If the ministers and members of the M. E. Church sought, under cover of military orders and with the support of bayonets, to gain possession of the property of others, was it not prima facie evidence that their claims would not be recognized in law or equity? and was it not a confession to the mean purpose of obtaining by force that to which they had no shadow of right in law? If they obtained Church property by unfair and clandestine means, under the covert sanction of the military authorities, wherein do they differ from others who break the eighth commandment? Can military orders suspend Divine commands and confer a moral right to take possession and appropriate the property of others? Let these questions, and all others of a kindred nature which the curious casuist may be disposed to ask, be answered in the light of the foregoing and the forthcoming facts. Put that and this, then and now, together, and let the conscientious verdict of an enlightened public judge between us.
The truth of history requires a record now, and a detailed statement of historical facts, that for the sake of common honesty, the plainest equity, the humblest scale of justice, and the lowest stages of our common Christianity, should forever be buried with the dead past and lie forgotten “as a dream when one awaketh.” But truth and justice demand many things which a common charity, and even a common decency, would consign to oblivion. A diluted charity should never make the pen hesitate in the presence of important, though unpalatable, truths. History must be worthy of its theme, and the pen must be equal to the utmost demands of the history. “Naught extenuate, and naught set down in malice.”
In 1862 and ’63 there was a movement—so general over the State that the conviction that it was concerted and simultaneous can not be escaped—to seize, possess and hold for their own use, by the Northern Methodists, the churches belonging to the M. E. Church, South. Persistent efforts for this purpose were made in almost every county in the State; and if the whole history could be brought to light it would be seen that there was held, at some place or places, a secret conclave of ministers in which the purpose and the plan were agreed upon. It will not be necessary to specify the particulars of every case of church seizure, but the following more prominent cases will be sufficient:
Church in Kansas City.
In the fall of 1862 Rev. M. M. Pugh, then stationed at Kansas City, was forced by persecution to abandon his church and charge and flee for protection to a neighboring military post. Mr. Pugh was watched by enemies and warned by friends. The threat, oft repeated, of arrest and imprisonment did not deter him. But to know that his steps were dogged, that detectives were on his track, that his life was threatened, and to be told by military officers that they could not be responsible for his life any night, and to be advised that there were lyers-in-wait to assassinate him, put his life in too great peril to remain with his people. He fled.
As soon as his absence was known the Northern Methodists took possession of the church and held it under military protection. They organized a society composed of a few Northern fanatics and a few renegade and weak-kneed Southern Methodists. They pronounced the M. E. Church, South, dead and beyond the hope of resurrection, tried to get possession of the church records and declare all the former society of Southern Methodists members, nolens volens. When they found that but few would accept the transfer, they pronounced the rest disloyal, and threatened them with confiscation. “But none of these things moved them,” and they maintained their fidelity to the Church of their choice notwithstanding all the abuse, and slander, and threatenings, and slaughter, that these religious loyalists could bring to bear upon them.
After the occupancy of the church for some months they became conscious of wrong-doing and of guilt, and in shame and humiliation turned the property over to the rightful owners. They found that military orders did not confer letters of administration. If the Church, South, was dead and buried, what right had they more than others to administer on the estate?
In the St. Louis Christian Advocate, of May 31, 1866, a correspondent from Kansas City makes the following statement:
“But the Church. During the war our Church passed through sore trials—had ‘fightings without and fears within.’ She was ‘persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.’ Rev. M. M. Pugh remained with the Church in Kansas City until the latter part of 1862, attending to his legitimate business in his own quiet way—preaching Christ and his cross to perishing sinners—when the presence of blood-thirsty Northern Methodist preachers and their willing tools, threatening his life on the streets and dogging his steps, hounded him off to safer quarters where he could rely upon the protection of military power. The Northern Methodists then took possession of the church, organized a society, composed in part of a few blinded fanatics and weak-kneed renegades from the M. E. Church, South, who at once imagined themselves possessed of other people’s property, began to abuse and traduce Southern Methodists, pronounced the Church dead, and proceeded to administer on the estate.
“But ‘military necessity’ did not confer upon them letters of administration, and they reckoned without their host. It is true, the General Conference of the M. E. Church, North, enacted a political test of membership for all persons everywhere who seek admission to her pales; and I submit whether or not they make the repeal of the eighth commandment, also, a test of membership for the province of Missouri. For it seems that no sooner do people get into that Church than they proceed to take and to hold, to possess and to use, property for which others have paid, and houses which others have built, supposing that membership in that Church invests them, under the operation of a ‘higher law,’ with rights and titles above warranty deeds and Supreme Court decisions.”