Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 21, 1896 - Miscellanies, Volume IV

AN APPEAL
see their way back to your communion with a clear
conscience ; it is their conduct, and their conduct
alone, that you have justified, and therefore it is
only for them that your special generosity is here
solicited. But towards them, if there are any such,
your countrymen would desire to see you behave
with all consideration. I do not pretend to lay
before you any definite scheme of action ; I wish
only to let you understand what thoughts are busy
in the heads of some outside your councils, so that
you may take this also into consideration when you
come to decide. And this, roughly, is how it appears
to these: These good men have exposed them-
selves to the chance of hardship for the sake of their
scruples, whilst you, being of a stronger stomach,
continued to enjoy the security of national endow-
ments. Some of you occupy the very livings which
they resigned for conscience' sake. To others pre-
ferment has fallen which would have fallen to them
had they been still eligible. If, then, any of them
are now content to return, you are bound, if not in
justice, then in honour, to do all that you can to
testify your respect for brave conviction, and to repair
to them such losses as they may have suffered,
whether for their first secession or their second.
You owe a special duty, not only to the courage
that left the Church, but to the wisdom and modera-
tion that now returns to it. And your sense of
this duty will find a vent not only in word but in
action. You will facilitate their return not only by
considerate and brotherly language, but by pecuniary
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