We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

CHAPTER VI
DURING THE WAR.

The Abolition Church! If there was any one denomination of Christians in this country, north of Mason and Dixon’s Line, that was anathematized beyond another, declared by many in the South one of the most forward instigators and abettors of the late Civil War, it was the “Northern” or “Abolition Methodist Church,” as they called our Church. Well do I remember the “yarns” told by the soldiers of General Sterling Price’s army on a preacher they captured from the Union soldiers in Missouri. The preacher was a noble specimen, and looked more like a Norman king than any of those about him. This minister of the Lord Jesus was terribly abused by his captors. Not so much, as they said, because he was a Union soldier—that was bad enough—but he belonged to the “Northern” or “Abolition Methodist Church.” “The Methodist Episcopal Church, South”—or as it is, and was, better known as “The Southern Methodist Episcopal Church”—is a relative term or name. It was natural, therefore, for the Southern Confederacy to adopt it, and grant it a kind of supremacy above every other denomination. Did it not lead the secession movement in favor of slavery? It is no stretch of imagination to say some people united with it for that very reason. It was to have been expected that the two Churches, wherever they met, would sustain the same relations that the Jews and Samaritans used to sustain to each other. It was impossible to expect anything less than bitter opposition to the “Northern Church.” There was a time in the South when he who spoke favorably of our Church was not only suspected as a “lover of niggers,” but one to be “let alone,” for all intents and purposes, as a traitor. That times have changed but very little in the South along these lines, but few doubt.

If there never comes another time and cause when the Methodist Episcopal Church will interest herself in the politics of this country, no sane person will deny the fact that she was so interested when the question of the abolition of human slavery was being discussed, and while the Civil War was being waged. If there has never been a time when “the two branches of Methodism” hung on exactly opposite sides of the parent tree with about equal weight since the secession of 1844 until the Civil War began, they occupied the above-named attitude during the bloody scenes of those four years. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as such, supported the Confederacy, while the Methodist Episcopal Church supported the Union. And now if the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, closed her doors that the pastor might lead his official lay members into the war—praying, preaching, singing, and fighting every day of the week and Sunday, too—the Methodist Episcopal Church did as much to counteract this. The evidence of this is found in the fact that for upwards of twenty years—ever since the secession of 1844 to 1864—the Methodist Episcopal Church had been practically excluded from the South, and only ventured to plant outposts along the border States, where she found admittance by some compromises to the conservative element that came to her there. Not only so, but President Lincoln declared it “no fault of other denominations that the Methodist Episcopal Church furnished more money and men to suppress the Rebellion.” As a rule our bishops and ministers and membership, wherever they went, preached, lectured, exhorted, and prayed for the overthrow of the terrible slavery that bound hand and foot four and a half million human beings in a bondage more terrible than that of Pharaoh and more demoralizing than that of the Russian empire. It was said of one of our bishops: “Throughout the late war Bishop Simpson did much to strengthen the hands of President Lincoln, and to nerve the spirit of the nation to endure any sacrifice for the cause of the Union.”

The class of men elected to General Conference positions at the General Conference of 1860, showed unmistakably the attitude of our Church toward slavery and the war. Her standing rule that “non-slaveholding” henceforth was to be one of the conditions of membership in the Church, the periodicals of the Church being put in the hands of anti-slavery editors were straws in the wind. Everybody knows that Dr. Daniel Wise was considered “an offensive partisan” on the question of slavery. Dr. Whedon, who was barely elected at the General Conference of 1856 because of his radicalism, was at this General Conference (1860) unanimously re-elected editor of our Quarterly Review. When that General Conference adjourned it was plainly to be seen that our Church had put on ecclesiastical war-paint, and was therefore prepared to push the battle of human freedom to the gate. If any one doubts this, proof is forthcoming in the fact that, the conservative element in our Church seeing the status of affairs, a newspaper, known as The Methodist, was established by them in New York City. The following March, when the Baltimore Annual Conference met, it resolved, by a unanimous vote, that it was “determined not to hold connection with any ecclesiastical body that makes non-slaveholding a condition of membership in the Church.” Indeed, so high did opposition to the position the Church had taken on slavery rise, that another secession, similar to that of 1844, came near taking place. When Rev. Mr. Hedrick was presented by the Baltimore Conference for ordination to Bishop Scott, he publicly excepted the new chapter on slavery. Bishop Scott then arose and said: “I regard myself restrained from ordaining any one who declines to take upon him the ordination vows without qualification or exception. Hence, I can not ordain Mr. Hedrick.” This caused considerable commotion, but the bishop stood like the rock of Gibraltar. “There were giants in those days” all about him, whose reputation for wisdom and influence was enviable. The lay conference was in session at the same time in the city. When they were informed of the refusal of Bishop Scott to ordain Mr. Hedrick, and the reasons given, they took action declaring a disposition to ignore the entire subject of slavery in the Discipline. When it is remembered what class of people our Methodism claims in the State of Maryland; their means, influence, and their disposition to lead matters, since it (Baltimore) may be considered one of the principal cradles of Methodism, and has all along been in the van of Methodist movements; that some of the most influential, eloquent, and popular men in the Methodist Episcopal Church “were born in her,” it adds intensity and alarm to the situation. But Bishop Scott, like most of our bishops, knew the heart of the Church; knew that he was in full accord with the Church on the question of slavery, and therefore the Lord was on his side, and stood like Martin Luther before the Diet at Worms, trusting in God. When such an expression of opinion on the question of slavery was given by “the sinews of war”—the laymen—it was an inspiration to the clerical brethren of the Baltimore Annual Conference. The soul of Bishop Scott was severely taxed, the Methodist Episcopal Church was disturbed, while the very air seemed laden with dust from the recent conflict, and more especially when the Baltimore Annual Conference responded to the expression of opinion given by the lay conference, by declaring in open conference: “If three-fourths of all the annual conferences will, within the year 1861, agree with us, we agree with the action of the laymen and the Baltimore Conference, and will not reunite with them in Church fellowship.” When this was presented to the conference, Bishop Scott announced that he could not entertain a motion contemplating a division of the Church. He permitted the secretary, Rev. J. S. Martin, to put the question. But when the bishop came to the chair he ordered the following paper spread upon the journal:

“The whole action just had on what is called the ‘Norval Wilson propositions’ is, in my judgment, in violation of the order and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and therefore is null and void, regarded as conference action. I, therefore, do not recognize such action as infracting the integrity of this body, and so I shall proceed to finish the business of the present session.

“Levi Scott.”

The East Baltimore Conference was also on the eve of seceding, while the Philadelphia Conference signified its willingness, by a vote of 174 to 35, to have the Rule on Slavery changed. These facts were enough in themselves to cause the South to look askant at the Methodist Episcopal Church, and probably caused the Church to be nicknamed “the Abolition Church.”

By this time the rumors of war had reached a climax. We find a proper description in the language of the historian Ridpath, who, in speaking of the capture of Fort Sumter by the rebels, says: