USA > Indiana > A history of the North Indiana Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, from its organization in 1844 to the present > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28
It was the following year that stands out most prom- inently in this period of the history of the North Indi- ana Conference. The church began to reach out in two
8* Ibid., 1877 (June-October).
9 Ibid., 1878 (April).
133
NORTH INDIANA CONFERENCE
lines, church extension and temperance. The reports at the conference showed that three thousand persons united with the church and that over seventy thousand dollars had been expended in church improvements. Seven more churches were placed on the already fast growing list. The reports of the previding elders show that the conference held its own in all respects and in many others had advanced.10
In the afternoon of the second day the assembly room of the Methodist Church of Goshen, the place where the Conference met, was crowded to hear Dr. McCabe sing and preach.11 At the close of his address he brought forth a scheme by means of which he pro- posed to raise one hundred thousand dollars to build four hundred churches in the territories. During this session of the North Indiana Conference he received one thousand two hundred dollars. As a result of the work of Dr. McCabe, three thousand and two hundred churches have been added to Methodism, and during the years of 1879 and 1880 an average of more than one church per day had been dedicated. The follow- ing chart12 will show the part taken by the North In- diana Conference.
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
Yearly Collection
$895.14
$567.86
$665.46
$1,183.65
$1,021.78
Increase
519.30
....
99.60
518.19
Decrease
329.28
161.47
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
Yearly Collection. ..
$1,820.11
$1,087.38
$885.38
$1,228.30
$1,189.00
$996.75
Increase
748.33
342.92
..
Decrease
732.73
202.00
39.30
192.25
10 Reports of the Districts.
11 Western Christian Advocate, April, 1877.
134
NORTH INDIANA CONFERENCE
There is a grand total of $11,440.81, or an average of $1,043.71 for each year from 1877 to 1887.
Not only was the interest aroused in the building of new church buildings, but greater interest was shown in the preparing for the home life and comfort of the preachers of the conference. The Annual Con- ference of 1880 passed the following resolution :13
"Whereas, the period of our conference has arrived when the interests of both pastors and people impera- tively demand that all our parsonages be furnished with heavy articles of furniture; therefore, be it.
"Resolved, that we adopt, and use our utmost en- deavors to put into practice the following plan, viz., the present year to supply all our parsonages with stoves; the second year to supply them with tables, chairs, stands, bureaus and cupboards; the third year to supply them with carpets, chamber sets, parlor fur- niture and such other articles that charges may desire ; and the rule is also to be applied to houses rented for parsonages."
If there was anything that stirred the hearts of the people of Indiana between the years of 1879 and 1882 it was the Temperance Movement. This does not be- long to the North Indiana Conference alone but to all the state. However, it is of so much importance that we cannot let it pass, for the church people of the state dropped almost everything else and made a heroic struggle against the manufacture of liquor. In this work we do not find men alone in the front ranks. The women of the Woman's Temperance League of Indiana showed their eagerness and zeal.14 The purpose these noble women were contemplating was nothing short of the arrayal in their ranks of as many mothers, daughters and wives as there were fathers, sons and husbands in the ranks of the rum hosts. The follow-
13 Conference Minutes, 1880.
14 Western Christian Advocate, October, 1879.
135
NORTH INDIANA CONFERENCE
ing quotation from their reports shows the character- istic spirit of the movement. "A deep, intense, spiritual conviction of the justice of their cause, and a corre- sponding faith that the only genuine preparation for the great work is to be found in the ample, abiding per- sonal baptism of the Holy Ghost." On the other hand the men of the state proposed to call a meeting of all men interested in Temperance under the name of "The Indiana Grand Council of Temperance"15 for the pur- pose of : first, to unite all organizations whose inter- ests oppose the liquor traffic; second, united and con- centrated action of the state with the church; third, this organization was not to make other organizations lose their distinctive features. For some reason this meeting was not called for two years. Men were brought to the place where they realized that the state laws were not capable of handling the liquor question. Seventy-five indictments for selling liquor on Sunday in Lafayette were evaded because of the defectiveness of the state laws, prohibiting the Sunday liquor traffic.16 The only way to curb this evil was by means of a Constitutional Amendment. Accordingly, by the middle of November, 1879, thousands of petitions were coming to the State Legislature asking the men who represented the state to do two things; to pass a Con- stitutional Amendment that would embody a prohibi- tory clause, and to enact a prohibitory law at the com- ing session of the Legislature that would afford im- mediate relief to our oppressed people. The following is the petition sent to the Legislature :17
"We, the undersigned legal voters of in the county of State of Indiana, recognizing the fundamentals of our free government to be, that all
