Brownlow's Knoxville Whig. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1866-1869, 1867-09-04
The Chure b in East Tennessee,
By Rx,t. T. H. PEAnxK, D. D.

| BY REV. T. H. PEARNR, D. D.
Three long letters are before US from Bishop
from Christian Bishop; from one lately invested
with episcopal robes. They are letters about The
Church in East Tennessee Inadvance, one would
Judge surely these letters must have great interest
for none can deny that the field is of thrilling
history. East Tennessee has been battle-ground
for thirty years. What stirring militant record
during those years has been made of this sacred soil
and its honest-hearted, loyal and iberty-loving
peoplel AmericaHism rersus Calvinism-Brown-
low and Ross, Struggled and Gallsher, Baptists
and Pedo Baptists, Brownlow and Graves; Brown
low and rebels; rebels and loyalsts. The Metho-
dist Episcopal Church South, huzzahing for the
Confederacy, praying for the COnfederacy, fighting
for the Confederscy, calling up the preachers in
Conference to ascertain whether their double dis
loyalty, g. their bad faith to their own Esd article
of religion and their detection to their government
were real and genuine when and where they were
converted; whether their conversion was radical
and when satisfied that it was so, rewarding the
newly fedged concerts or rather pervert with hon.
ors; furnishing the LincOhstes as they were nitdts
caIed-7ories as they we're severely called-with
expulsion with rebel prescription and rebel prisons
and this grinding system rigidly carried through
all ranks ages and classes from veteran itincrants
such as Cummings and Duggan. down to local
preachers and private members of the Church
Fighting it out this line long as the rebel ar
mics beld control, and when Burnside drove them
from the SOIL receding from it with the rebel ar
mics and keeping within the reeeding rebel lines.
m - e hall ion
came back to re-occupy the moral wastes made such
by their spostacy. Meantime, loyal men and wo-
men had rallied and organized themselves, by thou
sands, under the banners of Methodsm loyal to
its own creed, to God and to country and they oc-
cupied and they still occupy the Churches they
built Behold the field behold the forces. The
three letters are of these. Certainly, then, they
must have interest. They were written too by one
who was himself no laggard in the cause; BY one
who gave the weight of his personal and official in
fuence to the bad cause of rebellion; who, indeed,
if public fame speaks truly, gloried in that cause
enshrined it in his heart ssnetifcd it by his prayers
and still holds it in grateful, honored remembrance
These letters propose to review. If my notices
seem long and sharp, ask the indulgence of rea-
ders for the letters, themselves are long, acrmo-
NOUS, and reckless of statement and they breathe
a malignant spirit not engendered of grace nor
teaching to charity. Written from his stand point
and with his sources of information, it would be
strange if they did not contain statements which
some would regard with surprise and dissent and
others with increduty not to say with indignation.
A man writing of events or circumstances in which
he himself has been an active, earnest partisan,
would very naturally color his statements with his
own peculiar feelings and prejudices, and so misap-
prehensions and misstatements might naturally oc-
cur without criminal design on his part Such, we
would charitably hope is the fact in this instances
but whether it is or not the contradiction which
truth and justice demand may not be withheld.
When those statements are grossly and maliciouly
false, the utterer is accountable for culpabe igno
rance or for criminal recklessness in making them.
The letters are long and loud wall over the
naughty doings of the Methodist Episcopal Church
in East Tennessee Their style and spirit can hardly
be said to comport with the moderation and charity
of a Christian Bishop. give few specimens, not
now for the purpose of fully answering them, but
to illustrate the temper of the writer;
That Church Cthe Methodist Episcopal) has re-
lied on such aid. Their agents have counted on
mobs and consented to be helped by them; and
truth obliges to go further; when the mob spirit
has tagged, they have, in known instances, stimu-
lated It." 3 Like Bummers after watches
and iewelry these ecclesiastical raiders sought our
Church registers and class books. They were the
basis of wholesale operations" Northern
Methodism in East Tennessee is practical aposta-
sy." "Their pulpit has degenerated into a
hastings. This seems to be their evange Now
abideth faith, hope and-lOyalty, and the greatest
of these is loyalty. Ordinary loyalty will not suit
Them ii must be their sort" y "ThAy favor
the EXTREMIST measures. Having begun confscation
on their own account, of course, they favor it in
full. Their correspondence infames the Northern
mind against the South and invozes grinding meas
ures. They lend themselves with all good con-
science doubtless to such misrepresentation of facts
and public opinion, as justify the relentng con-
science of the ruling majority in laying heavier
hand. The word rebel and loyal have served them
instead of arguments, and title deeds and doctrine
pretty much their stock in trade"
These extracts will suffice to convince an impair
tal reader either that the people of whom the wri
ter speaks are very naughty-wicked even-or else
that the statements are reckless and uncharitable
And who are they The people, ministers and
laymen, whom he thus accuses are numbered by
thousands. They include many against whom sus-
picion has never dared to lift its accusing finger;
whose moral characters are as spotless as can be
found among erring, fallen humanity; who have
character for fair honest dealing,
moral integrity and devoted pety, which cannot be
assailed, even by man wearing bsh-
ops lawn, who goes out of his way to accuse them
of crimes which, if true, would consign them to a