Mr. Roberts finally chose his personal friend, the Rev. L. Stiles, Jr., to assist him in his defense, and so the trial proceeded. No effort whatever was made by the prosecution to prove that the contents of the Estes pamphlet were slanderous, or that they were in any degree untruthful. This was an undertaking for which they had not the courage. They chose rather to take this point, so vital to the case, for granted. “So at the outset it was assumed that the pamphlet, the avowed author of which was still an official member of the M. E. Church, was so wicked in its character, that to aid in its circulation was a mortal offense.”

     For an offense of so grave a character as that named in the bill of charges one would naturally suppose that a Conference of ministers, in proceeding to try a brother minister, would have such an abundance of reliable evidence as to carry conviction to honest minds generally. Was such the case? Let us see.

     The only testimony furnished by the prosecution to sustain the general charge and the three principal specifications, was that given by the Rev. John Bowman—and his testimony was impeached! It was particularly in the essential point of assisting in the publication of the Estes pamphlet, a matter which was stoutly contradicted by Mr. Estes, that Mr. Bowman gave the following testimony:
 

     I have seen this document entitled, “New School Methodism,” and “To whom it may concern,” signed “George W. Estes,” before. I first saw it on the cars between Medina and Lockport. Brother Roberts presented it to me; several were presented In a package; there were, I think, three dozen. Brother Roberts desired me to leave a portion of them at Medina, conditionally. He requested me to circulate them; he desired me to leave a portion of them with Brother Codd, or Brother Williams of Medina, provided I fell in company with them. I put a question to him whether they were to be distributed gratuitously or sold. He said he would like to get enough to defray the expense of printing, but circulate them anyhow; he desired me not to make it known that he had any agency in the matter of circulating the document, if I could consistently keep it to myself. I do not know where Brother Roberts got on the cars. My impression is, we were traveling east. I do not know as anything more was said about the payment of printing them; my recollection is not very distinct; be mentioned he had been at some considerable expense.”

     The prosecution had hoped to put another witness on the stand, namely, the printer of the Estes pamphlet. They had imported him to the seat of the Conference, from thirty-five miles across the country, on the supposition that he would give testimony damaging to the case of the defendant. But when they found that he would tell the truth if put on the witness stand, they had no further use for him. And yet the Rev. F. W. Conable, in his “History of the Genesee Conference,” has the effrontery to say: “The printer refused to testify as to the authorship, and we have no law to oblige attendance at an Ecclesiastical Court.” [1]

     In a brief review of Mr. Conable’s book, [2] in “Why Another Sect ?“ Mr. Roberts says:
 

     “Mr. Conable, and all his indorsers who were at the Perry Conference, know that this is not true. The most unscrupulous, unless rendered desperate, seldom venture upon a falsehood so glaring. The printer of the Estes pamphlet was present at the trial! One of the preachers opposed to me took him there and back, about seventy miles across the country, in a carriage. They did not call upon him to testify.”

     Mr. H. N. Beach, editor of the Brockport Republican, was the printer of the pamphlet; and in a personal note to Mr. Roberts, he said:
 

     The Rev. E. M. Buck got me to Perry in the case, at the time of the Conference; but I was not called to testify, because, I suppose, my evidence was not what was wanted.

     It will be seen from the foregoing that Mr. Conable thus became responsible for the publication of two unmitigated falsehoods—first, in saying the printer of the pamphlet did not attend Court, and second, in saying that the printer refused to testify. Moreover, these statements were voted into the archives of the Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church by men who were fully apprised of their utter falsity! “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness !“

     In his defense Mr. Roberts proved, from George W. Estes, that he had nothing whatever to do with the publication of the pamphlet. On the direct examination Mr. Estes gave the following testimony:
 

     Brother Roberts had nothing to do with publishing, or assisting In publishing the document under consideration, to my knowledge, and I presume to know. He had nothing to do with the writing of the part that bears my name; I do not know that he had any knowledge that its publication was intended; he never gave his consent that the part entitled, “New School Methodism” should be republished by me, or any one else, to my knowledge; he was never responsible for the publication, either in whole or In part; he never contributed anything to the payment of its publication, to my knowledge; I intended that so far as sold, it should go to defray the expenses of publication; I never sold him any.

