); whereas it is more probably an indication of the dispro- portionate bulk and fiatness of the head compared with tlie bod\% of which it measures to the eye full half of the whole bird, when the feathers are raised in their usual appearance. Kos is only a variation of cup and cap, whicli, with some infiexinns, additional or terminal particles, is common to all the great languages of the