Characteristics of the Population—All Nationalities and all Social
Peculiarities Fused into a Common Mass—Missourian—First Settlers of
the State—Where From, and their Type of Domestic and Social Life—The
“Kansas-Nebraska Bill”—Its Effect upon the Population of
Missouri—“Emigration Aid Societies”—Extremes Brought Together in
Missouri—Reflex Tides of Population—Rapid Increase—Unique Social
Formation—Social Peculiarities Fuse—Religious Characteristics Become
more Distinct—Religious Thought and Feeling, Doctrines and Dogmas,
Sharply Defined and Fearfully Distinct in Missouri—Sects and their
Peculiarities—Sectarian Strife Uncompromising—Why—Religious
Controversy—Published Debates—Their Effect—Sectarian Bigotry and
Intolerance—Differences, Essential and Non-essential—History
Repeating Itself—Persecution the Same in Every Age—Early Martyrs and
the Missouri Martyrs—“The Altar, the Wood and the Lamb for a Burnt
Offering.”
The population of Missouri differs in some respects from that of any
other State. There is a greater variety of nationalities blended, of
blood mingled, and of national, political, social, domestic and
religious characteristics crossed and intermixed than can be found in
any other State.
Other States may have more nationalities represented in their
population, and the political, social and ecclesiastical characteristics
may be more sharply defined; but that fact only confirms the position
taken—that in Missouri these characteristics lose their identity, to a
greater or less extent, and become fused in the common mass. Nearly all
the nationalities of Europe, and many of Asia, are represented in
Missouri, but only a few years’ residence is sufficient to either
destroy or modify their national characteristics.
The social and domestic peculiarities of every State in the Union, with
many foreign states, are exotics here; while many of them die out
altogether and are abandoned, others compromise and intermingle, until
the type of social and domestic life is somewhat of a hybrid, and is
peculiarly Missourian.
The bulk of the old population of the State was from Kentucky, Virginia,
Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee and Ohio, with a respectable number
from Indiana, Illinois and New York. Up to 1855 and ’56 the types of
social life existing in these several States were scarcely disturbed in
Missouri. After the passage by Congress of the somewhat notorious
“Kansas-Nebraska bill,” in 1854, and the organization of these
Territories, the population of Missouri increased rapidly and became of
a more general character.
“Emigration aid societies” in New England and the Eastern States threw
into these newly-formed Territories thousands of families who
represented in their social and religious lives the extreme of New
England ideas and New England faith.
Emigration from the Southern Atlantic and Gulf States, whether by aid
societies or otherwise, rushed to these Territories, bringing the
extremest types of Southern life. The middle and Mississippi Valley
States furnished their share, until the swelling population of Kansas
presented a scene of contrasts and conflicts turbulent and exciting
beyond anything before known in the history of territorial settlement.
It is true that it was the struggle of political parties for dominion,
each seeking to incorporate its peculiar class of ideas and cast of
policy into the corporate structure of the future State by controlling
the Territorial election; yet the effect upon the social and domestic
peculiarities of Missouri, as well as the peculiar institutions of the
State, was marked and decided.
Missouri caught the reflex tide of population, and her fertile soil,
mineral wealth and commercial advantages not only retained this reflex
population, but supplied an effective appeal to thousands more from all
parts of the country—North, East and South—until for a few years her
population increased at the rate of nearly one hundred thousand per
annum. And yet, in her extended area of territory, this immense influx
was scarcely perceptible. Along her rivers and railroad lines her
population thickened, and her great commercial centres felt the life and
power of multiplied agencies and resources.
Either the rapid growth of cities, the stir and excitement of trade, the
strife for fortune and fame, the magical charm of Western life, or
something else peculiar to the climate, the country or the people, all
of these distinct and opposing types of social life, began soon to lose
their “type force” and blend into a conglomerate social mass, with fewer
Northern, Eastern and Southern peculiarities than Western—a rather
unique social formation, which the modern sociologists have not yet
classified.
Few Southern men and Southern families long retained their purely
Southern style of life, and few Eastern or Northern men and families
long retained the social and domestic habits that were peculiar to the
latitude from which they hailed. It is easy to see how the social life
that derives its characteristics from such different and distant systems
would be peculiar in itself and to itself.
People lose their social characteristics much sooner and more easily
than they do their religious peculiarities. The former are based on
education, taste, association and habit, the latter on principles vital
and divine. As every national and social characteristic known to
American society has become mixed and blended in Missouri, so every
shade of religious thought and feeling, every form of religious doctrine
and dogma, together with every type of ecclesiasticism known to modern
American civilization, exists in the hearts and homes of Missouri—at
least to some extent. Nearly every shade of religious belief has a
representative in Missouri, and stands out more or less distinct upon
the moral phases of society.
