couraged and strengthened the hearts of those who mourn over the prevalence of this sin. But the unrighteous decision it has rendered—one in such direct conflict with the facts and the evidence—so long as it remains unreversed, will stand as a monument of the judicial blindness or incapacity of the Convention;—nay, worse, a monument proclaiming its unblushing alliance with, if not connivance at, an evil which has afflicted the New Church in our country to a lamentable extent. That this exposure (which has been made most reluctantly, notwithstanding my duty was so plain) may do something to call the serious attention of my brethren to this great evil, and to arrest its further progress, is the devout wish of one who has suffered repeatedly and in silence from the foul breath of slander, and who breaks silence now by no means on his own account.
