Book Description

Excerpt from A Digest of the Acts and Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church: In the United States, From Its Organization to the Assembly of 1887, Inclusive, With Certain Historical and Explanatory Notes The compiler was led to undertake the preparation of a Digest of the General Assembly's acts and proceedings by the conviction that a need for such a work is now sensibly felt. Our Church has occupied sufficiently long a place in the sisterhood of churches, and has arrived at that point in the formulation of her principles, and the general plan on which she conducts her agencies has attained that stage of maturity and definiteness, that a compilation of her documentary history, in a systematic and convenient form, may with propriety be presented to the public. The deliverances of her highest court are sufficiently varied, and on subjects of such importance, as to make it desirable that for purposes of reference they be gathered into a single collection. Particularly is the need of such a collection felt by the younger generation of ministers and office-bearers in the Church, who are without access to the minutes of our earlier years, and so without means of acquainting themselves with the earlier acts and deliverances of our highest court. I found it to be a matter of no little difficulty to settle on a suitable outline or scheme of classification for the matter which I find in the voluminous minutes of more than a quarter of a century; also to arrive at some general principle of inclusion and exclusion. What one might think to be of little importance, scarcely worthy of being embodied in this work, another might regard as of considerable value, and look upon its omission as a serious blemish. Since the judgment of no two, perhaps, would coincide as to the extent to which such a work should be abridged, I resolved to make the compilation exhaustive, with full and copious references to the minutes, giving the year and page where each citation is to be found. It may be found prudent in subsequent editions to abridge this work somewhat in its least important parts. I have, however, presumed to make this draft complete, and that the voice of the Church should decide what abridgment, if any, is desirable. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.