These do not blend. No moral alchemist can fuse the distinct religious
peculiarities of a people. Men may relinquish their social and domestic
characteristics because they are matters of taste or convenience; but to
give up their distinctive religious characteristics is considered a
sacrifice of principle and conscience.
Men do not struggle long to maintain and propagate that which was
peculiar to their former social life, but will contend forever for that
which is peculiarly distinctive in their religious belief. That which
men hold lightly and esteem of little value to them elsewhere assumes an
importance and a value in the West, and will not be surrendered tamely.
Religious ideas which in Massachusetts and South Carolina existed in the
mind crudely or loosely; exerting no influence upon the life, would in
Missouri take a permanent shape, seek affinities, and ultimately grow
into churches struggling for a place in the great moral agencies of the
State. Men whose religious habits were scarcely formed, and whose lives
had not assumed any positive ecclesiastical type in the older States, on
coming to Missouri became positive, decided, unequivocal, sectarian
partisans, and often uncharitable bigots. Men who would contend fairly
for their distinctive tenets elsewhere contend fiercely here, and very
few live long in this State without espousing, to some extent, the cause
of some religious sect.
There are causes for this state of things. Society is, to a great
extent, in a formative state. In very few places, if any, has society
settled down into grooves, and channels, and circles, and social and
church castes, as in the older States; and then society exists in a
great variety of unassimilated elements, Northern, Southern, Eastern,
Western; English, French, German, Scotch, Irish, with a hundred
different shades of social and domestic life, which are too distinct to
become homogeneous, and which seek in church creeds and church
associations their social as, well as religious affinities.
The result is that, perhaps, no other State can furnish as great a
variety of distinct sects, or denominations of Christians, with the
religious population so liberally distributed amongst them. There may be
more sects in States that have a much larger population, but in
proportion to the population, no State has a greater variety of churches
which accommodate such a diversity of belief, each of which has so large
a hold upon the public mind.
It would, indeed, be anomalous if all of these sects could exist
together in peace. Missouri can not claim such exceptional distinction.
In, perhaps, no State or country has denominational contention and
strife been more general and uncompromising.
Not willing to accept the standards of doctrine published and recognized
by each church, nor to abide by the verdict of learned debates upon all
questions of difference, ministers and members, with astonishing freedom
and with defiant presumption, enter the arena of controversy, public and
private, with a zeal and a spirit equally hurtful to Christian charity
and the general cause of true piety. Nothing can awaken a community more
generally and excite the people more intensely than a public debate,
formally arranged and pitched by two noted champions. The notoriety
gained by the _antagonistæ_ outlasts, if it does not outreach, the
settlement of disputed questions. And, then, each man or woman, however
old or young, must become an adept in religious controversy, and convert
every road side, street corner, shop, office, counting room, kitchen and
parlor into a place for petty, spiteful theological disputation. Instead
of edifying one another in love, and deepening the work of grace in the
heart by appropriate religious conversations, they embitter the
sectarian spirit, destroy Christian charity, alienate personal
friendship, a and “dote about questions and strifes of words, whereof
cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputing of
men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth.”
With many, sectarian jealousy is equaled only by sectarian bigotry, and
the great work of soul-saving is made only tributary to denominational
success. Indeed, many go so far as to deny the virtue of saving grace to
all but themselves, and vainly imagine that the saving virtues of the
atonement are transmitted to the hearts of men only through their church
ministrations and distinctive ordinances.
Nothing excites sectarian jealousy more thoroughly than great religious
awakenings and revivals in any given church. It is natural that the
minister of the gospel who, as a human instrument, is very successful in
winning souls to Christ should be “highly esteemed in love for his
work’s sake,” and yet nothing exposes him more to the unjust criticisms
and unchristian detractions of his less successful brethren in the
ministry. Let a revivalist be successful in stirring the religious life
of a whole community and in producing a general religious awakening, and
the ministers and members of other churches, instead of joining heartily
with him in the great work and laboring together for the general good,
will watch with jealous interest the progress of the work, discuss with
uncharitable criticism its character, and seize the first opportunity to
begin a meeting Of their own, that they may make the religious awakening
of the community inure to their denominational advantage. Should the
revival occur in a small town where the whole population Christianized
could not more than adequately support one healthy church organization,
with one pastor, instead of assimilating all the religious elements, it
would act like a moral solvent, disparting and isolating each shade of
religious belief and thought. “Where two or three are gathered together”
of the same belief they will organize, send for a pastor and set up for
themselves. Thus the little community becomes divided into little
sectarian factions, each to drag out a half-conscious, miserable,
contentious existence, instead of uniting in one large, healthy,
self-sustaining congregation, with all the benefits and advantages of a
first-class minister well supported, a good church and Sabbath school,
with all the regular ministrations of the gospel.
