Matthew La Rue Perrine
Matthew La Rue Perrine [1]
a Presbyterian minister, was born at Freehold, N.J., May 4, 1777. He graduated from Princeton College in 1797, studied theology under Dr. John Woodhull of Freehold, and was licensed by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, September 18, 1799. On the 24th of June, 1800, he was ordained, and for four months acted as a missionary in western New York. On June 15, 1802, he was installed as pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Bottle Hill (now Madison), N.J. In 1809 he made another missionary tour, and on October 31, 1811 was installed as pastor of the Spring Street Church, New York city. Here he continued till the summer of 1820, when, by his own request, the relation was dissolved. In 1821 he was elected to the professorship of ecclesiastical history and Church polity in the Auburn Theological Seminary. He died February 11, 1836. Dr. Perrine had the reputation of being an accurate and thorough scholar. He was of a speculative and metaphysical turn. As a preacher he was always instructive and interesting. He published, Letters Concerning the Plan of Salvation (New York, 1816): — A Sermon Before a French Missionary Society in N.Y. (1817): — An Abstract of Biblical Geography (1835). See Alexander, Princeton College in the 18th Century; Genesis Cat. of Auburn Theol. Sem. 1883, page 193; Aikman, Historical Discourse (1876), page 13.
