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6 And it has been: a grievous mistake, which has produced an under-current of hostile feeling throughout the business, to suppose, as has been done, that we did not appreciate the character of the President of the Jews' Society, and his devotedness to every good work; on the contrary, we firmly believed, and said among ourselves, when acquiescing in the unfair selection of the gentlemen by whom we were to be met, that we cared little who they might be, if we had the presence of Lord Shaftesbury at our deliberations; we were satisfied that justice would be done to our statement; we asked for his assistance.
In conclusion of these remarks, which are not written without much pain, amidst very great pressure from an ordination immediately at hand, and which I shall examine again so far and correct (before I give them in) as to endeavour to remove the possibility of their improperly creating pain to the mind of any whom they concern, I will only add: May the God of Israel bring good out of the infirmities and errors and mistakes which may have been manifested in the conduct of this business on either side of the members of the Conference; and may He guide and bless the London Jews' Society, leading them to maintain His truth and nothing else in His own way; and may He answer this prayer, and hasten the time when Israel shall be converted and saved.
June 23, 1866.
Letter from the Rev. Joseph B. M'Caul to the Bishop of Rochester, in reply to the Earl of Shaftesbury's Speech, read at the Meeting of Conference, June 23, 1866.
My Dear Lord,
The Earl of Shaftesbury, in the course of our second Conference on the claims of the Rosenthal family, endeavoured to invalidate the specific evidence adduced orally and in writing to us, from three of the late Dr. Macgowan's medical colleagues, and others to the effect that they had seen Dr. Macgowan in a condition of intoxication, by stating that my father, the late Dr. M'Caul, had been in the habit of friendly and confidential intercourse with him up to the period of his last illness, but had not alluded to so painful a fact. I replied that Dr. M'Caul was not acquainted with some of Dr. Macgowan's grosser failings until a few months before his death. It has since transpired, in the course of your Lordship's correspondence with the Earl of Shaftesbury, that since the year 1858 my father had rarely, if ever, spoken to the noble Earl upon the affairs of the Jews' Society.
In that year, it appears from the report of the Earl of Shaftesbury's speech of Saturday, 16th June, that my father fruitlessly endeavoured to lay before the noble Earl the unhappy part which Bishop Gobat took in the imprisonment of Mr. Rosenthal by Consul Rosen, and also the unjust and uncandid conduct of certain of the Executive of the Jews' Society. I have no hesitation in stating that —————[1], Mr. Strachan, Captain Layard, Mr. Goodhart, and the Rev. James Cohen were those whom my father regarded as the chief obstacles in the way of obtaining an impartial inquiry into the miserable condition of affairs. These members of the
- ↑ Now deceased, therefore not named.
