The Robertson Smith Case 
 
 ^Recorded reasons and imputed ^ 
 ^ Motives of the ^. 
 Free C.huroh Leaders. ^ /jL 
 

 /> 
 
 NOV 
 
 i 1954 
 
 •OGlCALSi^ 
 
 BX 9084 '.W33 1882 
 
 Watson, John. 
 
 The Robertson Smith case 
 
THE ROBERTSON SMITH CASE. 
 
 Recorded Reasons and 
 Imputed Motives 
 
 of 
 
 The Free Church Leaders, 
 
 A FEEE CHUECH LAYMAN. 
 
 EDINBUEGH: ^ 
 
 PRIXTEI) AT THE BALLA:N^TYXE PEESS. 
 1882. 
 
iy 
 
 .Sfc>5VJ3 
 
RECORDED REASONS AND IMPUTED 
 MOTIVES. 
 
 The Free Church has many trials to the fidelity of her people. 
 Her principles — now that the generation which saw them fought 
 out in the conflict which preceded the Disruption is passing 
 away — require some application of the intellect to grasp, and 
 much is being said and done to make them appear infinitesimal, 
 and those who steadily maintain them unreasonable. 
 
 It is a thing quite to be expected that when such a question 
 as that of Mr. Eobertson Smith comes up it should be an ele- 
 ment to loosen the attachment to the Church of many of those 
 who are dissatisfied with the course she has seen fit to take. 
 And it was inevitable that such a question should arise. But, 
 while we cannot be surprised that it should operate to the 
 estrangement of some who are a little extreme on the one side 
 or the other, we are entitled to expect that the ground on 
 which the dissentients justify the attitude they take should be 
 only the legitimate ground that the action of the Church is, 
 in their opinion, unwise, and constitutionally incompetent, and 
 — if they will — unjust. If they add to this that it was 
 taken by the leaders of the Church from motives other than 
 those avowed, they are bound to accompany the charge with 
 the proof. They are not entitled, from any feelings of dis- 
 appointment, to carry invectives beyond the subject-matter on 
 which they are dissenting, except on proof. 
 
 We find, on the last occasion of the supporters of Professor 
 Smith assembling together, that one speaker is reported to 
 have said — " They could not help associating the repressive 
 policy which had been pursued in this particular instance with 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 a system of ecclesiasticism wliicli had the tendency to subordi- 
 nate all interests, even the highest, to the supposed temporary 
 interests of the denomination. It might seem uncharitable 
 to say so, but he could not help thinking that ecclesiastical 
 politics had had some influence on the progress and the issue of 
 the case of Professor Smith. Wliat was this but in effect to 
 put the interests of the denomination above those of the king- 
 dom of God ? " Here is a charge beginning with only a 
 surmise, but ending — as if proof had been established — by 
 characterising the action taken in a way strongly to the dis- 
 credit of the party he is speaking against. The same speaker, 
 at the breakfast of the dissentients last May after the decision 
 of the Assembly, spoke of the Church having been " dragged 
 through the mu-e." Professor Smith himself at the late 
 gathering is reported to have said — " He was sure he would 
 not stand alone when he said that there had much of late 
 years happened which would shake faith in Churches and 
 Church organisation altogether, unless they beheved that, 
 behind those portions of the visible organisation which they 
 saw, and which they too often saw mismanaged, and subjected 
 to low, petty, and earthly influences, there was in the Church 
 a living and spiritual power resting on the fact that Jesus 
 Christ Himself had called together all who believe in His 
 name to make common profession with one heart and one 
 voice." There may be difficulty in knowing what is meant by 
 this last clause as to the object and constitution of a Church, 
 but there is no difficulty in understanding the passage as a 
 whole, or seeing its offensiveness. 
 
 There is a less offensive way in which the Church's action 
 is assumed to have been influenced by weakness yielding to 
 supposed expediency or policy. So fair and well-informed a 
 writer as Dr. Oswald Dykes writes in the " Catholic Presby- 
 terian," in accounting for the action of the Church, — " There 
 was a yet graver temptation. It sprang out of the long con- 
 tinuance of agitation within the Church, — out of the formation 
 within her bosom, of two clearly defined parties, and out of 
 threats of secession, in case of defeat, more or less loudly 
 muttered on either side. Still these things, by themselves, 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 scarcely appear to justify so ' heroic ' a remedy as a summary 
 vote of want of confidence followed up by deprivation of 
 office : " and .... " Jonahs are not flung overboard unless 
 the ship be labouring. The Free Church must be herself the 
 best, indeed the only, judge of what is necessary to her own 
 safety and the preservation of her unity which is her strength. 
 If the thing was to be done, it could hardly have been done in 
 a better or more becoming spirit than was exhibited on both 
 sides." 
 
