While sitting at the breakfast-table, at a boarding-house in St. Louis, on the morning of the 14th of April, 1861, it was announced through the morning paper, that the South Carolinians had fired on Fort Sumter. I remarked, “The rebels will rue that traitorous deed.” The landlady took fire, and with eyes darting vengeance, said, “We are Southrons.” “If you are Southrons you need not be rebels.” The whole city was wild with excitement. Americans had fired on their own flag, civil war was inaugurated; but how far it would extend, and what would be the result, were problems the wisest could not solve. Would the whole land be desolated? Would treason, with fire and sword, march through the length and breadth of the country, scattering death and destruction, where peace, harmony and happiness had so long prevailed? Was the sun of the Great Republic about to set, and set in blood, fire and desolation? Was our glorious Union about to be rent asunder by profane hands? Where would the division end? Would it be torn in two, twenty, or thirty parts? No wonder loyal men and women were excited and alarmed.
A day or two after the announcement of that insane act of South Carolina, I heard a man on Fourth street read a private dispatch he had just received from Senator Douglas at Washington, “Tell my friends they must sustain the government.” It made my heart leap for joy, and I exclaimed to a by-stander, “God bless Douglas.” “God d—— him,” said an enraged “Southron.” In a few days more, President Lincoln’s call for volunteers was published; and then the drum began to beat; and the farmers, mechanics, merchants, doctors, lawyers, preachers, all over the land, left their homes and enrolled themselves, “Defenders of our Country.” And many a prayer went up to heaven for their protection and success. When General Lyon, a few weeks after, marched five thousand loyal soldiers through the city and captured “Camp Jackson,” the union portion of the population were delighted, but the rebels were dismayed. For weeks a rebel flag had been hanging over a building on the corner of Pine and Fifth streets, the head-quarters of treason, and several leading papers in the city working to get Missouri out of the Union. These treason plotters, north and south, east and west, had great expectations. One of them said to me,
“We shall succeed. The South will sustain itself. The North will not fight. And having the mouth of the Mississippi river, the South will compel the Western States to join them; we shall have a strong and magnificent government, and the Eastern States may go to destruction for ought we care.”
I replied: “Three or four years of war will open your eyes, if you shall have any then to open, with regard to the North and the South. Do not delude yourself with the fancy, that the northern people will not fight for the right; you will find that they will fight, and as men hardly ever before did fight. It is true they greatly prefer the arts of peace; but when their country is in danger, the country for which their fathers bled and died, you will find that the spirit of ’76 is not degenerated. You do not know what you are about; you are insane. You are disturbing a lion, and by and by he will spring to his feet and crush you to death.”
But after the Camp Jackson affair, and the citizens were taught by several bloody lessons, to let the soldiers pass through the streets undisturbed, we had peace and safety in St. Louis. The rebel element was strong, but it was harmless amid a preponderance of loyalty, supported by an army of the “boys in blue.” But in Missouri, outside of St. Louis, with the exception of here and there a place where soldiers were stationed, there was but little peace, or safety.
I had nearly three thousand subscribers in Missouri, and the Southern States, when the war commenced, and I lost all the Southern, and nearly all the Missouri subscribers, by the mails being discontinued, and by the general confusion that reigned. My loss was, at least, five thousand dollars. Three religious periodicals—Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian—were discontinued at the beginning of the strife. The former was suppressed by General Lyon, for its treasonable utterances. The Magazine and the Central Christian Advocate, were the only religious journals that survived the outbreak. The Magazine was pretty badly crippled, and but for the aid it received from the loyal states, it would have succumbed.
I traveled and preached but little in Missouri during the war. Most of the men were in the army, north or south; some left the state, and the few who remained did not think much about religion. The society in St. Louis went to the shades. Mr. Weaver left the year before the war, and located in Lawrence, Mass., where he has been remarkably successful. He is a noble man, and an excellent pastor and preacher. Before a successor to him could be obtained, the war broke out, and that killed the society. Our cause was always feeble in St. Louis. The Unitarian society was old, numerous, well established, and rich; but instead of aiding us by its sympathy and co-operation, it stood off as cold as an iceberg. I hear much of the love Unitarians bear for us, but have never seen much evidence of their love. They doubtless would like to have Unitarians and Universalists unite, but it must be like the marriage of man and woman, according to Blackstone, the twain must be one, and that one, Unitarian. We are fine fellows if we will allow ourselves to be swallowed, head and heels, without kicking.
About this time, I published a pamphlet entitled “Seventy-two Reasons why Salvation is not by Water Baptism.” The Reformers, or Campbellites, a numerous and growing sect in the West and South, contend, as is well known, that immersion in water is a condition of salvation. This pamphlet is designed to refute that strange notion. The following is the twenty-eighth “Reason”:
“Then said Peter unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Acts ii. 38.
If “baptized” here refers to water baptism, it is the only place in the New Testament where it is connected with “remission of sin.” And shall all that Christ and his apostles have said about sin being removed by grace, hope, faith, repentance, be set aside, because in one instance baptism and remission of sins are mentioned in connection with each other? But even in this passage Peter tells his hearers to repent “for the remission of sins,” and there is common sense in that exhortation. Repentance means to reform, to cease doing evil and learn to do well, and when that is done, of course, our sins are remitted. If a drunkard repents, reforms, the sin of intemperance is remitted, and so of all other sins—when we abandon them, they abandon us. If we resist the devil he will flee from us. That is what forgiveness, pardon, and remission of sin means. And that is what Peter means in the above words, as is evident from his address to the people in Acts iii. 19. “Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.” Here baptism is left out, clearly showing that the author, in the other place, did not mean that water puts away sin. The same is taught by Jesus. “And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” Luke xxiv. 47. Nothing about water. The apostle Paul teaches the same truth. “Whom God hath sent forth to be a propitiation through FAITH in his blood, to declare his righteousness, for the REMISSION OF SINS.” Rom. iii. 25. Here again baptism has no credit for remitting sin; it is done through faith. Again this apostle says, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them: and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where REMISSION of these is, there is no more offering for sin.” Heb. x. 16, 17, 18. Of course, when the law of God reigns supreme in men’s hearts, their sins are remitted, whether they have been baptized or not. It is the law of love that banishes sin, not water baptism. It is evident from the above testimony, that water baptism has nothing to do in putting away sin, and that the Reformers have departed far from the truth in their notions about the saving influence of water baptism.