Page:The Judicial Capacity of the General Convention Exemplified.djvu/33

 Rh (No. XII.)

, July 6th, 1855.


 * —I have received yours of the 3d inst., but am sorry to say it does not answer my question so explicitly as I could wish. I consider the duty of telling an offending brother’s fault to the Church, after he has refused to hear me, when told of it privately, and then in company with one or two witnesses, to be just as obligatory on me—because enjoined by the same high authority—as the first two steps, which, in the present case, have already been taken. In respect to the duty itself, therefore, my mind is clear enough. On that point I need no advice. But in regard to the proper or best mode of doing it, I am not quite so clear. I should like, therefore, to have you answer me these questions, explicitly, if you have no objections:—1st. Do you think that handing the documents I sent you, to a committee of three, is telling my brother's offence to the Church? 2nd. If not, will you be so kind as to tell me in what way you think I should proceed to tell it to the Church? Of course I shall not do anything until I get the report of the Committee, and I have written to the Secretary to obtain a copy of that part of the Convention’s proceedings. But you must have formed a strange opinion of my character, if you imagine that any "expressions" of the Committee, however "considerate and tender," can satisfy me, so long as their act or decision is unjust, and tending to screen the guilty and condemn the guiltless. Sugar-plums may pacify a restless child, but a court who should seriously offer them to an injured man as a means of reconciling him to its iniquitous decision, would thereby add insult to injury. No, I want no sugared words in a matter of this sort; but justice—simple justice, is all I ask. And in the present instance, it is not I who demand this, but the cause of truth, and of injured innocence.

From what Mr. Hayden tells me, I presume I was misinformed in regard to the names of the Committee referred to. I had been told that Mr. Scammon and Mr. John L. Jewett were two of them.

In speaking of the difficulty you found in appointing the Committee, you say: "For over and over again, when I thought of any one as a particularly suitable person, it occurred to me that you had had some difficulty with him, and so was obliged to look out for another.” Then, I can only say—and I beg you not to think that it is said in any unkindness—that you must have a strange and very untruthful class of spirits around you, which I earnestly hope you may be able soon to get rid of. For I declare to you, that, out of the large number who were at the Convention, I cannot think of more than three or four individuals in all, with whom I have ever had the least difficulty; and of these, Mr. Wilks is one, Mr. Stewart of Urbana, is another, and Mr. John Allen is another I have reasons for believing that Mr. Scammon has long felt towards me in away that ought to disqualify him for serving on such aCommittee; and perhaps I  might say the same of one or two members of your own Society.

You express a hope that I may become "reconciled" to the General Convention. Do you then regard every one who criticises fairly the acts of that body—who frankly points out its defects, its short-comings, and its mis-doings,