 The spirit of this is good ; but it is a misconception to 
 assume the Church's safety and the preservation of her unity 
 as the motive of her action. It is probable that the writer of 
 it would not have permitted himself to give such an expression 
 of opinion to the world, but for his having been called on to 
 contribute a paper on the subject without, perhaps, having 
 time to give the requisite consideration to the history of the 
 case, and but for his having written on his floating impression 
 of the facts, the completeness or accuracy of which it did not 
 occur to him to distrust. I have no doubt that, in the great 
 majority of those who take a similar view, the error, and the 
 involuntary injustice, arises from a similar inadvertence as 
 respects the history. The idea, erroneous though it is, is 
 a very natural one to occur to any who, without taking 
 in the distinction between a judicial censure and an adminis- 
 trative measure of caution, looked to the circumstance that the 
 Church libelled Professor Smith, and then, when difficulties 
 and differences were experienced in carrying out the deliver- 
 ance of the Assembly which found relevancy in one of the 
 charges, substituted deprivation of the chair by authority of the 
 General Assembly for the procedure by libel. It is also natural 
 that, when such persons observed that a portion of those who 
 joined in that action had been prominent in opposing the 
 finding of heresy under the libel, they should believe them to 
 have acted inconsistently. These latter were the representatives 
 of the College Committee. They would have been justified in 
 opposing the Professor's demand of a libel — he not being, in 
 their view, entitled to demand it in bar of administrative action 
 by the Assembly. Their agreeing to the Libel was doubtless 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 due to a willingness to let the Professor have all the satis- 
 faction and benefit which an acquittal in it might give him. 
 In conformity with their view expressed in the College Com- 
 mittee's Eeport, they gave their advocacy for acquittal. But, 
 supposing acquittal had resulted, they would, notwithstanding, 
 have had the duty still lying on them to carry out the Com- 
 mittee's recommendation of administrative action just as if 
 there had never been a libel. There was, therefore, no incon- 
 sistency in their taking up that recommendation after a General 
 Assembly had found that the extracts from the Professor's 
 writings were relevant to sustain one of the charges in the 
 libel. That finding of relevancy really strengthened the call 
 for administrative action, if censure and deposition from the 
 ministry were not to be adopted. Probably most people are 
 satisfied to have a superficial knowledge of the past proceedings 
 and history of a complicated question in which they don't 
 happen to have had any responsibility. But that does not 
 absolve those who may be giving heed to charges such as 
 those I have quoted from the speeches at the late meeting from 
 the obligation to make themselves acquainted with the whole 
 previous action of those who are so charged, before permitting 
 themselves to accept the charges as proved. 
 
 I have looked back on the history of the case, by going to 
 the newspapers. I find what was all along my impression 
 confirmed, that the Church's ultimate action, so far from being 
 the outcome of what happened in the course of the controversy, 
 was just what was plainly expressed at the very first bringing 
 the Eeport of the College Committee on the matter before the 
 Commission of the Assembly, as what ought to happen in the 
 event of a satisfactory understanding not being come to with 
 Professor Smith. I find also that what they so expressed at the 
 beginning they continued to keep under view of the Church as 
 a thing required to be done, up to the time when the adminis- 
 trative action was moved for. 
 
 In the meeting of Commission in March 1877, the Eeport 
 of the College Committee was first brought before the Church. 
 It concluded thus : — " On a survey of the whole case, the Com- 
 mittee do not find sufficient ground to support a process for 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 heresy, . . . The question remaius whether Professor Smith 
 has maintained critical opinions which, in their own nature, 
 subvert the doctrine he professes, Notwithstanding the Com- 
 mittee are not prepared to say that Professor Smith's views 
 infer a denial on his part, either directly or constructively, of 
 the doctrine that ' in the books of the Old and New Testament 
 the revelations of His will are committed wholly unto writing,' 
 and that ' they are all given by inspiration of God to be the 
 only rule of faith and life,' they cannot withhold the expres- 
 sion of their opinion that the article, in opposition to Professor 
 Smith's avowed intentions, is of a dangerous and unsettling 
 tendency." Several members of the Committee on either side 
 dissented from its report, and gave in their reasons. 
 
