USA > Missouri > Johnson County > The history of Johnson County, Missouri : including a reliable history of the townships, cities, and towns, together with a map of the county; a condensed history of Missouri; the state constitution; an abstract of the most important laws etc > Part 41
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Notwithstanding some discouragements the house was erected, and opened for divine worship. The Presiding Elder, M. Sovin D. D. preach- ing the initiatory sermon, at the fourth quarterly meeting of that year. There remained, however, a debt of some $300 or $400 upon the property. , A New appointment was made during the year at Burford's school house. A two weeks meeting held with good results, and a small society organ- ized there.
The pastor suffered a sad affiction this year in the loss, by death of his
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wife, June 16, 1871. The return of Rev. H. Threlfull to this work for this year was very unsatisfactory to a large portion of the membership, which caused serious embarrassment to the church, both spiritually and financially.
The annual conference held in 1872, appointed to this work Rev. J. C. Berry who entered upon the work in the latter part of March, in poor health, and otherwise discouraging circumstances, growing to some extent out of the matters above referred to. Owing to a want of harmony in the membership, the debt upon the parsonage was unprovided for, and during the year was sold for the debt to the loss of the church. A new class was organized at Walker's school house, and a general improve- ment of the condition of the church was made during the year. Brother Berry closed his work here in poor health which proved to be the begin- ning of the end, for he closed his earthly labors on the 19th of April 1877, in Des Moines Iowa. The annual conference of 1873, appointed Rev. Wm. McCready to this work, and continued for two years. The church lost considerably in numerical strength by removals during these two years. The Walker school house appointment was dropped.
In the year 1874, the name of the circuit was changed to Centerview. The church building at Centerview was completed free from debt, and dedicated on the 2d day of August, 1874, by Rev. G. De La Matyr of Kansas City.
In the spring of 1875, Rev. J. W. Grant was appointed to this work, but unfortunately has left no record of the work done and performed by him during the year. We are therefore compelled to rely upon memory for the incidents of this year.
In the spring of 1876, Rev. Isaac Entwisle was appointed to this circuit. He found four classes organized. The class at Cornelia which was the fifth class being in an unsettled condition, but not without hopeful signs of recuperation. By leave of the first quarterly conference, the pastor went east visiting friends, and received help for both himself and the church åt Centerview. A fair was held during the year at Centerview, at which something over $70 were realized, and applied upon the church debt, which it seems by some mistake had been heretofore reported paid. There seems to have been at this time about $400 debt hanging over the church. At the request of the trustees, Brother George Griffith took charge of the matter to collect all unpaid subscriptions that were available, which he did, and after which there still remained about $100 unpaid, which it was agreed that Brother Griffith and the trustees would assume and free the church in deed and verity from any debt. A new appoint- ment or class was formed at Mason's school house with promise of great
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good. The circuit was in a more hopeful condition at the end of the year, and the outlook for the coming year good.
The annual conference of 1877, appointed to this work Rev. G. V. Houts, who found six classes organized, five of which were in good con- dition. Cornelia seemed to be in a lifeless condition, and after a time was discontinued. The quarterly conference asked and obtained leave of the annual conference to sell the half interest which the church had in the church building at Cornelia. The year was one of unusual prosperity for the work. Three of the five appointments had revi- val seasons, and notwithstanding the losses by death and removals, the year closed with a net increase of twenty-five members and probationers. Financially, the circuit exceeded any previous year. It paid on old debts and improvements, $255; for ministerial support, $511; for periodicals and sunday school literature, about $30; and to the various benevolent collections, $25.30. The value of church property this year was esti- mated at $1,400, consisting of one church building and a half interest in another. At the annual conference for 1878, the same pastor was returned to this work, and also in 1879, making three years successively upon the same work, it being the longest time that a pastor is allowed to the same work under the laws of the church.
At the commencement of the year 1878, the class at Centerview became disaffected, principally through some outside influences brought to bear upon them, by reason of which they became disorganized; many of the members calling for letters of dismissal, ostensibly for the purpose of changing their membership to other places.
During the year the classes at Mason's and Walker's were con- solidated and the preaching place fixed at Walker's, though the last half of the year, was done at Masons. In February a series of meetings were held at Bush's school-house, a class of twelve members and probationers was organized; also a Sunday school was organized. Sunday schools were organized at all points on the work, and the year closed with good prospects for the future. For the year 1879 we are again left without a a record, and we can only say that nothing of special interest transpired during this year. It was a year of successful, earnest work, and the pas- tor closed it up and removed to another field of labor, followed by the prayers of a grateful people.
The annual conference which was held at Sedalia, March 17th to the 22d, appointed to this work Rev. Andrew Anderson, who entered upon the work in earnest. During this year, Chilhowee was added to the list of appointments, and some work was done at Centerview, when some twelve persons joined the church and five professed a change of heart. The church lost eight members by removal during the year. The year's
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work closed with good feeling between pastor and people, and with bright prospects for the future. Rev. B. F. January succeeded A. Anderson in 1881, who has but just entered upon his work. He found the work to consist of the following named classes, to-wit: Hout's school-house, Bush's Adam's, Mason's and Walker's, and the class at Chilhowee; Cen- terview having been detached from this and added to Holden.
