Connecticut western news., 1876-01-28
Friday Morning, Jan. 2S, 1876
The Mutual Council.

The Mutual Council.
 The failure of the proposed mutual coun- cil upon the affairs of Plymouth church. caused by the open withdrawal ot Mrs. Moulton, will of course be misrepresented by enemies of Plymouth church; but to leave them without excuse for doing so we call attention briefly to the main features of the case.
 l. Plymouth church did not for mo- ment, no matter what churches might be called, refuse to unite in the council.
 9. No formal protest was made or sought to be made. The objections were stated informally, and were only reduced to W.T. ting at the request of Mrs. Moulton's coun- sel.
 3. The committee offered to keep the fact of their objection private if desired. The result of that would have been that no use could have been made of the fact, in or out of the council. The objection would have appealed only to the consciences of the parties immediately concerned. Of course, however, the fact of it's existence would have precluded all of them from as serting that Plymouth church had, by invi- ting the two churches into council, certified to the impartiality of their pastors and man. agers.
 4. There was no unreasonable delay in raising the objection. Upon the instant that the first local church was named by Mr. Van Cott, he was informed by the Ply mouth church committee that they did not intend to name any local churches, upon the ground that such churches were sure to be affected by local excitement and preju- dice. A majority of the committee had be- lieved that it was impossible for him to name his own church upon the council, ,and were therefore unprepared to decide at once what should be done, when he did name it. It was then deemed proper to wait until the pastors of the two churches should have had an opportunity to decline of their own accord-a policy on their part so clearly wise and just that they might well have complained of any remonstrance made in advance of their acceptance, as founded upon an assumption which did them injustice.
 5. Mir. Van Cott having raised an objec- tion upon his part to four churches named by the committee, they offered to with draw all the four provided he would with draw the two objectionable ones on his side. This .counter-protest ot MT. Van Coft'a was ovouadlx, o r,o,o,ruor o,,I-,. o,, ,1 its prompt acceptance by the Plymouth committee was not at all what it was in = tended to effect. But if MT. Van Cott stig- matizes the objection of the committee, of fered in good faith, as craft and device, what name should he give to his own pro test, which was by his own declaration, in sincere
 6. The first protest in the whole business came from Mrs. Moulton, who accepted Plymouth church as the place of meeting under protest, declaring that she did not consider It fair or generous to insist upon 1t. Yet there was no pretense that her pro- test invalidated her consent; nor was it seized upon by the committee, denounced as trick and used as pretext for break ing up the negotiation.
 The true solution of the whole matter is simply this-that the action of Dr. Scud- ders church (the CentraD exploded the whole scheme upon the part of Mrs. Moul- tons advisers. That action showed for the first time the opinion of the mass of Chris tian laymen concerning the plots and plans of certain semi-detached clericals, the 'Montagues,' the 'Vidis' and their associ- ates, who had been conspiring for years in secret and who now hoped that their time had come. It was plain that the laymen were ready to revolt against the chief priests and the scribes. The outside church. es felt thrill of sympathy with the out : spoken determination of the Central church of Brooklyn now to be used for malign and tortuous purposes.
 Plymouth church had no objection to Dr. Scudder and his church, although for their sakes rather than her own, she had forborne to name on her part any local churches whatever. But if the Central church, on receiving it's preliminary invita- ton, had asked advice from Plymouth church, the latter would probably haze an- swered most heartily, Send your delegates. , The event, however, has proved that that church was wiser than Plymouth church would have been, for with one manly blow 1t shattered the whole fabric of plot and de- vice upon which certain clerical schesaers had spent months and years of labor, and into which they were endeavoring to draw more than one conscientious pastor and un- suspecting church. CHTSstian Uni7n.
 The Influence of MO0dy'g MeetfRrs.
 It is estimated that not less than 25o. 900 different persons have attended the meet ings of Moody and Sankey in Philadelphia, though the aggregate of the attendance on the series of meetings has net bsan less than 5000 It is hardly possible that the eVangelists have failed to SOW much good seed in such fruitful field. They gre soon to open in New York, where the great hippodrome has been placed 6: their disposal If it has proved trJing to the Drpaphar-hia eroonhoa r,rork.5 ~m