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Presnet Cracroft to standing committee "Bishop Whitehouse, like anyone else, may so accuse Mr. Cracroft that I will see that and inquiry is instituted." He is to send any additional material he has to Standing Committee. Nothing in the charge that a presentment can be made except that he preached in Illinois when he had been forbidden to do so. Whitehouse not remand him here - only I can.
Date
12-28-1864
Keywords
letter, McIlvaine, Bedell, church
Recommended Citation
McIlvaine, Charles Pettit, "Letter to Bishop Bedell" (1864). Charles Pettit McIlvaine Letters. 274.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/mcilvaine_letters/274
Rights Statement
Transcript
Cinc. Dec. 28/64
My dear Bishop -
I duly recd the paper you lately sent me in the [?] with others. I have come to the conclusion to lay all the paper before the Standing Committee, under our [Canon] for the trial of a Clergyman + let them judge whether there is cause for [presentment] & trial. If they decide there is not, [Cracroft] is then cleared. If they decided not to present on a part, he is cleared of that. I am led to this conclusion by considering that with the allegations now made are thus acted in I could not give a letter dismissing, that in view of that C. request me to proceed to trial, that I have re-examined the question of [Cannon] as presented by you to Bp. Whitehouse + am not satisfied that he may not [cell] for [laying] under Canon 3 Tit. II. While I see clearly that under Can. 2 same title “Of Offences for which Ministers may be tried. Bp Whitehouse like any body else may so accuse Mr. C. that I will be [bound?] to see an inquiry is instituted &c.
Seeing then that the questions reduced to this shall they anyway be have or left to [Hlmin + Kurway] that what would be not thought to demand trial here, would be made a grievous offence there, + I am bound to see as far as I can that no injustice is done a Presbyter of the Diocese. I have to day written Bp. W. that I shall lay the papers now in hand before the H. Committee + notify him to send any additional papers he wishes to, also sending a copy of Dectl. of our Cannon.
There is nothing in the charges at present preferred or intended on which the Committee can base a presentment, unless it be that C. officiated once after being forbidden to preach in [Hlmin’s] + then that after reading that part of Bp. W.’s letter to him in which the letter says he [Cracroft] has been remanded to [the] Diocese for trial. he said it was a he.
As to the [?] it was wrong + very unwise. But considering the notice of Services having been given, & the Bp’s letter coming on Saturday & that after that once [effecting] & giving notice that it was the last, there was no more, I don’t think any Committee but an [Hlmins] me can see in it the need of trial.
AS to the lie, it depends [then far] on the accuracy of a [??] from where the man [?] it who furnished to the Bp. Mr. C. [?] it in a letter to me. No doubt he contradicted it some way or other, as he might for it was not [time]. He has not been remanded.
Bp. Whitehouse can not reward a person for trial in any diocese but his own. It is for me to reward him.
I have not the date of [Chapron’s] acceptance. AS I never keep any memoranda, but of the fact of acceptance.
Rylance did produce a letter of transfer from the BP. of Winchester + now he has recd my [?] of regular standing &c. + is Rector Who & what [Wamer at Boardman[ is I know not. I forward here a notice from a lay-reader there that he resigend his office because Mr. Wamer is there, + from the date of the notice I inferred he had been there over six months. He has sent me no letter dismissing, nor have I recd any notice from the [vestry] of any cell. Have you? I pity you [?] the uncomfortables of an unfinished house, - in the winter -
Yours very affectionately
C.P.M.
I forgot to ask you about Norwalk. What is the condition there. The papers you sent will be carefully preserved. I see on the last Journal a Report of the parish at Boardman with Rev. A. J. Wamer Rector & [Statery] that he commenced his ministrations May 1st. It is curious that [French] put him down there.