It is what Jesus would call one of the weightier
matters of the law, and demands, therefore, a large place
in our investigations.
* * *
The brethren here in Kansas have made no such stipulations
with me They have left me to my own discretion in
preaching the gospel to sinners, and teaching the saints
according to the Bible. They have shown themselves too
magnanimous to impose on my conscience a restriction which
their own manhood would forbid, under similar
circumstances, that they should suffer to be imposed on
themselves.
For myself, I will be no party, now or hereafter, to such
an arrangement as that contemplated in your letter now
before me. I would not make this "Reformation of the
nineteenth century" a withered and blasted trunk,
scattered by the lightnings of heaven, because it took
part with the rich and powerful against the poor and
oppressed, and because we have been recreant to those
maxims of free discussion which we have so ostentatiously
heralded to the world as our cherished principles.
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