The charge of publicly reviling the prophet

In regard to the actual responsibility for the disturbance which arose, and especially with respect to the charge of publicly reviling the prophet, Dr. Goodell wrote at the time to one of his brethren in Turkey: —

“ The American missionaries have not changed their policy, but it ought to be known that other missionaries have come in, who from the first have pursued a very different policy. The Rev. Dr. Pfander, of the Church Missionary Society, a very worthy and excellent man, came and opened his batteries against Islamism. We earnestly advised him not to publish those books; we entreated him not to do it; we solemnly protested against Ms doing it. But tiles good brother having what the great Dr. Edwards attempted to prove nobody can have, viz., a self-determining power of the will, went on and did it; and the effect has been to bring all our missionary and Bible operations into great danger, — the very thing of which we had repeatedly warned him.

“Then there is a Mr. O’Flaherty, an Irishman, who, from being a sergeant in the Crimean war, felt called upon at the close of it to convert all the Mussulmans for whom he had fought so bravely. Some good people in England furnished the funds, and requested us to direct his labors. This we soon found to be impracticable, and we wrote, saying we could no longer assume any responsibility in regard to him. He was then shifted over to some English or Scotch society, and has continued his responsible or irresponsible labors to the present time, holding lectures or meetings up and down the Bosphorus, at all suitable or unsuitable places, talking long and loud, on steamboats or elsewhere, with any one who would ask or answer a question or give him a hearing, and, it may be (though I know not if there be any proof), saying hard things against the Koran and the prophet. Perhaps it will appear at last that he and Dr. Pfander have done more good than any of us; but even this will be no evidence that they acted with Christian prudence and discretion; for the Lord in Ilis wisdom and great mercy sometimes makes use of our imprudences and our indiscretions. But we greatly need here at the present time for British ambassador a man like Lord Kedcliffe, whose moral worth and weight of character would be felt, whose sympathies would be with the Bible and not with the Koran, with Christianity and not with Islamism, and who would represent the English and not the Turkish government.”