Excerpt from A Monograph of the New Goschenhoppen and Great Swamp Reformed Charge, 1731-1881 For twenty years we have tried to unravel the tangled thread of the pastoral charge at Goschenhoppen - one of the oldest of the Reformed Church in the United States. This little monograph, so long maturing, may at least convince the reader that we have at last succeeded in spanning it over one hundred and fifty years - without a break from end to end. It is now possible to pass one's hand over the entire line, like another Ariadne, and guide oneself from 1731 to 1881. To change the figure, we have carried together the material, which enters in the make-up of this small treatise, like the ant, by very little bits - from church registers and baptismal records; from title-pages and tomb-stones; from obituaries and memoirs; from patriarchal memories, and from the well-stored fund of our sainted father. Unlike the ant, however, we did not build as we gathered, but laid up first, in order to lay out, by and by. After a large pile confronted us, we only realized the consequent task of sifting, arranging and dove-tailing it all into one. The Classis of Goschenhoppen made it obligatory on its members to prepare monographs of their several congregations, and have them stored in its archives, for the benefit of future annalists and historians. 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.