law; and to render the book convenient for practice, accurate precedents are added, when it was thought necessary, at the end of each title. My object has been to make the work valuable in all parts of the Union; and though the book is more especially designed for the use of the legal profession, it is also calculated for the use of ministers and church officers, to guide them in the management of the temporalities of the churches under their care. I cannot but persuade myself that the book will be found useful to both of these classes.
I have devoted one chapter to a consise exposition of church polity and creeds, because I believed that the tenets and forms of church government of the principal religious denominations of the country, grouped together in convenient and compact form, would prove both pleasant and profitable to the several classes for which the work is designed.
It is possible, indeed probable, that the work may not be entirely free from inaccuracies and omissions, but I have endeavored to make it as perfect as practicable, from the materials at hand. I trust therefore that any imperfections which may be discovered, will be met with indulgence, since the greatest care has been taken to avoid them. In these days of legislative activity, special difficulties have to be encountered by the professional writer. The law upon the subjects treated in this volume, may be occasionally changed by local legislation, and yet the law upon these subjects is probably more stable than upon any other contained in the Revised, or Compiled Statutes of the States.