Brownlow's Knoxville Whig, and rebel ventilator. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1863-1866, 1866-02-21
The sham Baltimore conference:

In March, 1861, majority Of the ministers o
the Baltimore Conferences declared themselves with
drawn from The jurisdiction of the General Confer
/ ence of the Methodist Episcopal Church Nearly
all of these ministers during the war; were shut W
within the lines Of the enemy in Virginia. some
them became officers in the rebel army ana nearly
all Of them were thoroughly committed 70 tne Gauss
OF the rebellion. It was hoped by many sanguin'
people that with the downfall OF rebellion and sia
very these brethren would seek to return to thell
old ecclesiastical relations, and that strife might
cease with the cessation of its causes. This has
turned out TO be q shallow view. 1t placed undue
reliance on the sword, and made insufficient account
of human pride and ong-fostered preiudices. The
sabre has no power over the heart; it may coerce
legislation in the State but religion is eminently the
sphere of sentiment and conviction. It is sincere
or worse than nothing
Hence, with all the eagerness of the Southern
States to resume their places in the Union, Southern
Christians show but little if any, inclination for fell
lowshlp with their Christian brethren of the North
The war had no sooner ended than thousand pens
leaped from their inkstands to prognosticate and
glorify the dawning reunion of long or recently
sundered ecclesiastical organizations. The old
Methodist Episcopal Church, we are frank to con-
fes developed great deal of hope in this direction
and many of the noblest and brosdest minded Of
her people and clergy had gorgeous visions of her
future power and influence. Their argument was
simple, and, in the excitement of victory quite
natural. They said The rebellion is over the
slave is a man North and South must live togeth-
err our political institutions must be substantially
similar; what now remains to keep us apart ~
The true answer was and is: Nothing but the heart
But the heart in reality, is every thing. 1t made
the war; and, if ii could have certainty of success
it would make another tomorrow We may have
whatever we can wrest by force, but the heart
chooses its own companions, and does not choose
They can no more come to us at present, on the
ground of hearty loyalty and hostility to slavery,
than we can go to them on the basis of disloyalty
and love of slavery. The one is Just as much i'm
possible as the other; each alike would demand a
thorough change of heart.
The position of the Southern Methodist Episcopal
Church is precisely that of the sham Baltimore Con-
ference. Our Church has come out of the war with
the consciousness of having taken a sublime part in
crushing rebellion and destroying slavery and she
feels it TO be essential part of her calling to main
tain hearty and loving loyalty to the United States
Government and to do all in her power to aid in
elevating those who have been delivered from bon
dage. These great ideas she can not let die; they
must be spoken in deeds and in sacrifices They are
even now realizing themselves in vast missionary
appropriations and increasing missionary labors in
the South The sham Baltimore Conference antag-
onizes US at both of these points. They heartily
hate the Government of the United States and sub
NIT to it only dire necessity. Their hearts arc
in the coffin" of the dead rebellion. They wear,
like the monks of the olden time sackcloth beneath
slavery with the rest of the South they may acqui-
esce in its destruction, but where their conces-
sions to the manhood of the freedmen? Neither
loyalty nor slavery must be so much as named in
their congregations.
Now this being the case, the sham Baltimore
Conference ought TO remain just where it is. To
come TO us in its present frame of mind, would be
to bring weakness and discord. In what was once
the border the Church needs especially to be dis
tinctly pronounced. The wave of loyalty and lib
erty must roll onward, not back ward. Nothing
must trammel check the free action of the Church
The sympathizers with slavery and rebellion in the
border will be both happier and more harmless in q
church based on rebellion and slavery than among
us. The sham Baltimore Conference is the appro-
pirate home of rebels and lovers of slavery. In
many places in the border there are persons still
hanging on TO the church of their fathers by their
eyeds. An earnest thanksgiving for victory, foi
the removal of slavery makes them nervous Of
every patriotic alluson in the sermon, their heads
90 down like duck diving at the fash of a gun
If the preacher has the fear of man before him in
stead of the fear of God he yields TO the Of
look, Of gesture, of withheld wages and some
wretched hybrid, neither fish flesh, is saved bu:
at what vast expense-of independence of purity,
of power, of selfrespect and of better people who
are kept away by such guilty weakness Whoever
loves and bemoans rebellion or slavery, let him find
quickly as may be, a congenial home in the sham
Baltimore Conference: slavery and rebellion are the
sole meaning of its distinct existence
The transparent honesty Of our brethren in the
Valley would be little aided by simple explana.
ton or two For example, when they denounce
politics they ought in candor to say that they mean
loyalty Union, and liberty that they differ from
us in nothing else. When they call themselves the
Baltimore Conference after having withdrawn from
the General Conference of the Church TO which the
Baltimore Conference belongs, they ought to explain
that the is retained out of love to the old pO
litical church from which they have fed.-N T.
Methodist.