Church in Potosi.
The worthy Presiding Elder of the Potosi District, St. Louis Conference M. E. Church, South, makes the following statement of the attempt to seize and hold the church in Potosi. It furnishes at least an illustration of the fertility of resources possessed by these church seizers, to use a soft term, and the facility with which they could take advantage of circumstances.
“Mississippi County, Feb. 6, 1867.
“Bro. M‘Anally: I send you, for the benefit of your correspondent—a member of the Missouri Conference—some statements of an attempt of ‘our brethren, the enemy,’ to take, hold and possess our church in Potosi.
“Some time during the year 1865 a Mr. or Major Miller came to Potosi and reported himself a minister of the ‘Old Wesleyan Methodist Church;’ that he was neither North nor South, but belonged to the good old Mother Church.
“As our people had no pastor, they permitted him to preach in our church, and attended his ministry. He made an earnest effort to proselyte our members, but failed. Rumor said he intended to take possession of our church, but he denied it.
“Early in 1866 Mr. Sorin, his Presiding Elder, announced publicly from the pulpit on the Sabbath that the house belonged to them, and henceforth they intended to hold and possess the same.
“That week Bro. Wallace, one of the trustees of the church, who had been a member for two score years, locked the door, took possession of the key and notified Mr. Miller that he could not preach there any more.
“Mr. Miller then notified Bro. Wallace that he would bring suit for the church. Bro. Wallace assured him that when the law gave him the house he would give him the key.
“In the meantime the Radicals of the town rented a hall for Mr. Miller, in which they put an organ to help him make music.
“I held a quarterly meeting in Potosi in January, 1867, and while there I learned that the Rev. Major had sold his friends’ organ, pocketed the money and gone on a long journey toward the north pole. So Madam Rumor reports.
“Our people are in quiet possession of our church house, have an excellent Sabbath school, an organ to help the children sing, a very gratifying increase in the membership of the Church, and no fears of being disturbed by Messrs. Sorin, Miller and company, unless they do as their confederates did on Castor—burn the church.
“Several of our church houses at other points have been quietly occupied by them, but I believe they have run their race and are not likely to trouble us much more.
W. S. Woodard.”
This case, as it exists in the above statement, ought to be sufficient for all the purposes of history.
In Plattsburg, Clinton county, they purchased an old debt and in that way obtained a kind of title to half the church. They also purchased an old debt and got a title to the Plattsburg High School property, and retain it to this day.
The property of the Southern Methodists in nearly every part of the State suffered one way or another, and many houses of worship were seized and used by the Northern Methodists that were not reported in the public prints, adjudicated in the civil courts or published in their Conference statistics.
Amongst the latter may be mentioned the churches at Plattsburg, Macon City, Fillmore, and a church at Glasgow, built and owned by the Southern Methodists for the use of the colored people. They purchased the other half of the Plattsburg church, gave up the Fillmore church after using it about five years, and never gave up the churches at Macon City and Glasgow.
In the presence of these facts the statement so often made from the pulpit and through the press, that the ministers and members of the M. E. Church never at any time engaged in seizing and appropriating to their use the property of the M. E. Church, South, sounds very strangely in the ears of candid, honest people. They evidently did not foresee the necessity for such a denial, and consequently were not very careful to cover up their tracks. They so far gloried in the history they were making as to report the property they had seized and appropriated in their Church statistics, which they published to the world.
The following list of property is taken from the published Statistics of the Missouri and Arkansas Conference M. E. Church for 1865–6, and which disappeared as fast as the suits were decided or the cases compromised:
| Independence church | $17,000 |
| Independence parsonage | 3,000 |
| Lagrange church | 12,000 |
| Springfield church | 12,000 |
| Springfield parsonage (not reported) | 3,000 |
| Boonville church | 10,000 |
| Plattsburg church | 5,000 |
| Fillmore church | 500 |
| Louisiana church | 5,000 |
| Glasgow colored church | 3,000 |
| Macon church | 2,500 |
| Total | $73,000 |
To this may be added the churches seized and held by them for a short time only, and given up before they could be reported to the Conference, the property obtained for “less than half its value,” by buying up old debts and forcing sales, where that course was necessary, and the furniture and fixtures destroyed and damaged in the use and abuse of the property held by them for so long, and which was assessed upon the lawful owners in the claims of restored decency and comfort, and the grand total would reach over $100,000, to say nothing of rentals, costs of suits, the damage of deprivation, etc.
In the face of all these facts, it must require no ordinary degree of moral courage for men in high position to affirm that the ministers and members of the M. E. Church never stole, seized, pressed, appropriated or possessed themselves of property that did not belong to them. Only the moral abrasion of civil war could produce the requisite “hard cheek.”
The civil war has passed away. Missouri is no longer ruled by shoulder straps and bayonets—the civil law is supreme—and even by judges who “neither fear God nor regard man,” except of their own party, the M. E. Church, South, has been reinstated and secured in her property rights.
