Elder Carter then arose and said that he was willing to acknowledge his faults, and that he lacked wisdom. He went on to explain how he had erred, and why--being seized with the cholera while at the east, he called upon God for deliverance, and finally received the Spirit of God which healed him, and he then thought it was the same spirit which he had when preaching in Kirtland. When he was through, President Oliver Cowdery arose, and said that Presidents Rigdon and Phelps had requested him to speak, and they would say nothing as it was getting late, and the case was already plain before the Court. He showed that a man might be highly excited and yet neither have the Spirit of God nor the spirit of Satan; but it came by his own spirit and judgment; therefore some things may be of God, others of men, and others from the adversary; and Elder Carter had in his sermon some of the Spirit of God, but in his last remarks he had it not, but his own spirit of justification and pride, commanding in the name of Jesus, and not by the spirit of Jesus or of meekness, and was very wrong in this thing, also in exalting the committee above the brethren, as if they might not be touched by the brethren; and again, when Elder Carter was healed, it came in answer to his earnest prayer before God; but his impressions about being made an example to the Church were not an answer to prayer, and might be wrong. {280} President Frederick G. Williams gave his decision, that Brother Carter did err with his lips in speaking, and also erred in understanding the Presidents who labored with him for it, and misinterpreted their admonitions, which led him into what followed, and finally has brought him before this Council. President David Whitmer said, that according to the testimony it is plain that Elder Carter has lacked in humility, and also in confidence in his brethren, and erred as expressed by President Williams.