Excerpt from The Second Presbyterian Church: A Centennial Historic Discourse, Prepared by Recommendation of the General Assembly, and Delivered in the Second Presbyterian Church, Peoria, Illinois, on Sunday, July 2d, 1876 The history of the Second Presbyterian Church of Peo ria, Ill., during its twenty-three anda half years of exist ence, both collectively and individually, is an attempt to answer this question. History started originally at one fountain, but has since flowed out into many separate branches through all the world. There is nothing on earth that stands absolutely unconnected with something preced ing. We are not always able to trace the connection and discover the source from whence causes have issued. Al ternately effect is cause, and cause effect. Our church starts from the First Church of Peoria. That is as far back as We need go to learn who or what we are. The First Church will'traoe their course back to their origin, and thus to-day the great Presbyterian Church of our land is busy sailingup and down the historic stream of time. When all these discourses, like so many convoying barks, are safely'anohored at their haven in the building of the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, we may imagine something like a complete history, so far as that ispossible, or the material for one, _ will have been secured for our denomination, at least during its previous years of existence upon this western continent. 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.