Excerpt from The Question at Issue in the Andover Case: Arguments of Rev. Drs. Joshua W. Wellman and Orpheus T. Lanphear, Complainants in the Andover Case; Prepared for the Hearing Before the Board of Visitors, September 1, 1892; Prepared but Not Read

N 0 apology is required of the complainants for publishing their argu ments, which were not read before the Board of Visitors because of the decision to dismiss the Amended Complaint without further hearing.

Admitting the wisdom of the Board in dismissing the Complaint, in order to the performance of its duty in another way: the question at issue in the Andover Case is so momentous, the public interest in it so important, and the requirements of full and free discussion in the service of truth so imperative, as to require the complainants to give their argu ments to the public in this manner, especially, when asked to do so by so many representatives of interested Alumni, together with others, and also since the public expectation was not to be satisfied by learning their views in any other way.

If any precedent were needed, in addition to the action of the Presi dent of the Board of Trustees in reading his argument in defence of the professors prepared for the hearing before the Board of Visitors, at a meeting of the ministerial association of which he is a member, shortly after the dismissal of the Complaint, reference might be made to the fact that The Andover Review, with other representatives of the public press, has been diligent in the defence of the professors, claiming without warrant that the dismissal of the Complaint was tantamount to their justification, and also publishing a series of essays on the Divinity of Christ, which, however they may have been intended in defence of the professors, must be taken as still further evidence of their departure from the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ, as taught in the creed of the Seminary. Under these circumstances no valid reason could be given in the name of freedom of thought, and its public expression, for with holding from the public the arguments of the complainants.

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