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RELIGION IN AMERICA;

OR, AN ACCOUNT OF

THE ORIGIN, PROGRESS, RELATION TO THE STATE, AND PRESENT CONDITION OF THE
EVANGELICAL CHURCHES IN THE UNITED STATES.

WITH NOTICES OF THE UNEVANGELICAL DENOMINATIONS

BY

ROBERT BAIRD,

AUTHOR OF

"L'UNION DE L'EGLISE AVEC L'ETAT DANS LA NOUVELLE ANGLETERRE.”

NEW-YORK:

PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS,

No. 82 CLIFF-STREET.

1844.

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RECOMMENDATORY NOTICE

BY THE

REV. DRS. DAVID WELSH, WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, AND ROBERT

BUCHANAN.

HAVING had an opportunity of perusing a considerable portion of the following work while it was passing through the press, we have no hesitation in complying with a request made to us by the publishers, to recommend it to the attention of the British public. The author is an esteemed minister of the American Presbyterian Church, and has had full access to the best and most authentic sources of information on the various subjects which he discusses, while his personal acquaintance with the state of religion and the condition of the churches, both in Britain and on the Continent, has afforded him peculiar advantages in selecting the materials with regard to the state of religion, and the efforts made for its promotion in America, which it might be most interesting and useful for the British churches to possess and to examine. The work contains a very large amount of interesting and valuable information with regard to the origin and the history of the different religious bodies in the United States, and their doctrines, constitution, organization, and agency, their relations with each other, and the character and results of the efforts they are making to promote religion in their own country and in other lands. It supplies a larger amount of information upon all these important topics than any work with which we are acquainted; and there can be no reasonable doubt that the information it contains is well fitted to encourage the efforts of all churches which are similarly situated to those in America, and to afford some important practical lessons in the prosecution of those great objects which all Christian churches, in every variety of external circumstances, are bound to aim at. We do not agree in all the opinions which the esteemed author has expressed, but we admire the judicious, benevolent, candid, and catholic spirit by which the work is pervaded. We regard the publication of this work in our own country as a boon conferred upon the British churches, not merely because it gives a fuller view than could anywhere else be obtained of "Religion in America," but also because it is well fitted to promote a spirit of love and kindness among the churches of Christ, and to diffuse more widely the benefits which may be derived from a judicious use of the experience of the American churches, in the peculiar circumstances in which, in providence, they have been placed, and in connexion with the peculiar way in which the Head of the Church has been pleased to make them instrumental in accomplishing his gracious purposes. Whatever diversities of opinion may prevail in this country on some important points connected with the condition and prospects of religion in America, no candid man will deny that religion has there been placed in circumstances, and has appeared in aspects, which are well worthy of serious consideration, and from a judicious investigation of which, important practical lessons are to be learned. And on this ground we hail with much satisfaction the publication of a work which contains a very large amount of information upon this interesting and important subject, and cordially recommend it to the perusal of British Christians.

DAVID WELSH,
WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM,
ROBERT BUCHANAN.

Edinburgh, September, 1843.

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