15 Ibid., October, 1879.
16 Ibid., October, 1879.
17 Western Christian Advocate, "Records of the Prohibition Party," Rev. T. E. Ballard.
136
NORTH INDIANA CONFERENCE
laws are for the people and of the people, do most re- spectfully and earnestly petition your most honorable body, the Senate and the House of Representatives of the State of Indiana to take such steps that will se- cure the immediate to a vote of the people for their ratification or their rejection, for an amendment to our State Constitution, providing therein that no person manufacture, sell, or keep for sale, as a beverage, any intoxicating liquor whatsoever within the state; and pending the voice of the people of the state on Con- stitutional Prohibition, we ask and petition your hon- orable body to enact an efficient law that will protect the people from the dire evils of intemperance, with such pains and penalties thereunto attached as will insure its strict observance."
In answer to this petition some temperance man who really had his heart and soul in the work replied with an answer that stirred the hearts of many to ac- tion.18 "When you get tired of petitioning and get ashamed of yourselves for allowing a mere handful of liquor dealers, mostly foreigners, to control legisla- tion, and begin to vote on the subject, then your Legis- lature will respect you and pass a prohibitory law, but not until then."
The fight was on. Liquor dealers saw that they must do something or they would lose in the struggle. The first thing they did was to publish the following so that the people of the state could see just where they stood:19 "We condemn all prohibitory legislation and especially the proposed prohibitory amendment to our State Constitution, because (1) It enforces the pernicious principle that the majority of the State has a right to dictate, according to its pleasure, the man- ners, the customs, the habits of life, trades, industries, the eating, and the drinking of all of its inhabitants.
18 Address by Rev. T. A. Goodwin, December 8, 1880.
19 Anti-Saloon League Records, Western Christian Advocate.
137
NORTH INDIANA CONFERENCE
(2) It is based upon the error that the state must protect all the people against their inherent immorali- ties, by preventing the opportunity of obtaining spirit- uous, vinous, and malt liquors and attempts to punish and tyrannize all temperate people in the alleged inter- est of temperance. (3) It destroys and ruins the prosperity, the business and occupation of thousands under the false pretense that liberty and mortality can- not be had only by oppressive and coercive laws against the temperate as well as the intemperate, the moral as well as the immoral therefore, we are resolved, that as citizens and electors of the state, we pledge our- selves to support no candidate who will not with us before the election condemn and oppose the proposed constitutional prohibitory system, the proposed consti- tutional amendment and all other prohibitory legisla- tion."
The anti-saloon people of the state went to the neighboring states and borrowed great tents so that as many people could be accommodated at the Temperance Councils, which were held at Seymour, Ft. Wayne, La- Fayette, Muncie, Vincennes and LaPorte. The law and order people of the whole commonwealth pledged themselves to this statement:18 "We will vote for no man for the legislature who will not publicly pledge to use his influence and his vote in favor of submitting the question to the vote of the people."
During the meeting of the Grand Temperance Union in Indianapolis in 1881 a messenger brought the word that the Constitutional Amendment had passed both houses. This made temperance for the next year a question of vital interest, for again it would have to pass in both houses and be submitted to the vote of the people at large.
From the reports of the Annual Conferences of the State of Indiana, the programme of the church was
18* Western Christian Advocate, 1879.
138
NORTH INDIANA CONFERENCE
brought to the public. At first resolutions were passed which asked the ministers to use their influence against the liquor traffic. Next we find them using more string- ent means of compelling the ministers to preach against it and to use their influence in and out of the pulpit for taking the curse out of the hands of the people. During the next year there were enough men elected to the Legislature to pass the bill again but on account of some false technicalities the bill was lost. This marked the end of a great struggle. Never before nor never since has the church had such a strong hold upon teh temperance question. Since that time there seems to have been very little done.
Certain things happen from time to time in the his- tory of any institution which seem impossible to ac- count for. In the first three years of this period the number of churches increased on the average of six and one-third churches per year. Because the church in 1880 put so much stress upon the Temperance ques- tion or for some other reason the Conference this year lost thirteen churches. The next year a similar oc- currence took place. There was an increase of thir- teen churches. Whether these churches were the ones that were lost the year before, we do not know.19*
These were years of great prosperity in the busi- ness world. The effect of this can be seen in the kind of churches built. The average cost of the churches built in 1881 was from five to twelve thousand dollars.
