Excerpt from Tale of a Pioneer Church All history is alie, said Sir Robert Walpole; and Landor insists that no history is ever true. But so far as, under the circumstances, lay in my power I have sought, in the following pages, to give the lie to both of these lies. I prefer to believe with Kossuth that history is the revelation of Providence; and with Shenstone, A history will live, though written ever so indifferently. And why should not this be true of the following pages, since every character in them is either a hero or heroine If for no other reason, then at least on Massillon's principle: Every Christian is born great because he is born for heaven. It has been said that history is philosophy teach ing by example. If so, there is nothing local in the following pages, but rather a universal lesson for the benefit of all. 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.