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-11-
During that particular period of time, I had done everything I could to
slow things down, hoping that Mr. Armstrong this time was not right,
hoping that what he had predicted was happening and would continue to
happen would in fact not happen. And during that period of time, in
person, and in writing on more than one occasion, I had defended Mr.
Cole to the point that I had to come to harsh words with Mr. Armstrong.
I defended Dr. Kuhn as recently as 6 v.eeks ago when he ordered me to
fire him that moment, and I resisted and he told me that he thought that
I had forgotten that he was Christ's apostle. He had given me an order
and I said, "Mr. Armstrong, let me give him another chance." He said,
"You are making another mistake. I am telling you to fire him."
Now
this was after four days of argument by telephone and by an exchange of
letters between me and Mr. Armstrong over Dr. Kuhn, with Mr. Armstrong
telling me to fire him and my trying to defend him. And Mr. Armstrong
telling me, "I am telling you again Stan, you are �rong." Why I did
it, I don't know, but I thought maybe he /Dr. Kuhn/ was entitled to
another chance. But Mr. Armstrong, obviously, once again knew better.
��e man standing on my left /Dr. Meredith/ will tell you that there is
never any question about where I stand. -I had heard (I still do not
know whether it is true and I do not care) but I had heard from another
man in the ministry whom I had learned to respect and whom I had learned
to admire, and whom I had spent a considerable period of time with in
Mr. Armstrong's company during the past two years--I had been informed
that Mr. Meredith had slandered me; and I was in New York, and I guess
I had had a hard day. And I did not want to make believe that I was
someone other than myself, so I picked up the telephone. I tried to
get Mr. Meredith, and I could not get him. He called me back and I
blew my top, really. He can tell you that. The next day I blew my
top even more, but Mr. Meredith said he did not remember saying what
he said. If he said it, he apologized. I said, "Fine. I accept the
apology." I called Mr. Armstrong. I said, "No problem. I do not care
whether he said it and I will never be able to prove whether he did or
he did not. It does not make any difference, does it?" But I got it
off my chest. And I had apologized. And when it was all through, I
felt worse having lost my cool, as they say, because I really was pretty
angry. I think more angry the second day than the first day.
Then Mr. Cole sometime ago, right after the Feast of Tabernacles, called
a ministerial meeting. I did not know why exactly. I checked around
a little bit, and he said he had heard some reports about certain ministers
making comments during the Feast that were divisive, and I sat in that
meeting and I said, "Every man in this room, I have had occasion to
defend on more than one occasion where efforts have been made to discre
dit them in Mr. Armstrong's eyes, and that I was serving notice on all
of them that I do not care who it was if someone went to Mr. Armstrong
ex parte and tried to discredit that person in his eyes, I at least was
going to throw up a resistance that would allow that person to get a
chance to get to Mr. Armstrong. You remember my saying that Mr. Meredith?
And there was a lot going on that day. There was quite a dialog. You
could see people with different points of view, basically on doctrine
and church government. And that is all this is about. If this Church
does not have government, and does not have a unity on doctrine, then
it is not God's Church, but I was not getting involved in that. I was
just serving warning on everybody that if they expected to blow some-
body out of the saddle, with Mr. Armstrong ex parte, I did not care