     On cross-examination he said:

     “I never forwarded, or caused to be forwarded, any of them to Brother Roberts; I never gave him any personally; I do not know of any one giving or forwarding him any. I never gave orders to any one to forward Brother Roberts any, to my knowledge.”

     In regard to the alleged circulation of the pamphlet Mr. Roberts offered the following testimony:

     Rev. Russell Wilcox called:

     “I am a local Deacon of the M. E. Church in Pekin. I am intimately acquainted with Brother Roberts, the pastor of the Church In Pekin. I do not know that he has ever circulated this pamphlet anywhere; I first saw it after I left home, on my way to this Conference.”

     Rev. J. P. Kent called:

     “I did ask the defendant for one of these pamphlets; I wished to see one of them, and I asked Brother Roberts If he could let me have one; he said he did not circulate them, but he had no objection to my seeing the one he had. This was a few weeks ago, at the Holley or Albion grove meeting; perhaps it was about the first of August.”

     The only testimony the prosecution brought forward to prove the specifications, and in support of the general charge, was that of the Rev. John Bowman, and even he confessed, “My recollection is not very distinct,” and was not sure as to the direction in which they were traveling when, as he alleges, Mr. Roberts gave him a copy of the pamphlet and desired him to assist in its circulation, but says, “My impression is, we were traveling east!” Moreover, his testimony was impeached by several members of the Conference.

     On the other hand there was nothing hesitant or hazy about the recollection of George W. Estes, whose every statement was direct, positive, and very distinct, like that of a man who means to tell the truth, and is conscious that he is doing so. He asserts that he, and he alone, was responsible for the republication of “New School Methodism,” and that Mr. Roberts “never gave his consent” to its republication; that “He [Roberts] had nothing to do with the part that bears my name ;“ and, also, “I do not know that he had any knowledge that its publication was intended ;“ that “he never contributed anything to the payment of its publication ;“ and, finally he says, “I never sold him any.”

     Mr. Roberts himself says: “The fact is, I had nothing to do with the publishing of the pamphlet, and took but little interest in it. I was busy with other work.”

     Yet in face of all these contradictions of Mr. Bowman’s testimony, and without even circumstantial evidence of any kind to corroborate it, that one man’s testimony appears to have outweighed all other testimony given in the case, in the minds of a majority of the Conference-a fact for which there is no other explanation than that of their having predetermined Mr. Roberts’s fate in the secret meeting held before any steps toward a trial had been taken. Could any man or party of men sustain a case before an honorable Court of Justice anywhere in the United States on such limited and doubtful evidence? Do not divine and human laws alike provide that “in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established”? But here is a case in which, by the mouth of one witness, and he hesitant and nebulous in his recollection, the testimony of several witnesses, of distinct recollection and of direct and positive statements, is set aside as valueless! With those who had condemned Jesus Christ before an unlawful secret meeting of the Sanhedrin, no evidence of his innocence could possibly have any weight. It is ever thus when enmity, jealousy, and persecuting hatred usurp the place of calmness, deliberation, and love of righteousness.

     It should be remembered that Mr. Roberts, desirous of throwing light on various points raised in the Estes pamphlet, examined many witnesses on those points. In doing so he proved, by witnesses favorable to the prosecution, that secret meetings had been held, and what was done in those meetings, as well as other things not to the credit of the prosecution, some of which have already been considered.

     The prosecution and the defense had both rested their cases, and the pleadings were concluded, at an early hour in the evening. The impression made was such that, had the case gone to vote that evening, it can scarcely be doubted that a verdict would have been rendered in favor of the defendant. That is when the case should have been voted on, to say the least, as the chances were then much more favorable for an honest verdict than they could be at a later time. Fearing that a vote that night would insure an acquittal, the leaders of the “Regency” party secured an adjournment, held another secret meeting, and so strengthened the nerve of those considered weak and doubtful in the case, that the majority came into the sitting the next morning and voted a verdict of guilty, and then voted the defendant’s expulsion from the Conference and from the Church!

