Excerpt from The Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years, as Seen in Its Literature: With Special Reference to Certain Recondite, Neglected, or Disputed Passages

It was a part of my desire - especially in the case of those older publications now grown rare - to direct the inquirer to the book itself, as well as to its title; and I have not spared effort to do this with accu racy. Down to A. D. 1700, all proof-sheets went to the British Museum and the Bodleian, to have their press-marks inserted; a convenience which I am sure will be appreciated by those who know by experience how long one - especially if on the track of an anonymous volume may wander through huge folio catalogues without. Finding the trail. Down to within one hundred years also, this list has been carefully com pared with the Yale and Harvard shelves.

It should be observed, however, that while - accidents excepted the presence of any given book in the libraries named as having it, may be relied on, it is never certain that it may not also be found in collee tions to which it has failed to be credited. This, because new titles have often been inserted in the last proofs, when it was too late to send to England, or elsewhere, to ascertain whether they were in possession there or not. Nor in nearing our own time has it been felt to be so important to indicate the locality of volumes presumably common.

I have been especially indebted in that department of the subject to which it is devoted, to Dr. Ezra Abbot's Literature of t/ze Doctrine ofa Future Life, published as an appendix to Rev. W. R. Alger's Critical History of Me Doctrine of a Future Life, an indebtedness which is gratefully acknowledged.

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