The church at Maysville was dedicated January 1, 1882. "It is a substantial brick building, thirty-four by fifty-five feet, with a twenty-four foot ceiling. There were large class rooms at the back of the pulpit which were separated from the auditorium by folding doors and the entire building was heated with a furnace. This was one of the biggest days that Maysville ever saw. We note an interesting thing here that has not
19 Conference Minutes, 1880.
139
NORTH INDIANA CONFERENCE
been brought to light before. This was the first church the windows of which were hung with weights and the windows themselves were filled with stained glass. The building, in its entirety, had a seating capacity of five hundred persons and was put up at a cost of five thousand dollars.20
Still greater interest was manifest at Decatur, Indiana. An edifice constructed in Gothic style was the pride of the Methodists of the place. The building was fifty-four feet by one hundred feet besides the tower projection on the corner. The auditorium is fifty-two feet square and the lecture room, thirty-five by twenty- five feet, is separated from the auditorium by a series of folding doors of panel work filled with cut glass. The building was one of the finest of the day. For the first time in the history of the conference we have a lighted with natural gas, the discovery and use of which in the smaller churches of the conference in the next fifteen years was destined to cost Methodism thousands of dollars. The people did not go so far in this work as to heat this building with gas as many others did later. The building cost almost thirteen thousand dollars.20
Not only was there a growing interest in church building among North Indiana Methodists, but they began to realize the fact that if they wished the best service from their ministers they must be treated bet- ter. The Annual Conference of 1880 passed the follow- ing resolution :21
"Whereas, the period of our conference has arrived when the interests of both the pastor and the people imperatively demand that all our parsonages be fur- nished with heavy articles of furniture; therefore, be it
"Resolved, That we adopt and use our utmost effort
20 Western Christian Advocate, January, 1882.
20* Ibid., February, 1882.
21 Conference Minutes, 1880.
140
NORTH INDIANA CONFERENCE
to put into practice the following plan, viz .: The pres- ent year, to supply all our parsonages with stoves. The second year to supply all the parsonages tables, stands, common chairs, bureaus and cupboards. The third year to supply them with carpets, chamber sets, parlor furniture and such other articles as charges may de- sire, and the rule is also to be applied to houses rented for parsonages."
The class-meeting,* an institution that at one time was absolutely necessary to Methodism and an institu- tion that was organized by Wesley himself, had by this time almost fulfilled its mission.22 Today only a small minority of the churches have this old-time service. The Epworth and Junior Leagues, and the Sunday School are increasing in size and number and are doing the work that the class-meeting once did. Between 1875 and 1885 the North Indiana Conference began to feel the effects of the decline of these meetings. Every year there were conventions of the Class Leaders of the conference held in order to find out the reason for this decline and to arouse enthusiasm for the class- meeting. The Class Leaders invariably blamed the ministers for the decay. They brought out, in many instances, the fact that some preachers never once, during their year's work, visited this service.
The indifference of the ministers may have been one of the reasons for the decline of the class-meeting, but if this were true we can hardly blame them. The minister's duties were greatly increasing. He was supposed to preach, help in the Sunday School, lead all movements for civic and social reforms; see that no one within his jurisdiction was suffering for want of the necessities of life; visit all of his members at least four times a year; call on the sick three or four times a week; keep the prayer meeting alive; work faithfully at his sermons and do many other things. Beside all of these duties he was called upon to keep