     Later it was alleged, as an attempted justification of the proceedings in Mr. Roberts’s case, that he was expelled because he undertook to prove the Estes statements true. There are two things wrong, however, with that theory: First, Mr. Roberts made no kind of attempt to prove the truth of the statements contained in the Estes pamphlet. With their truth or falsity he had nothing to do in the whole course of his trial. He did, however, state in open Conference, to his accusers, that if shown that he had misrepresented any of his brethren in what he had written, he would, with suitable apology, publish corrections of the same in the various Church periodicals. No one claimed to have been misrepresented, and so no corrections were made.

     Not only was the foregoing allegation a baseless fabrication, but it shows the animus of the proceedings by which Mr. Roberts was expelled from the Conference and from the Church in a still stronger light. Think of it! In thus trying to excuse a palpably unrighteous action, at least tacit admission is made of having condemned the object of their persecution, and inflicted upon him the most extreme penalty known in ecclesiastical jurisprudence, for an offense of which he had not been accused. He was arraigned and tried on a charge of “Contumacy,” but was condemned and ecclesiastically executed for being a “fanatic” and a “Nazarite.”

     It is not strange, therefore, that the Rev. C. D. Burlingham, commenting on the trials of Mr. Roberts in 1857 and 1858, should have expressed himself in the following pertinent and forceful language:
 

     It is a notorious fact that those verdicts are not based on testimony proving criminal acts or words. Several who voted with, and others who sympathize with the “majority,” have said, “Well, if the charges were not sustained by sufficient proof, the Conference served them right, for they are great agitators and promoters of disorder and fanaticism.”

     There you have it. Men tried for one thing and condemned for another! What iniquitous jurisprudence will not such a principle cover?

     Why not try them for promoting disorder and fanaticism? Because the failure of such an effort to convict would have been the certain result. [3]

     As an evidence that his persecutors did not seriously regard Mr. Roberts as “unchristian” or “immoral” during the period in which proceedings were pending against him, attention is now called to the following facts:

1. His appointments during this somewhat protracted period were all that he could have asked, and were of such a responsible character as they would not likely have been had the “majority” really believed him “unchristian and immoral.”

2. Twice during his last trial his brethren in the Conference paid him such tokens of respect as would have been self-stultifying on their part had they believed him guilty of any criminal offense, and such as perhaps no one ever heard of being paid by a Court to a man under trial for a crime of any character. Once they adjourned the trial for a day to attend a funeral in honor of the Rev. W. C. Kendall, who had died during the year; and, perceiving the eminent fitness of the selection, by unanimous vote they appointed Mr. Roberts to preach the funeral sermon before the Conference. He responded to the appointment, and preached on the occasion, with two of the Bishops sitting in the pulpit. On another occasion pending the progress of the trial, the anniversary of the American Bible Society was celebrated, and Mr. Roberts was appointed to preside over these public exercises!

     Referring to these events in “Why Another Sect ?“ Mr. Roberts asks: “Was this in imitation of the old idolaters who first crowned with garlands the victims they were about to sacrifice; or, was it rather the natural homage which men often instinctively pay to those whom they know to be right, even while they persecute them ?“

     We now briefly present the account of the trial of the Rev. Mr. McCreery on a twofold charge of “Contumacy” embodying substantially and almost identically the same specifications as those accompanying the like charge in the case of the Rev. Mr. Roberts. The proceedings were published in 1860, in pamphlet form, entitled, “Trial of Rev. J. McCreery, Jr., Before the Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, at Perry, N. Y., October 22, 1858,” and were reported by S. K. J. Chesbrough, and J. McCreery. The account we now submit was probably written chiefly by Mr. McCreery himself, but is in substantial accord with the officially reported proceedings, a copy of which is before the author as he pens these paves. Some allowances must be made by the reader for the occasional sarcasm indulged, but he may rest assured that the substantial facts in the case are correctly given, while Mr. McCreery’s version of it, by its racy style, enlivens the account, and also serves to show, with characteristic conciseness and pungency, the farcical character of his so-called trial before the Conference. The following is his way of putting the matter:
 

     Rev. J. G. Miller was appointed to assist in conducting the prosecution.

     The defendant declined any counsel. He had not been summoned to his real trial which had been going on In secret for several nights past in the Odd Fellows Hall, in Perry, and did not think it worth while to trouble any one to act as counsel in a judicial farce.

     The prosecutor said they had concluded not to traverse the items of the Bill of Charges, which had occupied so much time In the preceding trial. “We will limit the case to the two main points of the Publication and the Circulation.”

