St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-03-12
DR.. NEWMAN'S CHURCH.
A Lively Sparring Among the Divines
Sitting in Sacred Council.


New YORK, March 11.-Twenty-one
churches of the eastern states have sent del
egates to the congressional council called by
Deacon Ranney, of the Madison Avenue
church. They will examine the question,
whether the Rev. DR.. Newman shall remain
the pastor of that church. Rev. II. NJ. Dex-
tor is moderator. A discussion Immediately
began, whether counsel could be legally
called. James D. Foster offered a formal
protest against calling council, which aid
was illegal and void. This was signed by all
the trustees, except one, and by General
Grant and others. The moderator refused to
receive the protest, unless its signers were
shown to be members of the church. The
moderator said, the question was whethe.
the meeting which called this council was
regular and had that power. The church
manual must decide that. Recess.
In the afternoon the council resolved,
while they regretted irregularities in calling
the council, yet they considered themselves
council called by the Madison Avenue Con-
gregational church. The first proposition is,
'sWhat is DR.. Newman's Situation to the
Church?n
Counsellor Abbott distributed a presenta-
ton of the facts on behalf of the church to
the council, and made an address, reviewing
the history of the church representation
He stated that in several interviews with DR..
Newman, he gave the committee
on call assurances that he would
| accept the permanent pastorate
and would not disturb the present church
organization, but would administer its af-
fairs Loyalty as a Congregational church,
according to the usage of the denomination.
A clause in the printed manual read, ''the
pastor shall be elected by majority of the
vote of the members of the church and of
the pew holders, and the same shall fix the
amount of salary"
DR.. Ranney gave it as his belief, that the
clause was not in the original manual.
Rev. Mr.. Hepworth said, that was mutu-
al charge of forgery and should be investigat-
ed. Abbott replied, his side meant to imply
no such charge. Abbott then
asked to see the yellow rough
paper that Foster had shown during the
morning as containing the minutes of the
meeting held in June, 1883. 1t was handed
him, and he insinuated that no such meeting
had ever been held. Hepworth again
arose and said: s'This was the second time
dishonest motives had been imputed to DR..
Newman, and he would ask, for the sake of
Tile Chrlstlan reIiglon, tnaG sucn lmpuCaIlOns
be omitted. Abbott responded that Hep
worth was the only one who said anything
about unfair motives. The Rev. E. Rankin,
of Washington, moved to ask the Newman
party to throw any light they could upon the
statements of Abbott. This was carried,
and Deacon Foster said, among other things,
the committee had heard the entire
manual read before they adopted
it, and it was printed. Deacon
Cummings said ninety of the one hundred and
eighteen members attended the meeting in
the Howard rooms, and none voted who were
not members. DR.. Ranney said he had four
interviews with DR.. Newman on the subject
of his installation and was always put off,
and Deacon Cummings had two interviews.