Excerpt from The Church and the Faith

IT is believed that a very definite aim, as the purpose of the present publication, will manifest itself to every attentive reader who has the patience to peruse it to the end. It may not be superfluous, however, to state that the author was conscious of a twofold design, while laboring at his manuscript. Having often wished, in vain, for some single book which should present in a small compass, for the benefit of such as he has been pre paring for confirmation, the exact nature of some of the main reasons which, in his judgment, should actuate every one who seeks to become a member of the church at whose altars he unworthily ministers, he intends to employ the. Present volume for the instruction of his own candidates; and offers it to the public in the hope that it may prove useful to others in a similar way. He also begs leave to say that he is thoroughly persuaded that the work contains an argument which is as important as it is uncommon; that, for himself, he holds to the correctness of the position assumed, and expects to die in that belief, as he has always lived in it since he became old enough to form an intelligent judgment in the premises; and that he has made an attempt to set forth his views, knowing them to be unpop ular, because he has felt constrained to take that step by that strange necessity of strenuously advocating his peculiar ideas which lies so heavily upon most men of decided convictions, in whose ranks the author would shrink from claiming for him self a place, did not the exigencies of his period seem to exact such a sacrifice from his dififidence.

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