Excerpt from History of the Congregations of the United Presbyterian Church, Vol. 1 of 2: From 1733 to 1900 The aim throughout has been to keep by authoritative documents and let facts speak for themselves. Condensation has been demanded at every step to the exclusion of, perhaps, half the material, and any inclination to enlarge on the merits of the dead or the gifts of the living has been checked by the summons to move on. Little, therefore, is to be looked for in the way of direct laudation. We thus steer clear of the untrustworthiness which John Foster ascribed to monumental tributes, though in these, owing to their brevity, there is seldom much to complain of. But of an inscription on a marble tablet newly put up to the memory of a worthy minister many years dead he wrote as follows The greater number of the lines and epithets were appropriate, but there was one which I knew to be totally false - false not only in the sense that it was not the truth but that a contrary expression would have been the truth. With regard to brief biographical notices of departed ministers, relatives are often unreasonably exacting, as I have had occasion to learn before now. In drawing up this history I have had facilities which were not within reach forty years ago. Since then, to use the words of the committee eu trusted with the business, 150 volumes of Synodical and Presbyterial Minutes, forming a valuable history of the denomination in its several branches, have been collected within the Church premises and made accessible. The first class referred to are almost entire, and though the second have many blanks they constitute a wonderful assortment when we consider the little care that was bestowed on their preservation. Besides, within the period mentioned carefully drawn up narratives of individual congregations have been published to an extent never known before, to say nothing of books on a larger scale, such as Mr Finlay's History of Buchan Presbytery. 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.