It seems unfortunate that a matter of so great importance as the enterprise before us should run the risk of receiving less attention than it deserves from wanting a worthier advocate. It may not be out of place if I relate some of the circumstances that have led to my occupying the present position.

Early in 1887, in a conversation with Dr. Schaff, I learned with regret that it was not his intention to continue his admirable “History of the Christian Church” beyond the middle of the seventeenth century. His determination to close his work at this date was due, as I remember, to two considerations—advancing age and fulness of occupation, and the complexity of more recent Church history that makes it more suitable for monographic treatment than for treatment in general works. This conversation suggested to me the desirability of a uniform series of denominational histories, written, as far as possible, in the spirit of Dr. Schaff's general history, and, in a sense, forming a continuation of that work. My thought was that each monograph should be prepared by one of the best qualified Church historians of the denomination of which it should treat, and that the series should be prepared under a general editorship.