22 Western Christian Advocate.
141
NORTH INDIANA CONFERENCE
the class-meeting alive, a task which in itself, if fol- lowed out according to the rules laid down by the Methodist Discipline, would keep two men busy all the time. To give an idea of what the people of that time expected of the preacher we take the words of Dr. Charles G. Finney.23 "The pulpit is no longer set for the defense and the discussion of dead issues . It has to preach the living gospel which is directly related to every phase of human life, and bears hard upon all forms of sin. It has to bring Christian truth to bear hard upon the conscience of men and to show its ap- plication to their varied wants and circumstances. Its sphere is religion and morality. It has nothing to do with politics as such and should not engage in strifes of political parties. Neither has it to deal with busi- ness as such. It has not to do with current prices and sales. These belong to the counter's room and the broker's gang. But wherever these can be appropri- ately applied, whether in the domestic, social, political, or business relations of life, there is the proper sphere of the minister's activity, for the gospel is as broad as human life. It is not to be kept apart from the worldly affairs of men. It should be the controlling force and inspiration of every-day and to teach them the art of living. It is the business of the minister to preach the gospel so that it will come home to the merchant, the voter, the politicians in the midst of their dogmatism, to the employer and to the employe in their strifes, and to all men just where the strain is heaviest. The minister's hands are red with blood who stands aloof from these things." The people were, of course, anxious that all the work of the church be faithfully done, yet many of these critics of the minis- ters were not so enthusiastic when the proposition of paying the preacher was put up to them. The average salary of the ministers of the North Indiana Conference for the year 1880 was sixty hundred and sixty-eight
23 Address given by Chas. Finney, 1887.
142
NORTH INDIANA CONFERENCE
dollars and sixty-four cents. Some of them received as much as fourteen hundred dollars, and one man re- ceived only one hundred and ninety-two dollars for a year's work.
This condition of affairs brought the Conference face to face with a very serious proposition. Many young men who were prospective ministerial students gave it up and went into other work, where they could get better pay. The condition has changed, but slowly, and the ministers today are getting but little more money.25 This change was brought about by such men as the Rev. E. O. Buxton.26 The following quotation was taken from an address that he gave on the above subject : "Given a good natural ability, a sound body and a sanctified heart, does the salary received con- tribute anything in the saving of souls? Is there an eloquent and unction in dollars and cents? Is there man of God so skillful in handling the Word of God because he receives $15,000.00? And is that other blundering workman made so by the meager pittance doled out to him? This is the problem.
"The necessity for a thorough preparation for the ministry, of mind as well as heart, is now almost uni- versally conceded. There are a few that do not agree to this. Nevtreheless, the laity is growing unanimous in its demands for an educated clergy. The world is more imperative and quickly deserts the pews of that church which employs mediocre service.
"Statistics show that most preachers are poor boys in the beginning (and stay that way). Fifteen hun- dred dollars must be spent in securing a college educa- tion. Then there is seven hundred dollars for three years of theological training. This involves the sacri- fice of eight or nine years of the best part of the lives of our young men, in which there is possibility of each one saving eighteen hundred dollars had he not been
25 Report made by L. C. Bentley, D. D.
26 Western Christian Advocate, April, 1882.
143
NORTH INDIANA CONFERENCE
in school. This makes a total of four thousand dollars for preparation. Is a young man justified in doing this, only to receive the average salary of $668.64? Many feel that they are not, and give it up. Using this standard, the average minister, when he is sixty-five years old, stands financially in the shoes of his friends when they were twenty-five. But can't a minister with a sublime faith rise above these things? Yes, when he receives angel's wings, and bread and butter and clothes and shelter for the head are no longer things of concern. To the lay members we wish to say that a generous salary, promptly paid, contributes largely to the ministration of the pulpit in spiritual things. If you desire your pastor to lift you by his influence and holy discourse nearer heaven, all anxiety for the prom- ised, but unpaid, quarterage, all embarrassing weights of debts, must be removed by your munificence. Ac- cording as you give of your temporal means, even so shall you also, through your pastor, receive spiritual grace."
Yet, taking all these things into consideration, there were many ministers who worked hard and many times were facing despair.27 "Fort Wayne," says a writer, "is not an easy field to work. Here Methodism has had to fight for every inch of ground gained. At this time (1880) there was an inflow of Catholics who were building libraries and schools to make their work more sure. Also at this time there were over three hundred resorts where liquor could be obtained. But there were two churches in the town that in this year paid off debts each amounting to fifteen hundred dol- lars. The other two churches were hard at work fight- ing the devil north of St. Mary's."
