Synopsis "The History Of The Freewill Baptists For Half A Century: From 1780 to 1830"
History is replete with instruction, and suggestive of duty. It takes the experience of others and offers it to ourselves, admonishing us to shun their faults and copy their virtues. It may be said to extend our days, as well as our experience, by carrying us back into the past, where we seem to live with the men of other years, to participate in their labors, sympathize with their feelings, and share in their weal or woe. No person can read a faithful history without advantage, if he desire it. A history of the Freewill Baptists has long been in contemplation. .Rev. John Buzzell published a brief account of their rise and progress for thirty years, in his Religious Magazine in 1811 and 1812. In 1828, at the request of two Yearly Meetings, the General Conference made arrangements for a history of the denomination, and appointed an editor; but nothing more was done. In 1839, Rev. Hosea Quinby commenced a series of historical articles in the Quarterly Magazine, but that work was soon suspended. In 1853, the Printing Establishment appointed a committee to collect materials for a history, and after five years' effort, the collection, consisting of books, records, papers, and reports from ministers, churches. Quarterly and Yearly Meetings, was placed in the hands of Rev. I. D. Stewart, to prepare the work for publication.