 In the discussion on this report in the Commission, Dr. 
 Begg said — " Then, even supposing no libel could be sustained 
 warranting them in depriving Professor Smith of his status as 
 a minister of the Church, he occupied a very important posi- 
 tion as a teacher of the theological students in the Church, and 
 it was for the Church to consider whether a man giving forth 
 doctrines which had been stated — even though they could be 
 explained — should continue to be entrusted with the teaching 
 and training of the theological students ; " and Dr, Eainy, near 
 the close of his remarks, said : — " He quite agreed with Dr, 
 Begg as to the Church's right to judge of questions of that kind. 
 He held that in regard to ministers, and he held it much more 
 in regard to a Professor, in so far as his trust was in some re- 
 spects if not higher yet more peculiar. The Church was quite 
 entitled to consider whether the general character of the teach- 
 ing of a man was such that she could be called upon to extend 
 her confidence to him in that office. For instance, he himself, 
 though not guilty of any immoral act or holding any heretical 
 opinion in regard to the Confession of Faith, might yet be 
 teaching in such a way, either through sheer folly or some form 
 of intellectual perversion, that they might be quite entitled to 
 say to him, ' We will not have you any longer to be Principal or 
 Professor in the new College.' But it would be admitted that 
 great caution and circumspection should always be exercised 
 in any action of that kind." 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 In the first General Assembly in which the case came up (May 
 1877), Dr. Eainy, in absence and at the request of Dr. Laughton, 
 the convener, laid on the table the College Committee's Eeport. 
 Dr. Wilson moved that " considering the College Committee, 
 while not finding, according to their judgment, sufficient ground 
 for supporting a libel for heresy, gave it as their opinion that 
 the article ' Bible,' contrary to Professor Smith's avowed con- 
 victions, contains statements of a dangerous and unsettling 
 tendency, and considering that the teaching and training of 
 students for the holy ministry should be conducted by men 
 whose views are above all suspicion, deem it expedient and 
 necessary that, until the proceedings in the Presbytery of 
 Aberdeen, which are now in progress and are reported to this 
 Assembly, have been terminated and the final judgment shall 
 have been given on the question at issue. Professor Smith shall 
 cease from discharging his duties as Professor, and instruct him 
 accordingly." 
 
 Dr. Eainy, in course of his speech supporting the motion, 
 spoke thus of the "Encyclopedia" articles : — " There appeared a 
 certain confidence in constructions of a critical kind resting on 
 speculative combinations, and a certain decision of peremptori- 
 ness in building on them." . . . Again, " The impression which 
 many of them had that he had shown a certain tendency to 
 set, to young and ardent men, an example of confidence in 
 conjectural combinations which might be more unsafe for them 
 than for himself." He added that " he held the proposed in- 
 terference with Professor Smith's teaching not to be a judicial 
 act. He could not do it as a suspension for censure on any 
 account ; but he held it to be an act of policy and adminis- 
 tration. He was sorry that all the arguments on the other 
 side tended to make their whole influence contribute to force 
 on Dr. Wilson's motion the construction which he depre- 
 cated." 
 
 The motion was carried by 491 to 113 — majority 378. 
 Professor Smith demanded a libel ; and the Assembly acceded 
 to the demand. 
 
 ^ In the Assembly of the following year — 1878 — the libel 
 was discussed, and the charae founded on the Professor's view 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 on Deuteronomy was found relevant, by a majority of 23. 
 The supporters of the College Committee's recommendation were 
 among the minority — Dr. Laughton, the Convener of the Com- 
 mittee, and Dr. Eainy, in their speeches, expressly reserving 
 the duty of the Church to deal respecting the chair in the line 
 of that recommendation. 
 
