Page:The Judicial Capacity of the General Convention Exemplified.djvu/12

10 In this report the reader will notice that Mr. Barrett is said to have "labored under a mistaken impression" in regard to the agency Mr. W. had in the matter complained of, that he had "erroneously charged Mr. Wilks with injuring his character,” and that Mr. Wilks had "satisfactorily established his innocence of the charges made by Mr. Barrett,” and that he ought, therefore, 44 to sustain no loss of the confidence of his brethren." That there had been, "on the part of the two brethren (evidently meaning on the part of Mr. Barrett especially), "a want of conformity to true order, in not seeking to be guided by the divine law in settling the difficulty" in the outset. Now, if I had really been guilty to "the extent alleged in the report of this Committee—if I had accused a brother falsely, and in my manner of doing it had broken the divine law, then surely I ought to implore the divine forgiveness for such offences, and the forgiveness of my brethren; and I should not fail to do it. But I shall not assume the province of judge in this matter. I have no desire, nor would it become me to do so. I think I can afford to leave others to judge, When they shall have weighed the evidence of Mr. Wilks' guilt, which I here offer, and an important part of which (letters marked No I. and No. V.) was furnished to that very Committee. And, if the reader should find it difficult to conceive what motive could have prompted the Convention to render a verdict in this case so unjust and perjudicial to myself, and so entirely contrary to the evidence, he may, perhaps, find a partial solution of his difficulty, if he will read a series of calm criticisms from my pen, of the doings and short-comings of the General Convention, published in the New Church Repository only a few months previous to that Convention in Boston; and if he will, in addition to this, consider that, for some time previous, I had incurred the displeasure of the President and other leading men in the Convention, by venturing to entertain and express views upon the subject of re-baptism somewhat at variance with theirs; while Mr. Wilks, only a few months before, had published a pamphlet, zealously advocating the Convention doctrine on this subject, and insisting that baptism by any other hands than those of a professedly New Church Minister, is without validity, and not to be recognized as baptism. But what influence this may have had in perverting judgment, it is not for me to say. Each one must judge for himself. And now for the facts and the evidence.

In the spring of 1848, I received and accepted a call to become the