Bell, James (2)
Bell, James
Priest and martyr, b. at Warrington in Lancashire, England, probably about 1520; d. 20 April, 1584. For the little known of him we depend on the account published four years after his death by Bridgewater in his “Concertatio” (1588), and derived from a manuscript which was kept at Douay when Challoner wrote his “Missionary Priests” in 1741, and is now in the Westminster Diocesan Archives. A few further details were collected by Challoner, and others are supplied by the State Papers. Having studied at Oxford he was ordained priest in Mary’s reign, but unfortunately conformed to the established Church under Elizabeth, and according to the Douay MS. “ministered their bare few sacraments about 20 years in diverse places of England”. Finally deterred by conscience from the cure of souls and reduced to destitution, he sought a small readership as a bare subsistence. To obtain this he approached the patron’s wife, a Catholic lady, who induced him to be reconciled to the Church. After some time he was allowed to resume priestly functions, and for two years devoted himself to arduous missionary labours. He was at length apprehended (17 January 1583-84) and, having confessed his priesthood, was arraigned at Manchester Quarter-Sessions held during the same month, and sent for trial at Lancaster Assizes in March. When condemned and sentenced he said to the Judge: “I beg your Lordship would add to the sentence that my lips and the tops of my fingers may be cut off, for having sworn and subscribed to the articles of heretics contrary both to my conscience and to God’s Truth”. He spent that night in prayer and on the following day was hanged and quartered together with Ven. John Finch, a layman, 20 April, 1584.
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BRIDGEWATER, Concertatio ecclesiæ Catholicæ in Anglia, 1588; YEPEZ, Historia particular de la persecucion de Inglatera, 1599; CHALLONER, Missionary Priests 1741; Dict. Nat. Biog., IV, 163; GILLOW, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., I, 173, citing State Papers in Public Record Office.
EDWIN BURTON Transcribed by WGKofron In memory of Fr. John Hilkert, Akron, OhioFidelis servus et prudens, quem constituit Dominus super familiam suam
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightImprimatur.+John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Bell, James (1)
an Irish Wesleyan minister, was born in the north of Ireland, 1759. He was converted when after twenty. He was appointed to a circuit in 1790, and labored for thirty-seven years, chiefly as a missionary, preaching in the English and Irish tongues, oftentimes at fairs and markets, and exposed to much danger. When unable longer to fulfil the duties of the ministry, he retired to Dublin, where. he still did missionary work. He died Dec. 8, 1844. See Minutes of the British Conference, 1845.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Bell, James (2)
a Wesleyan minister in Canada, was born in the County of Wexford, Ireland, in 1810. He was converted in early life; came to Canada in 1831; entered the ministry of the then newly formed Canadian Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1834; retired from the active work in 1863; settled in London, Ont., in 1867; and died in that city, May 31, 1879. Bell was a mighty wrestler with God and an irresistible pleader with men. His whole soul sometimes seemed on fire; it flashed from his eyes, flamed from his tongue, and burned into the souls of those who heard him. He was a man of warm friendships and of uniform and unspotted integrity. See Minutes of London (Ont.) Conference (Toronto, 1879), p. 32.