Excerpt from The Church and Its Polity In the meantime, the Rev. William Durant, of Albany, N. Y., an intelligent and enthusiastic pupil of my father, was struck with the vast amount of valuable discussion of Church principles and their practical applications, contained in these articles. He believed that if selections from these discussions were judiciously made and systemati cally grouped, a work of great value might be offered to the ministry, and to those intelligent laymen who are interested in the administration of ecclesiastical affairs. He consequently accomplished this work with the cordial approval of my father. After its completion, at the request of Mr. Durant, I subjected his work to a general review, and have now entire confidence in thus publicly testifying to my conviction that in the selection and arrangement of extracts, the reader of this work will have a fair, and, as far as the circumstances admit, an adequate exposition of my father's views, expressed in his own language, on all the subjects set forth in the table of contents. This table of contents itself discloses the wide range and the thorough analysis embraced in these discussions; and hence the very considerable contribution made in this volume to the elucidation of the subject set forth on its title page. 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.