     The defendant replied they might omit the whole, if they chose —or any part they pleased. He was not at all particular about the matter. It would save time to forego the trial and vote the verdict at once. I appeal to the General Conference. The Bishop remarked that the notice of appeal was premature.

     Rev. C. P. Clark and W. Scism testified that defendant had circulated the Estes pamphlet. The prosecution here Introduced as testimony, a card about three Inches by two, of rather dingy appearance, and seriously nibbled at one corner, and marked on one side with certain ominous and cabalistic letters and figures. * *

     The card was grabbed up by S. M. Hopkins, as stated in his testimony, and carefully kept unto the day of doom. The defendant had traveled the Parma circuit, one of the best and most Methodistic In the Conference, for the two years previous, and Hopkins had been sent on by the Buffalo Regency, to watch Brother Abell, and pick up something that might be used In this conspiracy against the defendant. For this service, his masters voted him sixty dollars out of the Conference funds, under the pretense that this faithful discharge of duty had lessened his receipts to that amount. On canvassing the Conference, it was found impossible to get a majority committed against Brother Abell; and there was also lack of adequate “help in the gate” to warrant the undertaking. Carlton, who was at the bottom of an this trickery (all the while as sober and solemn as a saint), did not think it policy to attack him seriously. The character of Brother A., was merely arrested, slurred a little, and allowed to pass. So this card was the only available crumb of Hopkins’ scratching and picking. After being duly testified to, as herein followeth, It was marked “H” with commendable gravity, and solemnly filed among the documents of this persecution.

     Rev. J. B. Wentworth called.—Are you acquainted with defendant’s handwriting? Ans.—I am. I have received letters from him. It is my opinion that this card is in his handwriting. I am quite sure It Is.

     Rev. J. M. Fuller called—Are you acquainted with defendant’s handwriting? Ans.—I am, sir. I have no doubt this card is in his handwriting. I can’t say when or where I first saw this card; It was a few weeks since.

     Rev. S. M. Hopkins called.—Did you ever see this card before? Ans.—Yes. I saw it first in the pulpit of the M. E. Church, in Parma Center, about the middle of last November. There was a four days’ meeting there, called by some a general quarterly meeting. Defendant was there. I saw the Estes pamphlet at that meeting; there was an abundance of them. I saw, as near as I could judge, a hundred or a hundred and fifty copies. I bought some from a carriage In which Sister McCreery rode, and also Sister Fuller, who had been living with them. I did not see the defendant come to the meeting; but, on inquiry, I judged it to be his carriage.

     Cross-questioned.-—I first saw the card lying on the kneeling stool in the pulpit. I considered it an Important document. I thought It might shed light on the fountain whence these fly-sheets came. I am not positive whose buggy the fly-sheets were in. I bought eight copies from the arm-full that was brought from the buggy by Sister Fuller, to whom I paid the money. I do not recollect the exact price I paid. Brother Estes was at the meeting. I do not know whether they were sold on his account or not. Sister Fuller seemed to do the business; whether the money went to Brother Estes or somebody else, I cannot say. I bought a dollar’s worth. Part of them I found in the house of Brother Dunn. I paid all the money to Sister Fuller. I do not know that she was living at Brother Duel’s at the time; she was at the defendant’s house during Conference. I soon found these pamphlets In almost every Methodist family on the circuit.

     Ques.—Did you send a copy to any Methodist by mail?

     This question was objected to by the prosecutor, who remarked that Brother Hopkins was not on trial for circulating the document. Though a hundred were engaged in a crime, It would not excuse any individual participant.

     The defendant wished to show that everybody had circulated the pamphlet. No one ever dreamed of crime or contumacy in doing so. Both Regency and Nazarite preachers, men, women and children, did it with all the freedom they would an almanac or Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. The charge of contumacy for doing what everybody else did was a ridiculous farce, Seven hours ago, at the bidding of his masters, this witness stood up and voted Brother Roberts expelled from the Church, on a charge of circulating this pamphlet; and has pledged himself in secret conclave to do me the same service a few hours hence. Now, I wish to say by implication, that the criminality In the case Is an after thought; a fiction fabricated for the occasion. Other witnesses have volunteered to tell what they did with their packages. I wish to know what the witness did with his dollar’s worth.

