41
Dr. M'Caul's tenderest message to Lord Shaftesbury, consistent with extreme sensitiveness and deep distress, when he was contemplating the condition in which he was about in a few weeks or days, to leave “the seed of Abraham,” “the friend of God " And while the M'Caul family know and freely acknowledge his respect and gratitude and affection for Lord Shaftesbury, they also knew, that when the time of his departure was at hand, he was true as ever to the sound principles of Jewish missionary enterprise—
1. Of which he had spoken to his most intimate friends again and again, and to myself among them;
2. Which he had maintained openly, at the Committee Meetings, in discussion with those whom he considered to be in fault on this account;
3. Which he had maintained in the newspapers by letters now collected and printed as a pamphlet; and
4. Which he advocated once more and for the last time of his life, when he called on Lord Shaftesbury respecting Bishop Gobat's part in the affair.
I will only add—that the charge made against me, p. 36, that “I drag before the public a thing so solemn, and without inquiry,” as the final testimony of Dr. M'Caul on his death-bed, is just worth as much as the charge that I am untrue to my office as a Bishop, because I dare to stand up for the poor and afflicted, and for the truth and principles in respect to Israel, which I learnt to value from my friend Dr. M'Caul. I did not drag any one of them before the public, but I stated them in a letter to Lord Shaftesbury, to be laid, as I had a right to presume, before a private and confidential Meeting;–a Meeting about which, when I objected to the presence of a solicitor as a member of Conference on Lord Shaftesbury's side, I had his Lordship's deliberate assurance that that gentleman was not there professionally, but in a private capacity, and that everything which passed would be regarded as strictly confidential. The same assurance was renewed afterwards at the second Conference, when I inquired as to what might become of the testimony which our witnesses might give.
It is not in any spirit of rebuke, but in hearty desire that past errors may tend to guide us aright through what remains to be done, that I close this statement by giving my view of what has mainly tended to divest our proceedings of the calm, friendly, and confidential character in which I and my colleagues desired that everything should have been carried on.
1. I think it a mistake that the colleagues of Lord Shaftesbury in Conference should have been those only who were members of the Jerusalem section, officers of the Society, and a legal gentleman, appointed to meet me and my friends—one or two officers might have been fairly introduced, but some independent persons might have been introduced also.
2. A great mistake has been committed by the Secretaries in the with holding of extracts of correspondence and papers to which we were entitled by the terms of our first arrangement.
3. The notion that strong and overbearing expressions could in the least advance the business or move the minds of my colleagues towards the opinions of those by whom such language was used, was a great mistake.
4. Much error and precipitancy were shown in the conclusions formed as to our purpose or desire to damage the name and memory of Dr. Macgowan, which we had especially endeavoured to avoid doing.
5. As again there was mistake in the distrust manifested with regard to our desire of promoting the welfare of the Jews' Society, and labouring for its good, provided only we could see its affairs administered on those principles to which it owed its success in its most palmy days.
