* * * “And we solemnly hold that it would be of incalculable advantage to the South, and the cause of Christianity therein, if the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, should cease to be.”
Upon the reunion of the two Churches, Dr. N. E. Cobleigh, of Athens, Tenn., in an article in the Northern Christian Advocate, of April 1, 1868, says:
“The Church property, too, of which we have taken possession in the South, must be given back to them (the M. E. Church, South,) before they will consent to treat upon the subject.”
Dr. Daniel Curry, editor of the New York Christian Advocate, said before the Preachers’ Meeting of New York, in May, 1866:
“Wherever we have taken churches the policy has proved bad. The first act of the Church, South, toward us, after this, was a charge of church stealing—a high crime before the law. We did not mean to do wrong, but it has put us in a bad position.”
The New Orleans Advocate, of Feb. 10, 1866, says:
“We have seen a letter from Bishop Ames, which was dated Baltimore, Md., Jan. 20, 1866, and which contained this glorious news: ‘The President has issued an order putting us in possession of 210 churches and 32 parsonages, which the Rebel Methodists in Virginia have occupied during the war.’”
This was “glorious news” to Dr. Newman, himself occupying at the time a church obtained from “Rebel Methodists” by this same Bishop Ames upon an order from Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War. These Bishops had a summary way of getting possession of other people’s property. The cry of “Rebel Methodists” and treason against the Government from them and their tools could always move the Government officials to issue such orders as would put them in possession of the property of rebels. But whether the rebels themselves were crushed out or made better by the transaction, are matters about which little was said.
There is yet another aspect of this general question worthy of note. While Bishop Ames was in the South prosecuting under War Department orders his great scheme of ecclesiastical piracy, and the many smaller ecclesiastics were similarly engaged in other portions of the conquered provinces, steps were being taken to forestall the Bishop when his ecclesiastical ram should be directed against the “Rebel Methodists” of St. Louis. Hon. John Hogan, member of Congress from St. Louis, went to Washington and made representations to the President of the facts in the case, and when the good Bishop reached St. Louis he was met by an order from the War Department, with an endorsement from the President of the United States, repealing his Stanton order and putting an estoppel upon his proceedings, especially in Missouri.
The following order was obtained by Mr. Hogan from the War Department, with President Lincoln’s endorsement exempting the churches of Missouri from seizure under Mr. Stanton’s order: