Excerpt from The American Church: A Discourse in Behalf of the American Home Missionary Society, Preached in the Cities of New York and Brooklyn, May, 1852 III. And now, with these views of religion as a necessary element in every form of civilization, and with these views of the peculiarities by which our American civilization is distinguished, we may take the position that in our country, and under our social and civil organization, the strength of free and Protestant Christianity, considered as an organized religion and an organizing power, must reside in local and self-governed churches. To illustrate this, let me point out to your attention certain facts and views, which show what local churches have been in the progress of our history to the present moment, and what they are likely to be in the future. 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.