Congregationalist
Hymn #133.
This writer was born at Coventry, England, with year of birth being uncertain. His father was a working man, not a man of letters or great education. Jonathan as a youth was employed in a ribbon factory and in 1778 he joined the Congregationalist church at Coventry which was then under a pastor named G. Burder. He had formerly no profession of religion but associated much with the degraded and ungodly-bad company indeed! In 1776 he was deeply convicted of sin and after coming to Christ became a very different person. He became a most active and tireless Christian worker. Although a business man all his life he began to manifest the gifts the Lord had given him in preaching the Word. He not only preached at the Chapel but was active in gathering the neglected children at Foleshill, near Coventry, to teach them the Scriptures.
In 1784 he fitted out a house-boat on the canal as a place of Christian activity. This grew into a chapel in 1797 and he continued there to the day of his death. He also ministered to the physical and mental infirmities of the people and was considered a “doctor” as well. On August 31, 1809, he suddenly passed on to the blissful shore he wrote about:
“We soon shall reach the blissful shore,
And view His glorious face;
His name forever to adore,
And hail Him ‘Prince of Peace’.”