Norwich bulletin., 1916-01-24
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The Mt. Calvary Church Trouble.

Mir. Editor: We very much regret that the troubles existing at the Mount Calvary Baptist church have reached the point where they have been freely aired both in court and in your es- teemed paper, as well as in other papers read here in Norwich. As both members and officers of the Mount Calvary Baptist church we have been greatly embarrassed and deeply cha grined because of the existence of these troubles and by the many recent arti- cles which have appeared in public print, which place the officers and the majority of the members in an un- favorable light before the public. The articles which have appeared we be- lieve to be mainly from the same source. But one story is good until another is told.
 In one of the articles that has ap- peared it is stated that all of this dis turbance had its ground in some dis satisfaction which arose over some chicken supper held last October; to certain dislikes toward the pastor and toward one of the congregation, and because the pastor has resolutely op- posed gin-d drinking and other vices among certain members of-the congre- gation."
 Now as to any unpleasant feelings which resulted from any chicken sup per last October. we have not the slightest knowledge; and as to any feelings being stirred against the de- posed pastor for preaching against gin- drinking and other vices, as officers of Mount Calvary Baptist church we are glad to state that we believe that no gospel, no standard of ethics, can be too high for the members of said church; and we thoroughly believe, as well as the rank and file of our mem bership, in minister who without fear or favor declares "the whole counsel of God" and whose life is in full accord with the gospel he preach es. We believe with all our heart in the scriptura1 injunction, "Be we clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord" and to such a pastor for whose moral up- rightness We can vouch, in whose moral integrity we believe, and whose word, life and character we can trust, under God we pledge our heartiest and most loyal support.
 We quote from the deposed pastors statement in another paper of the 18th inst: "The trouble was precipitated," said the pastor today, "by a person founded rumor. and had the matter taken up in another church and sub sequently brought up in Mount Call vary church."
 We wish to state that the rumor to which the deposed pastor refers came to our notice from one of our own members, and as for this matter being taken up in any other church, it is a wilful and absolute faisehood, for what right has any other church to handle our affairs? These feigned reasons for the trouble existing at our church, and these fallacious statements are mere ly subterfuges behind which the de- posed pastor wishes to hide, and a trick of his to court sentiment in his favor, by throwing the blame upon others and to deceive the public. We did not begin this newspaper agitation. we did not want to enter it at all and we do so now with much reluctance, but in view of the many tifying the action of the deposed pas tor and holding up the officers and majority of the members of Mt. Cal vary church to censure and reproach, we feel that we would be false to right and recreant to wrong to put a paddock upon our lips and to main tain an eternal silence.
 In your issue of the 17th inst, the deposed pastor gives his readers a long dissertation upon church polity, and then quotes voluminously from Hiscox's Baptist Church Directory and holds us up to ignominy and reproach for being ignorant and not knowing. We have been called fools to our faces in public meeting by the deposed pas tor and have had other unlxind and un- Christian epithets heaped upon Ius by him.. We may be an exceedingly ignorant set of blockheads and may not know all of the details and tech nicalities of the civil law as does the deposed pastor, described heretofore land mind" but, with all of our ig-