 In the 1879 Assembly, those leaders of the Church who 
 followed the College Committee's views made a final attempt 
 to have a conference on the part of the Church with Professor 
 Smith, in the idea, no doubt, that now that a deliverance had 
 been given on one of the charges of the libel he might be will- 
 ing, and in the hope that he might also be able, to satisfy the 
 Church in the way that the 1877 Assembly was contemplat- 
 ing as a thing to be hoped for when his demand of a libel 
 stopped all proceedings not judicial. They moved for suspen- 
 sion of proceedings under the libel for a year, and for a 
 Committee to confer with Professor Smith in the meantime. 
 Whether the action of such a Committee might have resulted 
 in Professor Smith being restored to his functions it is needless 
 to speculate, for the motion was lost by one vote. In making 
 the motion the representatives of the College Committee 
 exhausted their power in the direction of having what 
 they must have felt to be the best way of carrying out 
 the views expressed in their report — the way, namely, of 
 trying, in conference with the Professor, whether the Church 
 could be satisfied that his manner of holding his views was 
 not incompatible with a safe discharge of the functions 
 of the chair. Thenceforth the position for them was — what 
 did their duty to the Church call for with a Professor 
 whose views, in themselves, and especially as urged by him, 
 they believed to be " of a dangerous and unsettling tendency ; " 
 who refused to recognise a right in the supreme court of the 
 Church to suspend his teaching except on the footing of a 
 judicial sentence ; and one of the extracts from whose writings 
 the Assembly had judicially found relevant to sustain a charge 
 of unsoundness under the libel which, at his demand, the 
 Assembly had caused to be raised ? In such a position, I do 
 not see any course that was open to them except that which 
 
 ^ 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 tliey took. On the one hand, there was the Professor warning 
 them off from any approach to him except with a libel ; and 
 on the other hand, there was the party who prosecuted in the 
 libel, and the natural issue of whose proceedings would have 
 been a deposition from the ministry, carrying of course depri- 
 vation of the chair as well. There is little room for doubt 
 that that was the only issue possible if the course of letting 
 the libel go to probation should be taken ; for the opposition 
 to finding the charge about Deuteronomy proven would neces- 
 sarily not have had the great support which the opposition to 
 finding relevancy in the extracts to sustain the charge had had 
 from the College Committee representatives. They would be 
 precluded from giving their opposition in the further stages, 
 because they disapproved, on constitutional grounds, of doing 
 what would be substantially a reversal by one Assembly of a 
 judicial deliverance of another. Such an issue of the libel 
 would certainly have been worse for Professor Smith ; and, in 
 the judgment of the College Committee, it would have been 
 most undesirable for the interests of the truth for which the 
 Church is concerned, because it would have been a declaration 
 by the Church that the belief in the inspiration of the Bible 
 could not be maintained if something in the line of Professor 
 'Smith's theory should ultimately commend itself to the general 
 belief as true. 
 
 With such opinions there was no room for hesitation, 
 when the 1880 Assembly met, as to the course which those 
 whose views were in accordance with the report of the College 
 Committee should take in carrying out that Committee's 
 opinion, which the Assembly of 1877 had been proceeding to 
 give effect to when stopped by the Professor's demand of 
 libel. That course obviously was — to secure at once that the 
 finding of relevancy by the 1878 Assembly should not be 
 carried to sentence of heresy or unsoundness, and at the same 
 time that Professor Smith should not be in uncontrolled 
 discharge of the duties of the professorship. Those who had 
 led in prosecuting the libel, feeling that the latter of these 
 objects M'as of primary importance, joined them in moving the 
 Assembly to withdraw the libel and the chair at once. There 
 
( II ) 
 
 was every reason to expect that this course would have been 
 carried by a large majority ; but, by the abstention of the 
 more extreme and_ zealous prosecutors of the libel from the 
 vote, Professor Smith's friends were able to carry a motion for 
 his reponement in the chair on an admonition. 
 
 This brings us up to the time when the leaders' action took 
 the definite form of moving to withdraw the chair, and there- 
 fore it covers the time during which Dr. Dykes' suggestion of 
 Jonah being flung overboard in order to lighten the ship could 
 apply. The historical resume I have given leaves not a vestige 
 of room for entertaining the idea suggested, A measure in 
 the direct line of what had been expressed by them at the first 
 emergence of the case as the fitting way of dealing with it — 
 adhered to and followed out without deviation, to the utmost 
 extent that the Professor's attitude towards it permitted, till the 
 measure is actually moved for in the General Assembly, cannot 
 with any colour of reason be ascribed to temptations arising 
 during the course of the case. There have been temptations 
 and difficulties from the parties on either side, and it is hard to 
 see how the pressure on the one side should be thought to 
 have weighed more than the pressure on the other. But, 
 whatever the temptations, there is the clearest evidence that 
 they were not yielded to. 
 
