Page:The Judicial Capacity of the General Convention Exemplified.djvu/44

42 or oppress him, to avail himself of all proper and legitimate methods of self defence. Let the candid reader, in view of the facts and evidence here presented, judge whether this affair be most disgraceful to Mr. Barrett, or to Mr. Wilks and the General Convention. When I consider the frailties of our common humanity, and how liable we all are to act rashly at times, especially when anything occurs which deeply excites our feelings, I am rather surprised that I have been enabled, throughout this trying affair, to act as wisely and considerately as I have. I really do not see wherein I have offended against any law of Christian charity, or failed to do my whole duty in this case. If others see, I trust they will kindly point it out to me.

It is said to be making a great fuss about a very little matter—a little bit of cloth. And is it possible that any New Churchman can look at the cloth, and overlook the momentous question of moral delinquency here involved? This ought to show us how exceedingly low and grovelling our minds are. Suppose a man should steal from you a pair of old shoes; and afterwards, to escape detection, should return and plunge a dagger to your heart and set fire to your dwelling. The whole neighborhood would be boiling over with excitement and rage. And what man in his senses, would think of saying that all this uproar was about a bit of old leather? The leather in the case would not be thought of even by the veriest dolt; so immeasurably would the crime of murder and arson outweigh all other considerations. And so in the case before us. What man of any moral perceptions, in view of the enormity of the offence complained of, could talk or think about cloth?

There have been other calumnies as gross and cruel as this circulated in the New Church—some of them in ways past finding out. It is seldom known how they get into being, or who sets them on foot. Still the envenomed shafts are kept flying. I think it becomes all those who are really praying for the peace of Jerusalem, to unite their voices in one loud chorus of reprobation of these things. While so great and crying an evil as this is tolerated, winked at, excused, or covered up, by respectable men, and the offenders even rewarded by the largest organized body of the Church by being placed in office and kept in office, multitudes will look upon it as quite a venial offence, or, indeed, as no offence at all; and this dreadful canker will remain, and increase in virulence. It is not those who seek to expose this iniquity to the public gaze, but those who seek to palliate or hide it, that merit the reprobation of honest men. It was the duty of the General Convention to have rendered such a verdict in the case presented, as should have