It is a singular fact that the ministers of the M. E. Church, North, were conspicuous from first to last in the persecutions of the ministers of the M. E. Church, South; and, indeed, all other ministers who were under the ban of the Federal authorities. There was not only a bold scheme devised by Bishops Simpson and Ames to possess themselves of the property of the M. E. Church, South, through military authority, as the rightful booty of Northern Methodist conquest, but every minister and member who had position and power in the army, or who could evoke the military power, seemed to consider themselves specially commissioned to seize the property and exterminate the very existence of Southern Methodism.
CHAPTER XVI.
REVS. W. CLEAVELAND AND JESSE BIRD.
Ministers of other Churches in the Fellowship of Suffering and on the Rolls of Martyrdom—Rev. Wm. Cleaveland Arrested for Preaching in a Rebel Camp—Imprisoned and Insulted—Made to Pray for Mr. Lincoln on a Loyal Cannon—Rev. Captain Cox, a Northern Methodist Preacher, his Persecutor—Other Indignities—Indicted, Arrested and Arraigned as a Common Felon for Preaching without taking the “Test Oath”—Rev. Jesse Bird Arrested, Silenced and Banished—Losses, Exposure and Hardships of his Family—Returns—Arrested and put in Jail for Preaching without taking the “Test Oath”—Public Indignation—The Most Virulent Persecutors Subsequently Elevated to the Highest Civil Offices.
The ministers of the M. E. Church, South, were not the only sufferers. Persecution may sometimes be exclusive and exceptional, but oftener it is indiscriminate. The class of persons marked, or “spotted,” for proscription and persecution was not confined to any one Church. Religious creeds were not so much involved as sectarian domination and sectional hatred. To exterminate, or expel from the State, that class of men who had not received their tone and type from New England, or had not fallen in heartily with the loyal religion and the religious loyalty, seemed to be a settled purpose.
It will be conceded that the ministers of the Methodist Church, South, were the greater sufferers, for reasons heretofore given; but to deny others who sacrificed and suffered nobly in the same cause a conspicuous place in the history of those stirring times would be both ungenerous and unjust. Many of the noblest martyrs of this period were connected with other Churches, and heroically and grandly sustained the moral heroism of the Missouri ministry. Common sufferings have sanctified the common fellowship and softened the asperities of sectarian feeling. It has measurably fused the religious heart and diffused the religious charity. Such men as Cleaveland, Duval, McPheeters, Wollard and others, are welcomed to the fellowship of suffering and the rolls of martyrdom.
The following statement is inserted as written. The language might be softened and the spirit toned down to advantage, but a prohibition only secures the facts; they can not be left out.
Case of the Rev. Wm. Cleaveland, a Missionary Baptist.
“I write as a witness for God and his Church, without fee or reward, to vindicate truth and to furnish a correct history of facts concerning myself and my acts which can neither be denied nor gainsaid.
“‘Nothing shall I extenuate,
Nor aught set down in malice.’