Those who figured conspicuously in this church-seizing business often and loudly proclaimed that they were “making history.” True, they made history, and now they should not complain if they stand before the world in the light of the history they have made.
If they could afford to make the history and then boast of it, we can certainly afford to record it, especially when it is a record of the martyrdom of those sacred Christian principles for which a discriminating, righteous charity has no mantle.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHURCH SEIZURES CONTINUED AND MADE GENERAL.
War Claims of Northern Methodists Settled by Ecclesiastical Black-Mail—Military Mitres and Episcopal Shoulder-Straps—The Difference—The “Stanton-Ames Order”—“The Great Episcopal Raid”—“Special Order, No. 15,” from Major-General Banks—Official Board of Carondelet Street Church, New Orleans, and Bishop Ames—Episcopal Power then and Ecclesiastical Criticism now—Popular Verdict—Abandoned (?) and Embarrassed Churches and Ecclesiastical “Bummers”—Church Extension in the South—Letters and Extracts—Bishop Clark and “Church Extension Meetings”—Does the End Justify the Means, or Success Satisfy the Demands of Modern Ethics?—Property Acquired by the M. E. Church in the South in a few Years—Four Hundred and Eight Churches, Eighteen Parsonages and Eight Literary Institutions in two Years, worth $446,659.00, all in Five Conferences—Opinions of their Leading Men and Journals—Hon. John Hogan, of St. Louis, Scuttles the Episcopal Ram—Order from the War Department, with President Lincoln’s Endorsement—Possible Deception—Rev. Dr. Keener, of New Orleans, Sues for the Churches of Louisiana four Months—McKendree Church, Nashville, Vacated, “by Order from Bishop Simpson”—Memorial of the Holston Conference M. E. Church, South, to the Chicago General Conference, and How it was Treated—Action of Chicago General Conference—“Stanton-Ames Order” Duplicated for the Baptists—Conclusion—Sensible Warning from the St. Louis Anzeiger.
Both the purpose and plan for the seizure and appropriation of the property of the M. E. Church, South, contemplated a much wider range of territory than the State of Missouri. The M. E. Church, North, had done too much to put down rebellion; had entered too heartily into the struggle, sent too many men to the front, put too many orators on the stump, offered too many prayers from her pulpits and altars for the success of the Union armies and the destruction of all rebels, and had supplied too liberally the moral and material sinews of war, to lose a golden opportunity. The M. E. Church, South, had many fine churches, with costly furniture and garniture, in the chief cities of the South; and were they not rebels—all rebels? What rights have rebels that loyal men are bound to respect? Were not Southern Methodists traitors above all others? The Federal Government, as represented in Generals Grant, Sherman, Butler and Banks, could confiscate, seize and appropriate the property of chief rebels in the South, and especially that which had been, or could be, used in the interest of treason or rebellion; and why could not the Federal Government, as represented in Bishops Simpson, Ames, Clark, Kingsley and the great body of the M. E. Church, confiscate, seize and appropriate the church property that had been, or could be, used in the interest of treason and rebellion? Rebel chaplains might preach in them, rebel soldiers might be quartered in them, rebel hospitals might be made of them, and in them the great rebellion might receive moral support. What reward for loyalty had been specially set apart for the M. E. Church? What the price of her prayers, her sermons, her money, her men? Another, and that the smallest Protestant Church in the land, had the best army and navy chaplains—had the lion’s share of appointments. Did not the M. E. Church, South, inaugurate rebellion in 1844? And when the force of the Southern Church is broken by the military arm—when her great centres are broken up and her property confiscated or destroyed, and loyal men preach a loyal gospel from her pulpits, and teach loyalty in her halls and institutions of learning, then may it be hoped that the moral and political heresy will be exterminated with the heretics. Make the M. E. Church a part of the military arm of the Government; invest the Bishops with ecclesiastico-military authority; supply them with transportation, supplies and military escorts; make Department Commanders subject unto them, and if the great rebellion is not put down, the great national Church will be put up, and the property of traitors will be converted to loyal uses. The centres of population and power in the South will be put under loyal training and discipline, and a moral result will be reached which “military necessity” demands. All moral questions down in the presence of a war measure so manifestly right and proper. Military necessity has no conscience in the presence of a gigantic rebellion. What religious difference between a military and an ecclesiastical raid upon the property of rebels? Will the Government and the Church ever quarrel over the spoils of conquest, whether gained by an Episcopal General or a Military Bishop? Episcopal shoulder-straps and military mitres may well lose their distinction in a common cause against a common enemy.
The appropriateness and force of these reflections will appear in the following well authenticated facts.
What has been called, by way of distinction, the “Great Episcopal Raid,” had its announcement and authority in the following order, issued from the War Department of the Federal Government, and known as the