LEYBURN, John, clergyman, born in Lexington, Virginia, 25 April, 1814. He was graduated at Washington college, Lexington, and at Princeton in 1833, and studied theology at Union theological seminary, Virginia, and at Columbia, South Carolina He then organized a Presbyterian church in Gainesville, Alabama, and after remaining there two years went to Petersburg, Virginia, where he served nine years, during which time a new church was erected. He then removed to Philadelphia, being appointed secretary of the Presbyterian board of publication, changing the character of its publications and enlarging its operations. In 1847 he became half owner and chief editor of the Philadelphia. "Presbyterian." At the opening of the civil war he went to the south, and was secretary of the board of publication of the southern Presbyterian church. After the war he settled in Baltimore, where he was pastor for twenty years of an independent Presbyterian church, of which he is now (1887) pastor emeritus, he has travelled widely in Europe and in oriental lands, and has contributed accounts of his travels to the "New York Observer" and to "The Presbyterian." Hampden Sidney gave him the degree of D. D. in 1849. In addition to numerous pamphlets, editorials, and reviews, he is the author of "The Soldier of the Cross" (New York, 1851; Edinburgh, 1853). He has just completed "Hints to Young Men from the Parable of the Prodigal Son," and has now (1887) in manuscript "Lectures on the Journeyings of the Children of Israel, from the Land of Bondage to the Land of Promise," illustrated from his travels.