Miles, James Warley, 1818-1875

Episcopal clergyman and librarian and professor at the College of Charleston, Charleston, S.C.

Biographical Note: James Warley Miles was an American clergyman and author.

He was born in Charleston, SC in 1818 and educated at South Carolina College. Miles took orders in the Protestant Episcopal church and in 1843 went as a missionary to the Orient. He returned to Charleston in 1849 and served both as an assistant rector of St. Michael's Church and professor of Greek and history in Charleston College. When his health failed, he left to study philosophy and philology in Europe. When he again returned to Charleston, he was appointed librarian at Charleston College. Miles published essays and poetry in the "Southern Review" and the "Southern Literary Gazette" and was the author of "Philosophic Theology" in 1849. James Warley Miles died in Charleston in 1875.

Minister, educator, theologian, and librarian. Miles was born in St. Matthew's Parish, South Carolina, studied theology at the General Theological Seminary (N.Y.), and was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1843. In the same year Miles became a missionary to Mesopotamia (Armenia and Constantinople), where he remained until returning to South Carolina in 1848. He officiated briefly at St. John's Church, Colleton (John's Island, S.C.) and from May to October 1849, in St. Michael's Church (Charleston, S.C.). In 1849 his sermons were collected and published as "Philosophic Theology: or, Ultimate Grounds of All Religious Belief Based in Reason."

In 1850 Miles accepted the Chair of the History of Intellectual Philosophy and Greek Literature at the College of Charleston, and in 1855 he took the position of Librarian of the college. Appointed Professor of Ancient Languages in 1865, Miles resigned this post in 1871 due to poor health. In 1874 Miles retired to Camden (S.C.), where he assumed the rectorship of Grace Church.