McKinley, John

Mckinley, John, a minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., July 18, 1815. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, which institution he entered when not quite fourteen years old, and there he graduated with the first honor of his class in 1833. From his very childhood the ministry had been looked to as the profession of his life, and he therefore, immediately upon the commotion of his college course, entered upon the study of theology at the theological seminary of his Church, then under the care of Dr. Samuel B. Wylie. In 1835 Mr. McKinley was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Philadelphia. After filling various minor appointments, he was in 1838 called to the pastorate of the Reformed Presbyterian Church at Milton, Pa. Here he labored acceptably and successfully until 1841, when failing health compelled him to withdraw from active work. His precautions had been taken too late, for he failed rapidly, and died Oct. 5 of the same year. "All who knew him recognized in his death the extinction of one of the bright lights of the Church." His only publication is a series of articles on the Slave Trade, which appeared in a weekly periodical at Milton, Pa. "He was a man of cultivated intellect, of sound and discriminating judgment, of generous sympathies and noble impulses, and fervent piety." See Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, 9:87 sq.