     The witness stated that he had had a bill of charges served on him, exactly like that against the defendant; In fact it was the identical bill with defendant’s name erased, and his own inserted In its place.

     The Bishop decided that the witness could not be required to answer so as to criminate himself.

     Ans.—I think I did the Church no harm in what I did with the copies I bought; I had the best interests of the Church in view.

     The testimony of Brother Estes was substantially the same that he gave in Brother Roberts’s trial, to wit: That he alone was the responsible author and publisher of the pamphlet bearing his name. He did not forward a copy to defendant for proof-reading. He had no recollection of ordering the printer to do so. He presumed he ordered it to be sent somewhere, to some body. As the Conference had seen fit to assume that the publication was a crime, he should not put them on the track of any more victims by saying to whom he ordered It sent. Several laymen saw It before It was published. Some advised the publication, and some dissuaded from It. He had been threatened with a civil prosecution for the publication. He was ready for it any day. He alone was responsible; and he was ready and able to prove all he had published, in a civil Court. whenever he should be called upon. Everybody had circulated it.

     Testimony for the defense:

     Rev. S. Hunt called.—Have you seen in the Buffalo Christian Advocate, a notice of the proceedings of the last Conference in the case of Brother Roberts?

     Ans.—I think I read a reference to it. (Here Bishop Baker hastily left the chair, and Bishop Janes took it). Ques.—Did that paper give the charge and specifications of the trial? This question was objected to as Irrelevant, by the prosecutor, who said, “We are not trying newspapers here.”

     Defendant: “But we are doing the next thing to It—we are trying a pamphlet. Now I wish to show that newspaper falsehood is justification for pamphlet truth as an antidote. The trial of Brother Roberts had become a notorious newspaper fact The Buffalo Advocate had published ex parte reports, whitewashing one side, and blackballing the other. And when It was asked, as It was concerning one guilty of something like the same crime, eighteen hundred years ago, “Why, what harm hath he done ?“ the only response of this organ of the Genesee Conference Sadducees was: Unchristian and immoral conduct! On this text, furnished by a judicial trickery of the lowest grade, the changes were rung; while the thing he did was carefully kept out of sight. Truth demanded the republication of “New School Methodism,” that people might know what sort of writing It was that was so criminal. And a justifiable curiosity demanded a faithful exposé of the several Carltonian modes of reasoning employed by the masters of this judicial ceremony, to bring the Conference to this strange verdict of “Immorality,” in the case. The defendant claims it his right to show this in justification of the facts charged in the indictment.

     The objection was sustained by the Bishop. Whereupon all further defense was silently declined.

     Thus the defensive testimony amounts in all, to two questions and one answer.

     The prosecutor made a grandiloquent plea.

     The defendant answered not a word.

     The defendant was voted guilty of the specifications, and of the charge.

     And he was expelled from the Conference and from the Church, by the usual number of votes—50.

     It will be noticed that a remarkably large number of the preachers did not vote. Carlton had managed to have it carefully whispered around, so loud that all could hear it, that the Bishop was going to make the appointments of the preachers according to their standing up for the Church, i. e., the regency faction,—in this eventful crisis. All the Presiding Elders were fast friends of the Church, i. e., the tools of Carlton, Robie & Co.,—except one; and he was removed at this Conference, and expelled at the next. The skilful rattling of the loaves and fishes in the market baskets labeled P. B. did the thing. It worked both ways; gaining both votes, and blanks, or no votes.

     This accounts for a large number who would not vote wickedly, and dare not vote righteously. The appointing power is omnipotent ;—and he who has the faculty of fawning, or bullying, or deceiving It into his service, can do or be anything he pleases.

     Both Mr. Roberts and Mr. McCreery gave notice of appeal to the General Conference, having full confidence that if their cases could come before that body their vindication would be complete, and their restoration to the Church and to the Conference would follow. Their appeals were never permitted to come before that body, however, greatly to their own disappointment and to the disappointment of thousands throughout the borders of American Methodism. The reason will appear as we proceed with our story.

[1] Page 646.
[2] See Appendix B, for full text of this Review.
[3] “Outline History,” p. 40, Sec. 21.