Excerpt from The Old Trappe Church: A Memorial of the Sesqui-Centennial Services of Augustus Evangelical Lutheran Church, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania The thought of preparing this memorial volume of the Sesqui-Centennial of the Old Trappe Church was the outgrowth of the celebration itself. It has been prepared with a view to perpetuate the lessons which the services unfolded; to secure to the congregation the wholesome stimulus which a study of its historic past may be well calculated to yield; but with the hope also of redeeming what is worthy of a wider interest from being merely congregational. Although the Old Trappe Church is objectively the property of a specific congregation, it is in no indefinite sense the heritage of the Lutheran Church; because that of which it is the monumental exponent cannot be confined to a merely local interest. It witnesses not merely to the founding of a separate congregation, but in a large sense to the planting of the Lutheran Church in America; it witnesses not only to the heroic labors of a certain pastor, but to the consecration and self-sacrifice of the Patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America. The Sesqui-Centennial of this venerable temple, therefore, while relating immediately to a circumscribed sphere, can be justly interpreted as memorial not simply of a Lutheran Church, but of the Lutheran Church. In preparing this concise history I have met with two embarassments - fecundity and barrenness. The superabundant material covering the earliest period is only rendered embarassing for a well-proportioned history by the barrenness of records touching some later periods. Muhlenberg's beautifully conducted records should have served as an excellent model for all succeeding scribes, but it is to be deeply regretted that the pattern thus shown to them in the Mount was not in every instance rigidly adhered to. The early history of the Old Trappe Church has been repeatedly sketched in secular and church periodicals, and notably in Dr. J. W. Richard's "Fruitful Retrospect," and in Dr. Mann's notes to the new edition of the Hallische Nachrichten, but aside from these outlines the history of the congregation has never been written. 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.