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FOREWORD

FOR many years the author has felt the need in his pastorate of a book briefly setting forth the things concerning the Methodist Church which every Methodist ought to know. He has searched through the publications of the Methodist Church, North and South, and has failed to find such a compendium. He has found many excellent books carrying parts of the information needed, but none of them covers the whole field. The doctrines and polity of the Methodist Church have been so well stated that it would be impossible to improve the statements by an attempt to vary them in such a way as to make them one's own. The author, therefore, desiring only to be helpful to the Church, has quoted freely the statements of others. The book, in fact, is more a compilation of authoritative statements of others than the work of the author. The liberal quotations are made and properly acknowledged from the Discipline, the "Methodist Armor," "The Membership Manual,' When We Join the Church,' 'Standard Catechism," "Fundamental Doctrines of Methodism," "Things Methodists Believe," and "The Law of God on Tithes and Offerings."

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The book has been prepared with a hope that it may be made a kind of textbook in the various organizations of the Methodist Church to bring our Methodist people into a knowledge of what all intelligent Methodists ought to know and thereby increase their interest in and zeal for the Methodist Church. GEORGE R. STUART.

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