These things can not be affirmed of all ministers of the gospel, nor of
all churches and communities in Missouri; but the facts are too common,
too prominent and deplorable to be overlooked in any legitimate search
for the animus of sectarianism in Missouri.
Where the differences between denominations are essential they are
agreed upon their differences and live in peace, each pursuing a
distinct line of operations in its own way unmolested, and their lines
rarely, if ever, cross each other. On the other hand, where the
difference is non-essential, they will not agree to disagree, and
wrangling and contention, disputings and debates, mark the conflict.
Where the difference lies in fundamental doctrines, debates are rare and
formal. If the difference lies in ecclesiastical polity, or in forms of
worship, or in sacraments or modes of ordinances, the discussions are
interminable and the petty disputations endless. The nearer
denominations approach each other in all that is essential in doctrine,
worship and works of righteousness, the deeper seated and more bitter
the jealousy and strife between them. Non-fraternization and
non-intercourse are maintained with much punctiliousness between those
Churches which are one in origin, one in doctrine, and one in all of
their essential characteristics, but which have separated from each
other upon questions of ecclesiastical polity, or for some other like
cause.
Judging from the character of the strife between them, their methods of
ecclesiastical warfare, and the downright animosity that enters into and
characterizes these strifes, one would readily suppose that, according
to their own interpretation, their peculiar commission is to overcome,
root out, exterminate and supplant the church that bears the same “image
and superscription.” Particularly is this true when the essential
grounds of difference are political.
For confirmation of this position it is only necessary to refer to the
two Methodist, the two Presbyterian, and recently the two Baptist
Churches of this State, which are divided, not upon doctrines or
ordinances, but upon questions of ecclesiastical polity—whether
ecclesiastical bodies, as such, have the right to legislate upon or
intermeddle with questions that belong to the State, and must be
controlled by the State.
This allusion is sufficient for the present purpose. It only remains to
be noted here how readily ecclesiastical partisans take advantage of
everything in political and civil strife that will confer upon them
power and position. How readily they identify themselves with dominant
parties, if by so doing they can damage their ecclesiastical opponents
and gain position and power for themselves! How heartily they endorse
the policy of the party in power, if by it their own disability is
exchanged for temporary enfranchisement, and their own minority is
invested with temporary power to oppress and persecute the hated
majority!
History repeats itself; and the genius of religious persecution and
proscription has discovered very few new expedients and adopted very few
new instruments since the days of the Master. The manger of Bethlehem
cradled the Incarnate Innocence, and Pilate’s judgment hall gave birth
to the diabolical genius of persecution, which was equal to the task, in
that it did there and then invent and employ the only expedient that
could at once be successful in the crucifixion of Incarnate Innocence,
and in transmitting itself to every country and age with undiminished
efficiency to pursue to prison and to death the followers of its first
and greatest Victim as long as time should last. The cry of disloyalty
and treason made by ecclesiastics is now, as it always has been, the
strongest appeal to the guardians and defenders of the State; and as
that was successful before Pilate, and forced him to sign the death
warrant of the Master, so it has been successful in every tribunal of
earthly power, and procured the death warrant of all the martyrs in
every country and age, and under every form of government and every
phase of ecclesiasticism from that day to this. “We found this fellow
perverting the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that
he himself is Christ—a king.” “If thou let this man go thou art not
Cæsar’s friend; whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Cæsar.”
Such declarations made by the High Priests of the Church could, and did,
influence the Roman Procurator against the convictions of his better
judgment, against reason, against all the facts, again right and against
innocence. What were all these to the life blood of their victim?
In some form or other these charges have been repeated in every
systematic persecution of ministers of the gospel and martyrs for the
truth, from Stephen, Antipas, Polycarp and Barnabas to the Bartholomew
Massacre in Paris, and from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and
the Papal Inquisition to the last great tragedy in the drama, occurring
during and since the late civil war in America, in free Missouri and
under the ægis of institutions that boast of religious liberty, and the
sanction of men who profess to represent the advanced Christian
civilization of the age.
But, then, “the disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above
his Lord.” “Remember the word that I said unto you, The disciple is not
above his Lord. If they have persecuted me they will persecute you.”
They beheaded John, crucified Christ, stoned Stephen, murdered Paul,
“and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover,
of bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder,
were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheep-skins and
goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented; of whom the world was
not worthy.”
Every age and country have reproduced in some form the altar and the
victim, the persecutor and the persecuted, the Caiaphas and the Christ,
without material alteration in the charge or the trial. Missouri has
provided the altar, the wood, the fire and the sacrifice for the
offering demanded by this age and country in the interest of the Church.
Woods, Sexton, Glanville, Wollard, Robinson, Wood, Headlee and others
supplied the sacrifice.
While this chapter prepares the way, in an important sense, for the
better understanding of the subject in hand, it will also embody a
standing declaration and testimony against the peculiar spirit and
character of sectarian strife in Missouri.