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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by
JOSEPH W. RAYNOR,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of the United States.

J. W. RAYNOR, TYP.

JOHNSON & CO., STEREOTYPERS.

COLLINS, PRINTER.

REPORT

OF A COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF CLERICAL AND LAY DEPUTIES, AT THE GENERAL CONVENTION HELD IN OCTOBER, 1859.-See pp. 131-135 of Journal.

THE Committee to whom it was referred to consider and report on the expediency and practicability of reprinting the old Journals from A.D. 1785 to A.D. 1853, made the following Report:

The Committee appointed by the House to consider the expediency and to inquire into the probable cost of reprinting the Journals of the General Convention from A.D. 1785, to A.D. 1853, inclusive, with an Index to the same, respectfully report:

The first thirty years of our legislation as an independent Church, had not passed, when, owing,-to quote the language of Bishop White,-to the "increasing difficulty of possessing sets" of these documentary annals of our Church history, the reprinting of the Journals of the General Convention from A.D. 1785, to A.D. 1814, inclusive, was imperatively required.

A few years later, and so rapidly had these documents disappeared, but one entire collection of the originals from which this reprint was made could be found, even by the venerable Presiding Bishop of the Church. At the present time, not only are the earlier editions wholly out of print, but the volume published by Bioren in Philadelphia, in accordance with the resolution of the Convention of 1814, and also many Journals of subsequent years, are rarely met with, even by the most indefatigable collector. So rare are these important documents, that it is believed by your Committee, after no little inquiry, that there are less than ten entire sets of the Journals of the General Convention in the possession of Dioceses or individuals in the land.

Efforts for the republication of these Journals, subsequent to the ap

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