Parkdale Methodist Church of Toronto on January 8 of that year. The speech was a fiery and impassioned call for people to seek Truth for themselves. It was critical of church policy and praised independent thought and inquiry. It equated Truth with God and said it was all good Christians' duty to seek out truth, even if the Truth conflicts with official dogma. Austin also criticized the churchmen of his time for being too closed-minded in their view of new theories, such as Spiritualism. (Many excerpts from this sermon are available on wikiquote) The Methodist hierarchy was not pleased, and asked Austin to withdraw his comments. He refused. The Rev. A. H. Goring of Port Stanley argued that the sermon constituted heresy on four counts It denied the doctrine of eternal punishment It questioned the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth It denied that Jesus was God's last revelation to man It upheld a fraudulent system of spiritualism Austin said that he was unable to attend a trial, and he submitted a written defence. In his defence he denied the first 3 charges categorically and defended his comments on spiritualism to be relating only to "a true spiritualism". He took particular affront to the third charge, writing that; It was also alleged that Austin had attended a séance with a clairvoyant in Detroit. Austin made no attempt to deny this. He was found guilty of the later three charges, but appealed the decision to the Methodist annual convention, held that year in June in Windsor, Ontario. At the conference it was widely believed that Austin's reputation alone would acquit him if he distanced himself from his earlier comments and did not make a speech or any sort of commotion. Ignoring this, Austin decided to speak in support of his earlier comments. He gave a rousing defence of the sermon for three and a half hours. He implored the churchmen he had earlier denounced as closed to new thoughts to recognise the validity of many new beliefs. The age was, "a period of transitions. Old interpretations of the scripture are giving way to new ones. Old conceptions of the method of creation are no longer popular" Rather than surrendering to a "rush" towards atheism and agnosticism Austin wanted the church to slightly modify its interpretation of the scriptures so as to be more modern. He reminded his audience that this would not