"Williams, Solomon, D.D., a Congregational min- ister, son of the Kev. AVilliam Williams, of Hatfield, Mass., was born June 4, 1700. He graduated at Har- vard College in 1719, and was ordained pastor of the Church in Lebanon, Conn., Dec. 5, 1722. In 1746 he became involved in a controversy on the nature of justi- fying faith with the Kev. Andrew Croswell, and in 1751 in another with his cousin, the elder Jonathan Ed- wards, concerning the Christian sacraments. In the extensive re\nval of 1740 he showed himself a decided friend to Whitetield, whom he re])eatedly welcomed to his pulpit. He died F"eb. 29, 1776. He published. Sub- stance of Two Discourses on the Occasion of the Death by Drowniny of Mr. John Woodward and of the De- liverance of Mr: Samuel Gray (1741): — A Vindication of the Gospel Doctrine of Justif cation by Faith (1746), beiiiy an answer to the Rev. A ndrew CrosweU's book, " On Justifying Faith:" — The Ti'ue State of the Question concei-ning the Qualifications Necessary to Lavful Com- munion in the Christian Sacraments (1751), being an an- stver to the Rev. .lonathan Edwards's " Humble Inquiry," etc.: — and several occasional t^ermons. See Sprague, A nnals of the A mer. Pulpit, i, 321.
Williams, Stephen (1), D.D., a Congregational minister, son of tlie Kev. .John Williams of Deertield, Mass., was born ;\lay 14. 1693. When in his eleventh year, he was taken captive by the Indians, with all his father's family except one brother, and subjected to great suffering on the journey to Canada. Having been separated from the rest of the family, he did not meet any of them again for fourteen months. He was released at Quebec through the intercession of friends in New England, and arrived in Boston, Mass., Nov. 21, 1705, nearly twenty-one months from the beginning of his captivity. In 1713 he graduated at Harvard Col- lege, and then taught school at Hadley for one year. After preaching at Longmeadow for about two years, he was ordained there Oct. 17, 1716. During three campaigns he served as chaplain in the army: at Cape Breton, in 1745, under Sir William Pepperell ; went to
WILLIAMS
1001
WILLIBALD
Lake George, in 1755, under Sir William Johnson; and in the year following was under (iencral Winslow. He was an important agent in establisliing the mission in 1734; among the Housatonic Indians in Stockbridge. He died June 10, 1782. His only publication was A Sermon at Ike Ordination of .John Keep ( 1772 ). See Sprague, Annals of the Amer.Pulpity'x, 28-1,
"Williams, Stephen (2), a Congregational minis- ter, son of the preceding, and father of the Kev. Stephen Williams of Fitzwilliam, N. H., was born at Longmead- ow, Mass., Jan. 26, 1722. He graduated at Yale College in 1741, studied theology with his father, was ordained (irst pastor of Woodstock (West) in 1747, and continued in charge until his death, April 20, 1795. He was a| good classical scholar, a practical preacher, and much j esteemed by his people. See Cong. Quar. 1801, p. 355; Sprague, Annals of the Anier. Pulpit, i, 287.
"Williams, Thomas, D.D., a Methodist Episcopal minister, was born in the city of Durham, England, July G, 1811. He was converted in 1835, graduated at Hox- ton in 1840, joined the British Wesleyan Conference, and was appointed to Glasgow. Three years later he removed to Edinburgh, where he formed a close friend- ship with the famous Dr. Chalmers, and from thence he removed to the Stockport North Circuit, where he pub- lished his Defence of the British Wesleyan Conference against the Fly-sheets Vindicated. In 1849 he was ap- pointed to the Leeds First Circuit, where he published his Address to the Methodist societies. In 1852 he was appointed to City Road, London (First Circuit); and in 1854 emigrated to America, joined the Kock Kiver Con- ference, and was stationed at Indiana Street Church, Chicago, where he continued three years. Mr. Will- iams was transferred in 1858 to the JMissouri Confer- ence, and was appointed pastor of Ebenezer Church, St. Louis. On the death of the president of the University of Missouri, at Jefferson City, Mr. Williams was elected to fill the vacancy. Failing health in 1861 caused him to travel East for its restoration. He stopped at Sara- toga, and there died the same year. See Minutes of Annual Conferences, 1862, p. 5.
"Williams, "William, called the "Watts of Wales," was born in 1717, in tlie parish of Llanfair-ar-y-Bryn, Carmarthenshire, Wales. His conversion he traced to the preaching of Howel Harris. He left the Establish- ed Church at the age of thirty-two, and connected him- self with the Methodists, among whom he was recog- nised as one of their most popular preachers. Gifted with poetical talents of a high order, like Charles Wes- ley, he consecrated his genius to the cause of his Mas- ter. He published the following works : A lleluia (Bris- tol, 1745-47, 6 pts.) : — The Sea of Glass: — Visible Fare- well:— Welcome to Invisible Thimjs : — and An Elegy on Wkitefeld, dedicated to the countess of Huntingdon. His death occurred in 1791. Mr. Williams was the author of the hymn "O'er the gloomy hills of dark- ness," etc. His best-known hymn — one that is fouiid in so many collections of hymns — is that commencing with the words "Guide me, O thou great .Jehovah." The history of this hymn is thus given: Lady Hunt- ingdon having read one of Williams's books with much spiritual satisfaction, persuaded him to pre])are a col- lection of hymns, to be called the Gloria in Ercelsis, for especial use in Mr. Whitefield's Orphans' House in America. In this collection appeared the original stan- zas of "Guide me, O thou great Jehovah." In 1774, two years after its publication in the Gloria in Excelsis, It was republished in England in Mr. Whitefield's col- lections of hymns. Its rendering from the Welsh into English is attributed to W. Evans, who gives a trans- lation similar to that found in the present collections of hymns. The hymn vvas taken up by the Calvinist Metho<list9, embodying, as it did, a metrical prayer for God's overcoming strength and victorious deliverance in life's hours of discipline and trial, expressed in truly majestic language, in harmony with a firm religious re-