Excerpt from A History of the Life and Work of the First Presbyterian Church: Of Middletown, Ohio (Dayton Presbytery), From Its Foundation in 1819 to 1919 Can you imagine now for just a few minutes that you are living one hundred years ago? In other words, can you put yourself in the position of the few men and women who came from the New Jersey Church, at Carlisle, and Dicks Creek Church, near Blue Ball, to organize the First Presbyterian Church of Middletown - our church? Can you think of our beautiful, prosperous, happy city being a little hamlet, with not over three hundred citizens, with one small school house and two struggling churches? You must know nothing of the good roads, of the railroads, or even of the canal. You will have to make your journeys on foot or on horseback. You must know nothing of the daily newspaper. Only occasionally you will see a new pamphlet or a new book. You must think differently, dress differently, work differently, be entertained differently, than is your present custom. But you have at least one thing in common with those men and women of one hundred years ago - you can love God. and worship Him, the same as did they, and so may have the same interest in His Church. The first part of our story was written fifty years ago by Rev. Joshua L.Russell, who was the pastor of our Church at that time, and was read by him at the semi-centennial of the Church in 1870. He, no doubt, had talked with some of the founders of the Church and those who had labored for its welfare for years. This History of the First Fifty Years of the First Presbyterian Church of Middletown, Ohio, as Mr. Russell entitles it, is printed here just as it appears in the manuscript from which he read except that a few paragraphs have been added so as not to cause a break in the account of the ministry of Mr. Russell who served in the Church for about two years after the semi-centennial celebration. His manuscript is still in the possession of the Church. The writing is notably neat and legible. The ink scenes to have faded little, if any, and the paper is only slightly discolored. The story as told by Mr. Russell follows. 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.