SYDNEY, OCTOBER 7TH, 1936

SYDNEY, OCTOBER 7TH, 1936

My Dear ——— , — Your letter of August 27th grieves me, not because it bears against me, but for your own sake and for the truth’s sake, for I see by it that you retain the spirit that “sows discord among brethren” to which I referred in the letter of mine you saw. I had heard you had owned to wrong in contending against a brother, against whom there was no charge of evil pending, being invited to preach the gospel in Flatbush by one whose responsibility it was to invite for this service those who can render it, but your letter seeks to justify your conduct. To contend against a brother able to preach the gospel and whom God had used in that service, and against whom there was no charge, being allowed to do it and to enlist others in the same opposition is to cause discord and division among the brethren, and your defence of your conduct shows that the guilt of that remains attached to you. The Lord is not overlooking this.

Then you charge me with ‘criticising‘ my elder brethren, which is vague and not supported by evidence. In seeking to ^[p. 50] help in a serious crisis as to which I have responsibility and into which the conduct of brethren enters and must be attended to, what I wrote should not be called mere criticism. The Lord said, “If I have spoken evil bear witness to the evil;” in this latter your letter fails, and hence you are seeking to fix evil on me without proof. You make me an offender for writing to ‘young brothers;’ besides my sons and R.W.S. I have written to A.F.M. and A.N.W. of these matters. The young men — they are generally as old or older than you — had, except R.W.S., a leading part in the whole matter and as seeking to maintain what is right in the house of God they needed all the help they could get, especially as to principles governing what was under consideration. With the elder brethren generally responsible I had gone over the whole matter verbally but my exercises were disregarded. Even if it be admitted that the brethren written to — aged from 37 to 42 — were young, Scripture justifies young men in responsibility being informed of evil in elder ones. Jehovah told young Samuel of the guilt of Eli and his house, and Paul wrote young Timothy of evil in brothers older than he. As regards my reception of one-sided information, this is only your surmise and is not a fact, I am assured. What has come to me is supported by more than one witness, but in the main the information I obtained while in New York has been my guide. I had the correspondence relative to the matter and had conversed with those who had to do with it from the outset.

Your effort to show that I am inconsistent in not having brought my ‘exercise forward amongst the New York brethren’ also fails of proof. I did bring my exercise before the New York and New Jersey brethren, but did not do so in any public way for I had hoped that those responsible would, under the Lord’s good hand, come round to the truth and that adjustment would come about. But the false principle pursued at Westfield last winter, that the service of God must be subject to the feelings of certain brethren — caused deep concern, for if such a principle were admitted the enemy would have gained definitely. You, by the way, did your utmost to maintain the false principle of Westfield at Flatbush and this is what occasioned my comment in my letter to Jim. The course at Westfield, supported in New York by you and others, led me to give an address at Brooklyn on Priesthood on February 22nd, and I hoped what I said then would lead the brethren to ^[p. 51] review what was current in the light of Scripture. It did have this effect in some and there were indications that the attitude at Westfield was veering round to the truth, and I left for England with this hope. But when the correspondence with Montreal came and the fact that nine brothers at Westfield had committed themselves to it my expectations vanished, and in answer to a letter from R.W.S. I wrote him some of my exercises. Later I learned that several in New York — some of whom had taken active part in the whole proceeding — had come to see the errors that had been made and were exercised before the Lord that there should be an adjustment. This carried my conscience fully and what I wrote from time to time had in view only to help all as to the facts of the whole case and the divine principles that governed it.

You will readily see that I am not with you, and I am certain that an unbiased consideration of what I have written, taking all the facts into full account, will show that your letter is unjustifiable, both in the spirit and in the letter of it. You know how kindly the feelings of Mrs. Taylor and myself are toward you and your whole family connection and we are distressed at your present attitude, more particularly as it is in keeping with a bias in your mind in favour of some against others which has shown itself on many occasions and has been a cause of sorrow. The present is an opportunity to get before the Lord, not sparing yourself, and He will enable you to “see all things clearly”.

Affectionately and faithfully yours in Him,
James Taylor.