Services will be Thursday for Reverend James Arthur Adams, veteran minister and church historian of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, who died Sunday evening in Jackson Madison County General Hospital. At the time of his death, the Rev. Adams was also a member of the Judiciary Council of the general church and served that body as treasurer. A life-long student of church history, he pursued special studies at Garrett Theological Seminary in Biblical studies and subsequently completed course work for a Master's degree at Fisk University. In the mid fifties he served for several years as presiding elder of the Brownsville district, following successful pastorates at local churches. In earlier years of his ministry he pastored Lane Tabernacle and Mother Liberty churches. He was appointed presiding elder of the North Jackson district for six years prior to appointment at Mother Liberty on South Church street. Years ago Bishop Isaac Lane told young Adam's wife, the former Miss Gussie Person: "He doesn't talk much but he has a head full of knowledge!" Making his mark very early in the general church, Adams enjoyed an unbroken line of elections as delegate to successive general conferences since 1942. He met and married his wife, who survives, while they were both students on the Lane College campus in July, 1924. He was then a ministerial student and she was an education major. After finishing preparatory studies at Haygood Institute in Arkansas and Mississippi Industrial College, he pursued to completion his degree in arts and sciences at Lane College. Elder Dewitt T. Alcorn, a classmate at Gammon Theological Seminary, remembers Adams as being not only a scholar, but a person free of acrimony and disparagement. Said Elder Alcorn: "I knew him to possess deep loyalty as a man. . . to his home, his church and to Jackson. He was the strong, silent type!" Always a team in service, Reverend Adams and his wife devoted their energies to both Lane College and the church as well as to the study of the history and literature of Methodism. Last year they gave considerable sums of money to the Lane College Jubilee Building Fund, for the furnishing of the new five story building on the campus and to the Alumni Century fund. In addition, their largesse has extended to the One Hundredth Anniversary celebration of the founding of the C.M.E. Church in Jackson. Bishop B. Julian Smith, host bishop of the first Episcopal District, will deliver the eulogy in services scheduled for Thursday at 1 p.m. at St. Paul C.M.E. Church. Burial will follow in Mt. Olive Cemetery with Ford Funeral Home in charge.