Excerpt from A Popular History of the Free Churches In sending this book forth, I am glad to think that it may be of some service in the great struggles that await Free Churchmen. The story I have had to tell is full of inspiration and encouragement. It is the story of an unconquerable spirit dedicated to the service of an indestructible ideal. While the men and women of the Free Churches are bracing themselves to renew the fight for unsectarian education and religious equality it may be well that they refresh their memories of those illustrious forbears who helped to make England great. Readers of these pages will see that while Puritanism has assumed various forms, it has always stood for a spiritual interpretation of Christianity and the Christian Church. This spiritual interpretation, as Milton said, "it hath befallen us to assert, with God's assistance, ... against regal tyranny over the State, and State tyranny over the Church." 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.

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