Excerpt from The Life of Rev. William Goff Caples: Of the Missouri Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South Perhaps the friends of Brother Caples will be disappointed to find so little of narrative in the book. But I had not the facts, nor could I procure them, unless I had taken time to go and see hun dreds of people, and interest them in conversation about him until their memories might have yielded me their store of hid treasures. In response to letters, with but two or three exceptions, I got only generalities. It seemed impossible to get inci dents, to any great extent, by correspondence, and I gave it up at last in despair. I had to depend largely on my own memory, which, when I put it to the test, served me better than I expected. I found that I could recall the substance of many conversations I had had with him much more fully than I supposed. That there may be inaccuracies in the book, I can not doubt, but I have taken every pains to get the exact truth, and trust that I have generally succeeded. Of the general accuracy of it I feel fully assured. The plan of the work is somewhat peculiar. I had not the material to make a book of much size as a mere biography, and so determined to make the narrative the vehicle of other matter, which seemed to me of great importance. This matter is pertinent, and always suggested by the facts. My object has been to make this biography a means of doing good, and not simply a memorial of one so highly honored amongst us. 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.