 So far as the representatives of the College Committee were 
 concerned, there was entire acquiescence in the decision of the 
 1880 Assembly when it had been come to. They no doubt 
 felt that it was an issue preferable to a withdrawal of the chair 
 by a narrow majority such as the abstention of the extreme 
 party of the prosecution made the only possible alternative. 
 The settlement was thrown loose, however, by the subsequent 
 appearance of Professor Smith's new articles, which had been 
 given to the " Encyclopedia " before the debate which resulted in 
 the reponement. The continuance of such articles by Professor 
 Smith when under a libel which had been found relevant, and 
 after all that had occurred since 1876, was felt by very 
 many to be a serious element in the consideration whether 
 
^ 
 
 ( 12 ) 
 
 the Churcli could have confidence in his discretion for the 
 teaching, and that apart from any question as to whether it 
 was his duty to have disclosed to the Assembly the fact of ]iis 
 having given the articles for publication. The Commission 
 when they met in August, therefore, were in the position of a 
 person who, holding a power of attorney, finds that something 
 which he thinks material to the consideration on which his 
 constituent had entered into a bargain had come to light only 
 after the bargain was made (though known to the other party 
 to the bargain), and feels it his duty to insist on retaining in 
 his hands as much of the status qiio ante as he still holds, 
 until the view of his constituent, or his constituent's nearest 
 relations, can be got on the new condition of matters. On 
 considering the circumstances of the publication of the new 
 articles, therefore, with the Professor's letter to his own 
 Presbytery — but without the needed explanation of it, which 
 he unaccountably withheld till the close of the debate on the 
 confidence motion in the ensuing Assembly — the Commission 
 appointed a Committee to consider the new articles and to 
 report their opinion and advice to a special meeting of the 
 Commission to be held before the beginning of the winter 
 session of the College. The special meeting of the Com- 
 mission in October, on the report of that Committee — 
 founded on the report of a sub-committee composed exclusively 
 of those who agreed in the vote of the large majority of the 
 August meeting of the Commission — resolved to transmit the 
 report to the next General Assembly, and in the meantime 
 instructed Professor Smith to abstain from teaching his classes 
 during the ensuing session. This action was much denounced 
 in public meetings as unconstitutional; and in the ensuing 
 Assembly (1881) a motion was made for its non-approval, 
 which was lost by a majority of 22 1. On the following day, a 
 motion that the General Assembly no longer consider it safe 
 or advantageous for the Church that Professor Smith should 
 continue to teach in one of her Colleges was carried by a 
 majority of 178 ; and, on another day, on which the Assembly 
 had resolved to resume the matter, a motion that his tenure of 
 his chair shall cease except as regards salary [an exception of 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 which the Professor has decliued to avail himself] was carried 
 by a majority of 163. 
 
 All this, of course, though it reflected on his discretion, im- 
 plied no censure on Professor Smith. It meant that he had — 
 let us say — outrun the pace of the rest of the Church, and that 
 the path he had entered on did not appear, to those behind, to 
 be the right path, though they did not feel themselves in a 
 position to be able to say it was a wrong one. It went on 
 the footing that, in the judgment of the majority, his opinions 
 were of " a dangerous and unsettling tendency ; " but the 
 Assembly did not thereby take on itself to condemn them as 
 unsound. Neither did it (as has been alleged) make a crime 
 of the quality of " unsettling." It only assumed that, when 
 combined with the quality of " dangerous " accompanied by 
 action rash and unguarded, and, in its later developments, 
 perhaps obstinately so, it was a reason for the Church not 
 leaving to him the students to be led into the path he has 
 taken, at least till she be in a position to see that it is a safe 
 path. In speaking of its safety as being at present open to 
 doubt, I will quote, in justification, one who has not been ex- 
 posed to temptation to join in an ignorant, or even a " factitious " 
 alarm. Dr. Dykes, in referring to the Professor's publications, 
 uses these expressions : — " Lectures to laymen in which the 
 origin and growth of Hebrew literature were handled all along 
 the line in an extreme and revolutionary fashion ; " and — 
 " that any such theory as that of which Professor Smith has 
 constituted himself the exponent and advocate is still a long 
 way from having made good its case ; that it builds a vast 
 structure on narrow and, to some extent, uncertain foundations ; 
 and that its conclusions are so largely conjectural that they 
 are almost certain to be materially modified ere all is done, if 
 not in great part abandoned." 
 
