About ten years ago I formed the design of writing the history of the Mennonites in America. It was for many reasons a task of extreme difficulty. It required a preliminary knowledge of the German and Dutch languages. No collection of their books had ever been made in this country, nothing of value had been published concerning them except some papers in the "Pennsylvania Dutch," which were descriptive rather than historical, and the structure had to be erected from its foundation. More than all, the conviction entertained by them that fame is only one of the vanities, and the desire for it but a form of worldliness, has led them in the past to destroy, rather than to preserve, those materials which are the ordinary sources of historical information. When a book was written the name of the author did not appear; when a meeting house was built, no tablet told the date; and when a man was buried, no stone was raised to his memory. These difficulties and the exacting demands of a professional life have so far retarded, if not prevented, the completion of the design, and the results up to the present time have been a somewhat full collection of their books and manuscripts, and the first seven papers gathered into this volume.
Though a torso, I believe the work so far as it has gone to be thorough, and if it should not progress to the end, I shall at least have the satisfaction of having contributed something to the history of a people who are in every way worthy of the most careful study, and who will sooner or later attract wide attention.
The circumstances under which the other papers were written are for the most part explained in the notes accompanying them. All of those which have heretofore appeared in the magazines of the day are so described in the sub-titles, and they have all been here corrected and enlarged. Full credit has been given in the notes and elsewhere for the use made of the labors of other investigators. It ought, however, to be said, that I am much indebted to Mr. F. D. Stone for assistance and suggestions in the preparation of the article upon David Rittenhouse.
Philadelphia, April 5th, 1883.
