LETTERS ON THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN AMERICA, ADDRESSED TO THE LATE REV. ROBERT M. LAIRD. BY IRVING SPENCE, ESQ. OF SNOWHILL, MARYLAND. WITH A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, AND A SELECTION FROM HIS RELIGIOUS WRITINGS. PHILADELPHIA: HENRY PERKINS, 134 CHESTNUT STREET. 1838. Entered according to the act of Congress, in the year 1837, by HENRY PERKINS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. LASHMEAD AND CO., PRINTERS. 689280 PREFACE. THIS little volume contains the principal articles of a religious character, found among the papers of their lamented author. The letters on the early churches in the Peninsula, were the last labours of his hand. They were undertaken at the request of the Presbytery of Lewes. They were left unfinished; most of them in his first draught, were, since his death, collected on scattered pieces of paper. It is scarcely justice to his memory to publish them, as they are, undoubtedly, far from what they would have been, had he been spared to give them the finishing touch of his own pen. It is, however, the opinion of many competent judges, who have examined these papers, and their accompanying documents, that they embody a history of facts too important to be withheld from the Presbyterian church, from any delicacy of mere individual feeling; and, that although they may not be what they would have been, yet, that even in their present state, they are far from disreputable to their respect |