 I think I have stated nothing but the facts in the history 
 of the case, and have omitted none that were needed, and 
 that I have stated them in their exact bearing on the con- 
 sideration of what was the logical course to foUow for gentle- 
 men holding at its commencement the opinion expressed by 
 
( 14 ) 
 
 the College Committee. If the course actually taken by the 
 representatives of that Committee — and they are just the 
 " leaders " who are pointed to in the quotations I have made 
 from the speeches at the last gathering in connection with 
 this subject — has been exactly the course indicated in their 
 initial report, it is not easy to understand how such statements 
 as I have quoted should have been made with reference to hon- 
 ourable men. That they should have been made by honour- 
 able men who were intimately conversant with the history of 
 the case from its beginning must be due to these having been so 
 absorbed in the interest which the case carried to themselves 
 as to have entirely lost sight of the relations in which others 
 stood to it. There is much latitude allowed, in secular 
 politics, to partisans on either side as to the way in which 
 they characterise the conduct of their opponents. In such 
 politics tlie effect of what is said extends no further than to 
 interests as between one party and another. In Church 
 politics it is otherwise. The discredit which is attached to 
 the Church's trusted leaders goes to the discredit of the 
 Church itself, and in times such as the present is fitted to 
 work much damage to the interests which it M^as constituted 
 in order to maintain. The cause for which the minority on 
 this question is concerned has been well and powerfully 
 advocated, both in speech and pamphlet, by men who have 
 given an example of the spirit in which such controversies 
 should be conducted, and of the way in which candid readiness 
 to consider new views of truth on delicate questions is best 
 secured. It will be most for this interest that their example 
 be followed by the party generally. 
 
 When the history of the case shows perfect consistency 
 from first to last on the part of those who carried out the 
 original recommendation of the College Committee, it naturally 
 occurs to one to say — Was, then, the administrative action by 
 the Assembly a thing so absolutely unreasonable in itself that 
 it cannot be supposed to have been adopted in hona fide by 
 intelligent men who have a general acquaintance with the 
 criticism question ? I shall not touch on that question further 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 than to express my own opinion that the reasons for the 
 action taken preponderate, whether as respects its competency 
 or as respects equity as between the Church and the Pro- 
 fessor. There is just one element in the case which I would 
 advert to, and it is not connected with the question of compe- 
 tency or of equity. "Was the action necessary in the interest of 
 the teaching or for conservation of safe views as to the Bible ? 
 Probably many would have liked to have seen a full discussion 
 on that point disembarrassed of the question of whether the 
 Professor's discretion could be trusted or his attitude to the 
 Church allowed. It is impossible not to feel the weight of 
 the considerations so forcibly put by Dr. Whyte and Dr. 
 Dods, and so interestingly by Mr. Benjamin Bell, in last 
 Assembly ; though these, as urged, were perhaps rather appro- 
 priate to a discussion of whether the Professor's opinions 
 should be condemned than to the motion in hand. But the 
 motion was founded on other elements besides the holding of 
 the opinions : and also the manner in which the majority 
 were pressed on the points of justice and competency forced 
 them to devote their whole attention, and the whole time at 
 their disposal, to these two points. We must, however, keep in 
 view that it is a mistake to say that, even as respects the 
 holding of the chair, the Church has decided that Professor 
 Smith's opinions are not to be tolerated. That question, pure 
 and simple, was not discussed or decided by the General 
 Assembly. The action taken by it means no more than this, — 
 that the Assembly will exercise its right to suspend the 
 teaching of one who holds doubtful and possibly dangerous 
 opinions till he has satisfied the Church as to the way in 
 which he holds his opinions and will use them in his class ; 
 and that, if he refuses to acknowledge the Assembly's right 
 to do so, the Assembly may feel it necessary to withdraw the 
 chair altogether. 
 
 A Pkee Chukcii LaYiMax. 
 
7 
 
PMOTOMOUNT 
 
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