Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 June 1896 — POPULAR COLORED PREACHER. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POPULAR COLORED PREACHER.

Rev. Bowen Who First Led the Ballotins for Bishops at Cleveland. Rev. J. W. E. Bowen, the colored Methodist minister, who at the outset led the balloting for bishops at the Cleveland general conference, was born of slave parents at New Orleans in 1854. His Intense religious nature manifested at the early age of 16, when he bhcffhe converted. Young Bowen started out tq get a good education and sucfj&'defl. He entered the University of New Orleans and left it with the degree of A. B. Passing through tßoston University, he was a bachelor of divinity and- was later given his full degree in philosophy by that school. He was made doctor of divinity at Gammon Theological Seminary in 1893. For a time he filled the chair of mathematics In Central Tennessee College, was pastor of St. John's Church, at Newark, N. J., and of Centennial Church, at Baltimore. He has filled such positions as the chair of church history in Morgan College, of Hebrew in Howard University, and of historical theology in Gammon Seminary. He has been a hard wprker and a voluminous writer. His publications include a volume of sermons and addresses: “Plain Talks to the Colored People of America,” '92. Address at the dedication of the negro building, Cotton States and International Exposition: “Appeal to the King"; address

before the Congress on Africa of the same exposition, “The Comparative Status of the Negro at the Close of the War and To-day.” In these addresses he pleaded for higher education of leaders of the colored people.

REV. J. W. E. BOWEN.