The Doctrine of Caiaphas by Rev. David Murdoch D.D.
- by Bruce E. McKinney
none
The members of the Chemung Presbytery have now a standard to test the standing of one another by, when the “free conversation on the state of religion” comes up at their meetings. Let us suppose Brother ---- on the stand.
Presbytery. Are any of your people sighing over the desolation around you? Pastor. Not a soul is sighing with us. Pres. Are the services of the sanctuary entirely appreciated? Pastor. O, yes; I am very well liked by all my people. Pres. Are you making aggressions upon the world? Pastor. Large numbers are brought in; our reports will show scores. Pres. Are your people liberal? Pastor. Very. We are not of debt; my salary well paid, and all the causes of the church aided to satisfaction. Moderator. You may remain in your place; but let the man who cannot answer those questions in the affirmative beware, for if twenty members of his congregation ask for his removal, we shall give him the best “recommend” in our possession, and tell him to go.
On the Friday succeeding the meeting of Presbytery, I was ordered to desist from administering the sacrament on the following Sunday, our usual season. Of course I submitted. When I saw this temper, my courage gave way. Men who will tamper with that ordinance, or who are not in a fit state of mind to go to the table of the Lord, will go any length for the time. I was pressed to name a time for dissolving the pastoral relation. I left it to a committee, who made for me a conditional private contract, at which eleven men were present, and, as the paper then drawn up shows, “the Pastor and congregation were to unite in asking, at a proper time, a dissolution of the relation.”
So it stood till the month of September 1860, three months from December, when Mr. Robinson, taking upon himself to judge for me, and for all the eleven, proceeded to carry out the plan, without once asking whether the conditions upon which this private contract were made, had been kept. To my mind, it had been most flagrantly, egregiously and deliberately violated; and I was waiting for that Committee to meet and report, when I would have sustained my words, by showing that Dr. Beadle and Solomon L. Gillett put upon me, their Pastor, an insult, over the cold ashes of their late companion, before the public; thus violating the terms and the spirit of one of the articles of agreement, which required “that the leaders in the opposition against me should, while I remained, do their utmost to sustain me.”
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Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 1: Bob Dylan, his high school classmate's yearbook with his senior portrait, signed and inscribed to her, 1959. $10,000 to $20,000.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 1: Bob Dylan, his high school classmate's yearbook with his senior portrait, signed and inscribed to her, 1959. $10,000 to $20,000.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 4: Various entertainers, Group of 30 items, signed or inscribed, various dates. $1,500 to $2,500.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 27: John Adams, Autograph Letter Signed to Benjamin Rush introducing Archibald Redford, Paris, 1783. $35,000 to $50,000.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 36: Robert Gould Shaw, Autograph Letter Signed to his father from Camp Andrew, Boston, 1861. $10,000 to $15,000.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 53: Martin Luther King Jr., Time magazine cover, signed and inscribed "Best Wishes," 1957. $5,000 to $7,500.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 127: Paul Gauguin, Autograph Letter regarding payment for paintings, with woodcut letterhead, 1900. $6,000 to $9,000.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 169: Suck: First European Sex Paper, complete group of eight issues, 1969-1974. $800 to $1,200.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 173: Black Panthers, The Racist Dog Policemen Must Withdraw Immediately From Our Communities, poster, 1969. $2,000 to $3,000.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 187: Marc Attali & Jacques Delfau, Les Erotiques du Regard, first edition, Paris, 1968. $300 to $500.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 213: Andy Warhol, Warhol's Index Book, first printing, New York, 1967. $800 to $1,200.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 215: Cookie Mueller, Archive of 17 items, including 4 items inscribed and signed. $3,000 to $4,000.
Swann, Apr. 10: Lot 249: Jamie Reid, The Ten Lessons / The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle; Sex Pistols, chromogenic print with collage, signed, circa 1980. $20,000 to $30,000.