“V. In accordance with instructions contained in a letter from the Secretary of War, under date of Nov. 30, 1863, all houses of worship within this Department belonging to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in which a loyal minister, who has been appointed by a loyal Bishop of said Church, does not now officiate, are hereby placed at the disposal of the Rev. Bishop Ames.
“Commanding officers at the various points where such houses of worship may be located are directed to extend to the ministers that may be appointed by Bishop Ames, to conduct divine service in said houses of worship, all the aid, countenance and support practicable in the execution of their mission.
“Officers of the quartermaster’s and commissary departments are authorized and directed to furnish Bishop Ames and his clerk with transportation and subsistence, when it can be done without prejudice to the service; and all officers will afford them courtesy, assistance and protection.
“By command of Major-General Banks.
“George B. Drake,
Ass’t-Adj’t-General.”
Under this “Special Order No. 15” the Bishop was put in possession of many churches, his ministers protected, and this general superintendent and representative of the M. E. Church and his clerk were furnished transportation and subsistence by the Government as a “war measure.”
This involves more than that Church will admit, now that military protection from the judgment of enlightened Christendom will not avail, and now that ecclesiastical criticism is as unsparing as ecclesiastical presumption was then reckless. The corollary that the M. E. Church made distinct and aggressive war upon the M. E. Church, South, and hence claimed belligerent rights to capture and hold the property of the enemy in perpetuity, or until formally given up under treaty stipulations, is a very unwelcome and uncomfortable position to those whose religious consciences were not destroyed by a “military necessity.” Strenuous efforts are required of the pulpit and press to break the force of the popular verdict of the people upon the religious and ecclesiastical aspects of this “Episcopal Raid.”
The authority thus given to Bishop Ames had a much wider and a more general application than his personal operations. This gave the sanction to the church seizures in Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, East Tennessee, and all through the South. The Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church and their ministers penetrated the South in every direction, and were keen on the scent of abandoned (?) churches and other property of the M. E. Church, South. They went to the large cities and railroad centres; got possession of churches by military order or otherwise—“honestly, if they could, but”—they got them, and then went out in every direction in search of abandoned, embarrassed and libelled property which they could seize and appropriate to the uses of a “loyal Methodism.”
While this plan was being executed in the South the “Church Extension Society” in the Northern States and the “Missionary Society” were furnishing the material aid necessary to support the preachers, buy up old church debts, force sales and bid in the property for the amount of the debt, and thus possess themselves of property for “less than half its value.”