The State Convention assembled again, October 10, 1861, in St. Louis, passed several vacating ordinances, and provided for the more efficient prosecution of the war and the establishment of a more reliable sympathy between the State and the Federal Administration. Amongst other things it was ordained that all the civil officers of the State should take, subscribe and file with County Court Clerks an oath of allegiance or loyalty to support the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Missouri, and not to take up arms against the Government of the United States or the Provisional Government of this State, nor give aid or comfort to the enemies of either, and maintain and support the Provisional Government established by the State Convention of Missouri. This oath of allegiance was required of ministers of the gospel, as such.
CHAPTER IX.
THE PULPIT AND PRESS ON THE SITUATION IN MISSOURI.
Ministers of Peace—Course Pursued by the St. Louis Christian Advocate—Rev. Dr. M‘Anally its Editor—Candid, Truthful, Honest—The Cause of its Suppression, and the Imprisonment of the Editor—Ministers of the M. E. Church, South. Labor and Pray Earnestly for Peace—Days of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer—Ministers who became Political Partisans had no use for such days-“Breathing out Threatening and Slaughter”—Spirit of the Northern Methodist Press—False Publications for a Purpose—One Mr. John Stearns and the Western Advocate—Glaring Falsehoods—Excitement in St. Louis and Throughout the State—Persecution of Ministers in Kansas and Reign of Terror along the Border—Rev. W. H. Mobly and Rev. John Monroe in Southwest Missouri—Systematic Efforts to Break up the M. E. Church, South, and Disperse her Ministers—Editorial in St. Louis Advocate—The Central Again—Impressions Abroad—Baptists and Presbyterians Implicated—“Religion in Missouri”—Missouri Conference at Glasgow—St. Louis Conference at Arrow Rock and Waverly—Conference Stampeded by the Rumor of a Gunboat—Author Arrested.
That the ministers of the gospel in Missouri did not commit themselves to the strife of war, but sought to promote peace and good order in the State, may be learned from the frequent counsel given to their congregations to remain at home, and “as much as lay in them live peaceably with all men.”
Many a young man was prevented from going to “Price’s army,” or any other, by the timely advice of these men of God, and many a wife and mother rejoice to-day in the life and love of husband and son only through the godly admonition of faithful pastors. Some few ministers, it is true, were led astray by popular excitement, or forced to quit their homes and flocks by causes heretofore mentioned, and then they preached privately what they practiced publicly. But such cases were too rare to involve the whole ministry as a class, even by the weakest implication. Neither were the ministers of the gospel as a whole, nor the ministers of any one Church in Missouri, disloyal to the Government of the United States or the Provisional Government of this State. But the very Churches and ministers that had to suffer the most direful penalties, in the destruction of property, the persecution, imprisonment and murder of ministers in the subsequent years of the war, were now doing more than any other in the State to prevent the war and promote the public peace and tranquillity.
The St. Louis Christian Advocate, edited by the Rev. D. R. M‘Anally, D. D., contained a series of very able editorials, running through April and a part of May, 1861, on “The Times,” “The Duty of Christian Men,” “The Time for Prayer,” “To the Ministers and Members of the M. E. Church, South, in Missouri and Kansas,” “The Times—A Word to our Patrons and Friends,” and kindred topics, in which the people were warned of the character of the danger that threatened, advised to remain at home, cultivate their lands and pursue the avocations of peace and piety in the fear of God, as the best means of promoting good order in the State, and at least mitigating the horrors of war.
That paper was candid and earnest in warning the public of the magnitude of the rebellion and the unprecedented unanimity and courage of the Southern people, and when the Northern press generally represented the boasted strength of the rebellion as too puerile and insignificant to involve the National Government in any serious trouble or protracted war, that paper sought truthfully and conscientiously to disabuse the public mind, and thereby prevent the many disastrous blunders committed by an underestimate of the military resources and strength of the South.
How much of suffering might have been prevented, and how many thousands of valuable lives might have been spared to the country, to say nothing of the millions of treasure, had the advice of that paper been taken and the timely warnings of its honored editor been heeded. But, like all gratuitous counsel that is unpalatable, because truthful, it was contemned, the motive of its author suspected, and the existence of its medium considered dangerous.
Very many of the religious papers of the border States had already been suspended, and the continuance of this one was a doubtful problem for many months before its suppression.
Dr. M‘Anally’s ideas of right and wrong, of truth and error, of justice and righteousness, were derived from the old standards. He had no patience with the new standards of virtue that grew out of party fanaticism and war expediencies; new fangled notions, dissimulations, prevarication and moral travesty “he could not away with.” He had not so learned the responsibilities of public journalism, and hence his simple-hearted appreciation of right led him to expose the wrong wherever it existed. His honesty required him to denounce the wide-spread dishonesty of the times. His simple love of truth caused him to make honest and truthful reports of the “News of the Week” according to the actual facts, without reference to the interest of this party or that party, this army or that, this commanding officer or that. In this his paper presented such a contrast with the press generally that it was sought and read by thousands of both parties, and accepted by the unprejudiced as the most reliable paper then published.