Samuel Porter Jones, best known as Sam P. Jones, (October 16, 1847 – October 15, 1906) was an American lawyer and businessman from Georgia who became a prominent Methodist Episcopal Church revivalist preacher across the Southern United States. In his sermons, he preached that alcohol and idleness were sinful. He was known for his admonition, "Quit Your Meanness." Early life Samuel Porter Jones was born on October 16, 1847 in Oak Bowery, Alabama. His father, John Jones, was a lawyer and real estate entrepreneur. His mother, Queenie Jones, was a homemaker. His paternal grandfather, Samuel Gamble Jones, was a Methodist preacher. His great-grandfather was also a Methodist preacher. Additionally, four of his uncles were Methodists. In 1855, when he was eight years old, his mother died, and he moved with his father to Cartersville, Georgia. During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, Jones joined up with union troops traveling to Kentucky. Upon his return, Jones studied the Law, was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1868, and became known locally as a brilliant lawyer; however, Jones was a notorious alcoholic. After his father died, Sam Jones had a great and miraculous experience of conviction and quit his drinking, and focused on his Methodist faith. Evangelistic career Jones was ordained as a Methodist preacher by the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He became a traveling circuit preacher in October 1872, tending the Van Wert circuit, a group of five churches spread over four counties. He became the South’s most famous evangelist and preacher in the late nineteenth century. He aimed his messages especially at men, often regarded as the most difficult demographic group to reach. His evangelistic style was considered coarse, daring and even admirable, as in this contemporaneous description “Sam Jones is a remarkable man. Uneducated and in many respects absolutely ignorant, he has the faculty of striking that chord of nature that makes him one with the audience before him, which he sways with a wasteful hand. The terseness of his language is bold and biting, and in a vague sort of way calls to mind the exhortations and anathemas of the stern old Jewish prophets. How absurd yet striking was an expression made by this wild preacher in the course of a sermon on honesty! Said he: 'God will put his angels on half rations rather than see an honest man starve.' On another