PREACHERS ECCLESIASTICALLY BEHEADED regular hours for service. Mr. Stiles preached generally on a week-day evening, when it did not interfere with any preacheranywhere. Will the Methodist editors explain why it was wrong for the Episcopal Church to censure Mr. Tyng-and right for the Methodist Episcopal Church to expel Mr. Stiles from the ministry and the Church, for the same act-when all the points of difference were in favor of Mr. Stiles?*
The Rev. Charles D. Burlingham was another who was required to answer before this session of the Genesee Conference to a charge of under which were three specifications, intended to sustain the charge. The charges were preferred by the Rev. D. F. Parsons. Mr. Burlingham prepared a paper and presented the same to the Conference as his defense against his accusers. It was "A Statement by C. D. Burlingham to the Genesee Conference, responding to a charge and specifications, preferred against him by Rev. D. F. Parsons." The following extracts from it are submitted as giving the best available light on the case: BROCKPORT, October 15, 1859. Charge, "Contumacy." 1st specification: "In receiving an expelled member of the Genesee Conference, into the Church on trial without confession or satisfactory reformation." I received Benjamin T. Roberts on trial, in Pekin, November 7, 1858, in a general society meeting, pursuant to a unanimous vote, without his confessing the alleged crime, for which he had been expelled. My reasons for so doing are : 1. I believe that there are exceptional cases, in the application of the rule of Discipline referred to, because if the strict letter of the rule must always control in the cases of applicants for admission on trial, then it follows that an innocent person, who has been wrongfully expelled, can never be re-admitted into the Church. I understand Bishop Baker to confirm this view : (See Guide Book, page 159, paragraph 9). "When a member or preacher has been expelled, according to our form of Discipline, he can not •"Why Another Sect?" pp. 222-225.
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