We have not yet mentioned the effect of the re- vival meetings which were held during the decade. In 1880 there comes to us the report of the meetings held in nineteen churches in one district;28 there were "996
27 Ibid., 1880.
144
NORTH INDIANA CONFERENCE
conversions and 157 sanctifications." The strange thing about the latter was that there were 117 sanctifi- cations in one church, 17 in another and none in all the seventeen churches. The average number of conver- sions in revival meetings is about forty-five. This kind of service brought into the doors of the Methodist Church 8,840 members during the years from 1877 to 1887.29
This large increase in membership made it possible for the people to have better church buildings. On December 27, 1886, under the leadership of Rev. H. N. Herrich, pastor, a beautiful church, built of red brick and trimmed with white stone, was dedicated at Knightstown.30 The building, including the furniture, light, heat, stone walks, carpets and fence, cost $12,- 500,000. The auditorium is 40x60 feet, the lecture room 26x35 feet, the ladies' parlor 21x36 feet. All these rooms, by a series of folding doors, can be made into one large room, with a seating capacity of twelve hundred persons. There is a basement to the church, in which the dining-room and kitchen are located. On the dedication day the pastor asked for $4,000.00 to pay the remaining debt, and to the surprise of all there was five thousand one hundred dollars given. This placed the new church entirely out of debt.
Membership
Churches
Sunday
Schools
Missions
Year
Increase
Decrease
Increase
Decrease
Increase
Decrease
Increase
Decrease
1877
1,711
..
..
..
25
. .
$ 29.43
1878
348
..
..
. .
. .
15
$369.81
1879
2,284
7
..
..
7
271.16
..
1880
2,171
13
15
..
508.96
.. ...
1881
534
13
..
..
. .
10
1,353.65
1883
549
..
..
...
1884
562
51%
. .
2
. .
1,163.96
..
1886
2,088
18
9
..
1,331.72
28 Ibid., March, 1880.
29 Minutes of the North Indiana Conference.
30 Western Christian Advocate, December, 1886.
533.90
1882
691
.....
716
. .
78.93
1885
2,020
3
9
..
271.20
8
11
15
...
8
6
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GAS BOOM, 1888-1893.
Within the history of the Conference there has been no movement that has fired men's hearts to more strenuous efforts and given the church a more brilliant outlook, only to die as suddenly as it came, than the gas boom of 1888 to 1893. It is a significant fact that the most productive gas belt in the United States was almost wholly confined within the borders of the North Indiana Conference. No general economic movement has been more closely associated with Indiana's Meth- odist institutions. The period marked a radical tran- sition of ideas. The church no longer existed as an institution supported entirely by charity. It became a real financial factor, to be reckoned with by all the economic forces of the times.
In 1886 it was discovered at Eaton that Indiana had rock capable of a high pressure flow of gas. The same year a Kokomo company drilled and secured a "gusher." The commercial opportunities that opened up with the application of this new resource created an excitement never since equaled in the economic world of Indiana-it was a veritable rage. "A clean, convenient and labor-saving fuel, of greater heating value than either wood or coal, that could be brought cheaply to one's furnace or stove, set both manufactur- ers and private consumers agog, and the capitalists hastened to supply them." Land speculation ran rife wherever it was suspected that there was gas-bearing rock, and all over the Conference wells were sunk, until the country was suggestive of a "porous plaster." The cheap fuel that was such a tempting bait to manufac-
146
NORTH INDIANA CONFERENCE
turers, causing a sudden investment of about $300,000,- 000, in at least fifty factories,2 was the capitol to pas- tors' dreams for new and more comodious church build- ings, finer parsonages, increased congregations, and possibly increased salaries. Never before nor since have churches and their pastors realized as quickly their opportunities and made an effort to take advantage of them. New churches were built extra large to accom- modate "expected" growth. At Perkinsville, for in- stance, J. T. Fretto built a brick church, 40x50 feet, with an eleven-foot-square vestibule. The windows were attempted Gothic design. The heating and light- ing were gas.3 At Cadiz a $4,600 structure was re- placed by a $7,000 one;4 at Alexandria, $4,500 was added to their $7,000 edifice;5 Elwood and Frankton, together, in 1888, could boast of a combined church valuation of only $4,000, but in less than two years Elwood alone worshiped in an $8,000 house, and Frank- ton, now a separate charge, reported their building worth $3,000.6 Here alone was a tripling of valuation. In Muncie, C. U. Wade gathered in an almost incredible short time the finances to replace old Simpson Chapel, which was too small to accommodate a membership that had increased by almost sixty per cent. in two years, with High Street-the most commodious and beautiful building within the Conference. Such a spirit for material growth was in evidence even in smaller towns, where gas meant only a heating and lighting convenience, and not a cause for sudden economic ac- cumulation. Rev. G. M. Carpenter, at Alto, redeemed a $4,800 building from private ownership and added
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.