Excerpt from The Plan of Union: Or a History of the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches of the Western Reserve; With Biographical Sketches of the Early Missionaries The present can only be understood through a knowledge of the past; and only by understanding both past and present can we rightly conduct the future. Where valuable institu tions have been laboriously erected, and afterward have fallen into disrepute, and been misunderstood and reprobated, and their origin aspersed, there is no better way to learn the truth, and do justice to them, than to study well their origin and growth. To furnish facilities for such a study of the churches and ecclesiasticism of the Reserve, as well as to perpetuate the memory of good men, and of events connected with the forma tion of our social and religious life, is the object of this little book. 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.