Thirty Years in the Itinerancy

by W. G. Miller

Rev. J.C. Robbins was appointed this year to the Spring Street Station. Brother Robbins entered the North Indiana Conference in 1844. His appointments were Winchester, Plymouth, Clinton, Hagerstown, Williamsburg, Knightstown, Doublin and Lewisville. He was transferred to the Wisconsin Conference in 1855, and stationed at North Ward, Fond du Lac. His subsequent appointments were Waupun, Berlin and Empire. The year opened finely, and during the winter Brother Robbins held a protracted meeting, which resulted in the conversion of many souls. But the Society met with a severe loss this year, in the destruction of their Church by fire.

Brother Robbins remained a second year at Spring Street, and again enjoyed a good revival. After leaving the city, he has been stationed at Racine, Waukesha, Sheboygan Falls, Waupun, Berlin, Green Bay, Hart Prairie, Sharon and Footville. At the present writing, he is at the last named place, seeking to gather sheaves for the Master.

This year intense excitement prevailed throughout the country. The Presidential election, which placed Abraham Lincoln at the head of our national affairs, occurred in November. And during the following months, the rebellion was taking form in the Southern States, but did not culminate in open rupture until the middle of April. But before stating the position of the Conference and Church in the pending struggle, it will be proper to refer to the causes which produced the conflict.

In the settlement of the United States, two distinct types of society planted themselves in the two great centres of the Atlantic Coast. The one made New England the theater of development, and the other the Eastern cordon of the Southern States. From the first center, the population moved westward through New York, Pennsylvania, and the Prairie States, to the Mississippi. From the other, the settlements extended through the savannahs of the South to the Gulf.

The emigrants in the North were mainly those who came to the Western world to find an asylum from the religious persecutions to which they had been subjected at home. In the South, society was largely established under the sanctions of royalty. These two facts will account for the radical differences existing between the people of the two sections. In the North, society very naturally accepted the political doctrines of personal equality and universal freedom. In the South, the people as naturally adhered to their aristocratic ideas, and held to the doctrine of privileged classes.

The two types of society, thus placed side by side, were now given an open field, in which the contest for supremacy could not long be delayed. In geographical position, it would seem that the advantage was decidedly with the South. And the same may be said of the patronage bestowed by the home governments. But notwithstanding the high mountain ranges, the deep forests, and the sterile coasts of New England, her people cut their way through every obstacle, and soon stood face to face with their aristocratic neighbors. A collision of ideas was now inevitable. The South, quick to discover the unheralded force of Yankee character, took the alarm and declared that "Mason and Dixon's line" should divide between her and her neighbor. Here was deposited the first egg in the nest, from which has been hatched the terrible brood of vipers which, under the name of "State Rights," has involved the country in a most desolating war. It was on this line that Calhoun planted his standard when he sought to inflame the South against the North. And it was on this fatal line that his followers, thirty years after, sought to overturn the decisions of the ballot-box, and establish a Southern Confederacy. With what result, the record of the conflict affords an answer.

On the 13th of April, 1861, the rebels opened fire on Fort Sumter, and on the 14th Major Anderson and his brave men were compelled to surrender their stronghold. As the news of this attack and surrender swept along the telegraphic wires throughout the North, a most intense patriotism awoke in the heart of every loyal citizen. The people assembled on the corners of the streets, in halls, in places of business, and in short, at every convenient place of resort, to discuss the situation, and feed the flames of patriotism. Everywhere men and money were offered to support the government, without stint. The press teemed with burning words, and the pulpit was outspoken in characterizing the rebellion and vindicating the government.

The writer was in Milwaukee when the news of the surrender of Fort Sumter reached the city. On Sabbath, April 21st, I preached a sermon, from which the following extract is taken. I quote from Rev. Mr. Love's "History of Wisconsin in the War."

"But, Ladies and Gentlemen, the war is inevitable. Its coming may be hastened or retarded by the shaping of events during the next thirty days, but that war is upon us, and a civil war, of a most frightful character and most alarming proportions, is to my mind no longer a question. You can no more prevent it than you can stay the leaping floods of Niagara, or quench the king of day in the palm of your hand. It is the legitimate offspring of an 'irrepressible conflict' of ideas as antagonistic as light and darkness, as diametrically opposed to each other as right and wrong, truth and error. The Bible declaration, that God hath made of one blood all the nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, so beautifully set forth in our Declaration of Independence, and teaching the great lesson of universal equality and universal freedom, forms the corner-stone of our institutions. But a plague spot is found in the opposing doctrine of caste and privileged classes, which finds illustration in American slavery. This war of principles has already culminated in a collision at Fort Sumter, and it would be contrary to all history to arrest the tide of war at this stage. The antagonism is too direct, and the conflict too heated to quench the flame till rivers of blood shall pass over it. The act of the South in firing on Sumter is none other than a rebellion, and that of the most inexcusable and wicked character, against the best government on earth; and I am free to confess that I am filled with horror when I contemplate the result of this suicidal act on their part, an act that must lead to years of war, as far as human ken can see, and the most fearful desolations in its train. But, gentlemen, there is no alternative. The glove is thrown to us, and we must accept it. If our principles are right, and we believe they are, we would be unworthy of our noble paternity if we were to shrink from the issue. Let there, then, be no shrinking from the contest. The battle is for human liberty, and it were better that every man should go down, and every dollar be sacrificed, than that we should transmit to the coming millions of this land other than a legacy of freedom. Were it not that good men have gone down into the dust and smoke of the battle, there would not be to-day a government on the face of the globe under which a good man could well live. And since God in his Providence has brought us to this hour, I trust that by his help we shall not prove unworthy of the trust--the noblest ever given to man--committed to our keeping. There can be no question as to the result. We shall triumph, and with the triumph we shall win a glorious national destiny."

The next Conference session was held in Fond du Lac Sept. 18, 1861, Bishop Baker presiding. The session was one of unusual excitement. The war had been begun, the terrible Bull Run defeat had occurred, and already seven regiments of our brave boys had gone to the front. And with the seventh, one of our own members, Rev. S.L. Brown, had gone as Chaplain, while several others were either in the ranks or looking in the same direction. In the matter of furnishing men, Wisconsin was already ahead of the call made upon her, but such was the devotion of her people to the Old Flag, that ten other regiments could have been sent during the year.