I wanted to get at the whole of the facts as regards the C. E. dispatch,
and so I wrote to China for them, when I found that the Board was not
going to do it. But I am not allowed to wait. It seemed quite within the
possibilities that a full detail of the facts might furnish me a chance
to make an apology to Mr. Ament--a chance which, I give you my word, I
would have honestly used, and not abused. But it is no matter. If the
Board is not troubled about the bulk of that lurid dispatch, why should
I be? I answered the apology-urging letters of several clergymen with
the information that I had written to China for the details, and said I
thought it was the only sure way of getting into a position to do fair
and full justice to all concerned; but a couple of them replied that it
was not a matter that could wait. That is to say, groping your way out
of a jungle in the dark with guesses and conjectures is better than a
straight march out in the sunlight of fact. It seems a curious idea.
However, those two clergymen were in a large measure right--from their
point of view and the Board’s; which is, putting it in the form of a
couple of questions:
1. _Did Dr. Ament collect the assessed damages and thirteen times over?_
The answer is: He did _not_. He collected only a _third_ over.
2. _Did he apply the third to the “propagation of the Gospel?”_ The
answer is this correction: He applied it to “church expenses.” Part or
all of the outlay, it appears, goes to “supporting widows and orphans.”
It may be that church expenses and supporting widows and orphans are not
part of the machinery for propagating the Gospel. I supposed they were,
but it isn’t any matter; I prefer this phrasing; it is not so blunt as
the other.
In the opinion of the two clergymen and of the Board, these two points
are _the only important ones_ in the whole C. E. dispatch.
I accept that. Therefore let us throw out the rest of the dispatch as
being no longer a part of Dr. Ament’s case.