John Leland, an English Presbyterian divine, born in Wigan, Lancashire, in 1691, died in Dublin, Jan. 16, 1766. He passed his life as pastor of a Presbyterian congregation in Dublin, and received the degree of D. D. from the university of Aberdeen. Though engaged through life in polemical warfare, he was remarkable for charity and candor. His principal works are: "The Divine Authority of the Old and New Testament" (2 vols. 8vo, 1739-'40); "View of the Principal Deistical Writers that have appeared in England in the Past and Present Century" (1754); and "The Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation""(2 vols. 4to, 1764).

John Leland #1

John Leland, an American clergyman, born in Grafton, Mass., May 14, 1754, died in North Adams, Mass., Jan. 14, 1841. He was licensed as a Baptist preacher in 1774, and in 1775 removed to Virginia, where until 1791, with the exception of occasional visits to the north, he was actively employed in discharging the duties of his office. In February, 1792, he settled in Cheshire, in western Massachusetts, where he resided for the most part until his death. He was a prolific writer, and during his long ministry preached many thousand sermons, and baptized more persons probably than any one of his contemporaries. His occasional sermons, addresses, and essays, together with his autobiography and additional notices of his life by Miss L. F. Green, were published in 1845 (1 vol. 8vo). He was a man of much eccentricity and shrewdness, and throughout his life took the warmest interest in politics. Toward the close of 1801 he went to Washington to present to Mr. Jefferson a mammoth cheese weighing 1,450 lbs., as a testimonial of the esteem and confidence of the people of Cheshire in the new chief magistrate.

He was firmly attached to the democratic party, and sometimes manifested his predilections in his pulpit discourses.