uld be applied to all members of the Church, whether
in full communion or not. Nor have I other than supposed that all
persons recognized as a part of the Church, would, as far as
circumstances can permit, be registered as classes, and called upon
regularly by a leader or steward for their contributions in support of
the ministry and other institutions of the Church, the same as persons
meeting weekly in a class. What I have said applies wholly and
exclusively to the Church relation and rights of the baptized children
of our people, and to the rights of persons otherwise admitted into the
Church, who, I believe, ought not to be excluded from it except for what
would exclude them from the kingdom of grace and glory.

Anything appertaining to myself personally is unworthy of mention in
such a connexion. I banish from my mind and heart the recollection and
feeling of anything I consider to have been uncalled for and unjust
towards myself on the part of others. Though I have resigned the
ecclesiastical or outward authority to exercise the functions of the
Christian ministry, I have never regarded myself as a secular man; I
have felt, and do feel, and especially with improved health, the inward,
and, I trust, divine conviction of duty to preach, as occasion may
offer and strength permit, the unsearchable riches of Christ to dying
men. And if after the past publication and foregoing statement of my
convictions on the point of Church Discipline and its administration, as
affecting baptized children and other scripturally blameless members of
the Church, and my purpose to maintain them on such occasions, and in
such manner as are sanctioned by the Discipline, the Conference thinks
it proper and desirable that I should resume my former relations to it
and to the Church, I am willing to cancel my resignation, and to labour,
as heretofore, to preach the doctrines and promote the agencies of the
Church which I have sought by every earthly means in my power, though
with conscious unfaithfulness before God, to advance during the last
thirty years, and which are, I believe, according to the Scriptures, and
calculated to promote the present and everlasting well-being of man.

The reading of this letter at the London Conference of 1855 led to a
great deal of discussion and various explanations, which unfortunately
afterwards resulted in much misunderstanding and recrimination. The
Conference, however, with a unanimity and heartiness whi