MORGAN'S HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY CONFERENCE Page 7

INTRODUCTION.

IT was fully five hundred years after the liberation of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, that one of their first men wrote: "Of making many books, there is no end." In one-twentieth of the time, the same in all verity may be said of the colored people, the Israel of America. True as this is of our whole people, it is especially true of the men of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. How grandly are they treading in the footsteps of the men of their illustrious predecessor and of their spiritual mother, the Methodist Episcopal Church. Just as they lead their sister white churches of the country, if not of the world, in the production of christian literature in general, even so do the men of the African Methodist Episcopal Church lead their sister colored churches on the same line. Nor let any be surprised at this. Why should the parallel between this mother and daughter cease here? Have we not always and in every way kept time to the music of Methodism, American or English? No one, in any way acquainted with our history, can deny so patent as well as so potent a fact. This being so, it is in no way surprising that we have taken to writing books. No year now passes by without the appearance in some quarter of our widely extended denomination, and from the pen of our own men, some pamphlet or book; and so true is it that the words of Solomon may now be fitly quoted: "Of making many books, there is in no end.

Among the latest and most valuable is this History of the New Jersey Conference. We are quite sure that it is a work of which the members of that conference should be proud, and which the members of her sister conferences should strive to emulate.

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