the Episcopal Church Defended Reviewed Author:Allen Steele Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: REVIEW. CHAPTER L A full understanding of the matters at issue necessary—the spirit in which the review is to be conducted—the, hostile position assumed by... more » Mr. Bolles—defense of religious controversies—necessity of this review—plan of the review. The work announced some time since as forthcoming from the pen of Mr. Bolles, or rather, as being made up of a series of letters, being a oorrespoiidence between Mr. Bolles and myself, necessity calls upon me to redeem my promise made, to review it. In entering upon this duty it is manifest, that a fair and full understanding of all matters at issue can only be obtained by going over the whole premises, and I shall, therefore, at the outset, have to claim the indulgence of the reader while I ask his attention to the preliminary observations which I shall make relating to local matters involved. I enter upon my task, I trust, with proper feelings and under a just sense of the duties I owe to community. I disclaim any intention to produce unfriendly views and emotions, and have no desire to provoke a spirit of contention or rivalry between Methodist and Protestant Episcopalians. I come before the public, divested, as far as it is possible for one to divest himself, of all prejudices; and in the spirit of liberality and good will, shall endeavor to speak reasonably of all differences of opinion which exist between my own and other denominations; desiring on all occasions to cherish and promote the most extended grounds of Christian liberality, and freely cultivating in my social intercourse and in my pulpit efforts, an enlarged spirit of toleration. I shall endeavor, therefore, to keep in " the bonds of peace;" sedulously avoiding an undue dwelling upon those points on which differences of opinion rest, and seek to notice those m...« less