Excerpt from History of the Free Churches England, 1688-1891: From the Reformation to 1851; With a Continuation to 1891 The narrative of Mr. Skeats comes down to 1850. For the remaining five chapters I amsolely responsible. Though I cannot aspire to his literary finish and faculty of perspective, I have found some assistance in a contemporary knowledge of the events described, and in a personal acquaintance with many of the actors who cross the stage. It has been necessary, in dealing with those events, ' to adopt a somewhat different method from that of my predecessor. The marvellous expansion of Nonconformity, the abundance of the material that might be utilised, and a necessarily restricted Space, have made much compression inevitable. That there has been so little opportunity for comment on current events may be no disadvantage to the reader. If, to some people, the story may appear fragmentary, it is owing to the absolute necessity of selection. To others it may seem that too much prominence is given to the political history of Nonconformity; but, in this respect, I have simply been guided by the facts of the case. Combined agitation and action in and out of Parliament have been a. 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.