The assumption of authority, therefore, by the M. E. Church to set aside the conditions of the covenant, to violate what their Bishops had pronounced its “binding obligations in the premises,” to reject the fraternal messenger and ignore the claims of the Church, South, and proceed to “organize churches and societies within the limits of the Church, South,” could only exhibit to the world their utter recklessness of moral obligation and place them before the public as covenant breakers, “truce breakers and false accusers.”
In such light were they and their friends and abettors held in Missouri, after the Church in the whole State had decided so positively to adhere South. Indeed, so general was this decision, that for many years after the division the existence of the M. E. Church, North, in Missouri was scarcely suspected by the best informed.
There were but few places in the State where their presence was tolerated; not because of any religious or political proscription and persecution, but because their presence in Missouri was not only unauthorized, but in direct violation of the most solemn ecclesiastical compact, for which an instinctive sense of right in every community was disposed to hold the Northern Methodist preachers responsible.
All our best notions of religious toleration revolt at the idea of proscribing the largest liberties of any church in any country or community for any reasons. But, then, when a church deliberately proscribes herself and fixes her own limits of territory, transferring all her claims to property and privileges beyond her self-appointed boundaries to another and a “distinct ecclesiastical organization,” a decent respect for moral obligation and the covenanted rights of others demand that every enlightened community should hold every such church to the strictest accountability for every violation of her self-imposed obligations. Covenant breakers forfeit their claims to all the benefits of the covenant broken, if they do not forfeit their claims upon the confidence and protection of the community whose rights and privileges the broken covenant respected.
Communities whose sense of justice and moral right are outraged by religious teachers, to whom neither civil nor criminal law will apply, have recourse only to a public sentiment which can place the guilty under the ban of public condemnation. The Northern Methodist preachers who were trying to “organize societies” and “exercise pastoral care” in Missouri, from the division of the Church in 1844 to the beginning of the civil war in 1861, need not be reminded how terrible and general was this ban of public condemnation. It was not a proscription which they themselves had not authorized; nor could they claim the benefits of a persecution for righteousness’ sake without confessing to an indictment which truth and honesty found against them for obtaining said benefits under false pretenses. They raised the cry of persecution, but failed to enlist the popular sympathy due to such a cry, because the virtues and elements of a religious persecution were all wanting. They, nevertheless, managed to keep up a factious, feeble organization in some places in the State, sustained by missionary money from the North, which took advantage of every popular excitement against them to manufacture foreign sympathy, and, at the same time, furnished a convenient refuge for the disaffected, mal-contents, of the M. E. Church, South.
They sought, by maintaining a convenient proximity to the Southern Church, not only to catch the Methodist immigration from the North, but, also, to afford a convenient retreat for those who seek in prominence what they lack in piety, and to “beguile unstable souls” with the false plea of “Old Church” and “Old Methodism.” Thus, while serving all the purposes of factious agitation, and furnishing in themselves an example of covenant breaking for covetousness’ sake, which can never be reproduced and re-enacted, they have, also, served the purposes of peace and purity by receiving from other churches the contentious, the dissatisfied and the disaffected. It was an easy road to a miserable revenge, as it was often a happy riddance of a pestilent element, while the rule of loss and gain was reversed.
The relation of the two churches during that period to the people of the whole State will be seen in their statistics. At the time of the division the whole Church in Missouri numbered 26,310 members, served by 113 traveling preachers. In 1850 the M. E. Church, South, had 27,012 members and 126 traveling preachers in Missouri alone. In 1850 the M. E. Church, North, had 5,474 members and fifty-one traveling preachers in Missouri and Arkansas together.
The relative strength of the two churches in 1860 is seen in the following figures: The M. E. Church, South, had 48,797 members and 243 traveling preachers, and the M. E. Church, North, had 6,619 members and sixty-nine traveling preachers.
In church property there was a much greater difference. When the Church divided, all the property in churches, parsonages, cemeteries, colleges, Conference funds, and of every other description, passed into the hands of the M. E. Church, South, according to the “Plan of Separation.” Those who voted to adhere North were not strong enough in any one place to set up any claim to the Church property. The Church, North, was thus left without houses of worship or any other property possessions in the State. By common consent, as well as by the decision of the courts, the division of the Church extinguished the right and title of the M. E. Church to all property in the State of Missouri. The struggle for existence, under the circumstances, was a forlorn hope, and the erection of churches in communities where they were not in sympathy with either the masses or the moneyed people was a slow and doubtful enterprise. They had to rely, for the most part, upon private houses in obscure neighborhoods for places of public worship, for it was not always that they could even get the use of school houses for that purpose. In St. Louis they had one Church, Ebenezer, which had to supply them with church facilities for the whole State for many years. They built a small church in Hannibal in 1850. In 1856 they added Simpson Chapel, in St. Louis, to the list, and then, in 1858, they erected a small brick church in Jefferson City, for which they had help from abroad. These were all small churches, but amply sufficient for all their wants. They may have had a few other small churches in different sections of the State, but their number and resources were quite small, and their influence for good in each community was unfortunately counteracted by the spirit of contention and strife they created. In 1860 the whole of their Church property in this State and in Arkansas was estimated in their statistics at $36,400.
Under these circumstances it is not surprising if they made up in bitter, spiteful jealousies what they lacked in the true elements of success, and repaid the public disapprobation in a dogged tenacity that seeks revenge in success despite all opposition.