KNOB NOSTER M. E. Church was organized in 1865, by Rev. C. E. Carpenter, with the following members: Samuel Workman, Sarah Workman, George W. Lutz, Christiana Lutz, Alonzo Edwards, Martha Edwards, J. S. Parrott, John T. Newbill, and Elizabeth Rucker. These were all members of the M. E. church before the separation, in 1844, and, though denied the fostering care of their choice, they never denied the faith, nor bowed the knee to the image of Baal. This formed the nucleus around which has gathered 159 members, with a church building valued at $4,600, and parsonage valued at $650. In the spring of 1866, Rev. George McKee was appointed to this charge, which he served until the spring of 1868, when he was succeeded by the Rev. W. W. Powell, who served there one year. In the spring of 1869 the Rev. J. R. Sassun was assigned to this work, remaining one year. He was followed in 1870 by Rev. Sanford Ing, who continued with them for three years. During this three years the church and parsonage were erected. In the year 1873 the Rev. T. S. Benefiel was appointed to this work, and was followed in 1874 by Rev. J. H. Leas, who remained two years.
From 1876 to 1877 the Rev. William De Motte had pastoral care of the church, and was followed by Rev. C. J. W. Jones, who labored with and for them for two years. From 1879 to the present time the Rev. J. S. Porter has had charge of the work. To this charge properly belongs Union Chapel, situated a few miles north of Knob Noster. A church was built there in 1876 by Rev. S. Jones. This class was organized in 1870 by Rev. S. Ing, then pastor of the Knob Noster church. He served as their pastor until 1873, when the class was attached to the Dunksburg cir- cuit, and placed under the care of J. S. Porter from 1873 to 1876. In March, 1876, the Rev. S. Jones was appointed to this work until 1877, when it was again attached to the Knob Noster charge, under the pastoral care of the Rev. C. J. W. Jones, pastor of the Knob Noster church.
DUNKSBURG CHURCH was organized in May, or June, 1873,by the Rev. J. S. Porter, who had been appointed to that circuit by the annual confer- ence, which met in St. Louis, in March, 1873. In August, of that year, he began to lay his plans for the erection of a church building, in which he succeeded so well, that on the 12th day of November the little church was finished and dedicated to the service of God, the Rev. J. K. Tuttle
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preaching the dedicatory sermon. During this time a protracted meeting had been held, which resulted in more than twenty additions to the church. The building is a neat frame, 22x38 feet, with fourteen feet ceil- ing. It cost about $700. The following pastors have served this charge : The Rev. J. S. Porter from March, 1873, to March, 1876-the full term of three years. The Rev. C. J. W. Jones, from 1876 to 1879-the full term of three years. The Rev. J. W. Atkins, from 1979 to 1880-one year. The Rev. S. Ing, from 1880 to the present day.
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH.
The church of God, or kingdom of Christ, is a purely spiritual king- dom.
It is made up of those truths and principles which bind the consciences of men; and which bind their consciences under such circumstances, and in such connections, as show clearly that they are responsible, immediately. and directly, to God, and to God only, for the proper observance of those principles in their belief and in their practice.
All the moral principles involve accountability to civil society or govern- ment, as well as to God. All these principies, however the moral element may enter into them, because they effect the interest of society, in that sense which shows that those who violated them should account to civil society, on strictly political principles; whilst those that are purely and only moral, are strictly principles of ecclesiastical polity, in contra distinc- tion from civil politics.
The doctrine authorized by the Word of God, in respect to ecclesiasti- cal, and to civil government, is, that each of these governments or powers are ordained of God, and supreme in their respective spheres. It apper- tains to the church to expound and enforce all those principles., for the observance of which men are exclusively responsible to God. The civil government has no authority whatever in this sphere. It has no right to dictate to men what they shall believe, and what they shall do, in order to be acceptable to God. When civil government enters the true domain of the church, it transcends its authority. On the other hand, it appertains to the civil government, to expound and enforce all political principles. It has a right to exact obedience from all its subjects. The church has no right to enter upon the domain of politics. Here the civil government is supreme.
The domain of church and of state lie side by side. Honest men often fail to find the line that distinguishes them. Each deals with moral ques- tions. And it is often a difficult matter to decide to which a given ques- tion belongs. The one domain skirts the other. Thus the subject of church government will be found one of grave import indeed.
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The Methodist Episcopal Church had her form of government under that view of the Word of God, and that experience and observation which are the true test of the wisdom of all measures. And under her govern- ment she enjoyed immunity from material abuses of power, and a high degree of unparalleled success for a series of years. It was a form of government adapted to the system of itinerant preaching. Its theory was simple. Its practice, however, required great sacrifices on the part of the people, and still greater on the part of the preachers. It consisted of a general conference, with full legislative powers, and a system of general itinerant superintendents or bishops, with whom was deposited both the judicial and the executive power of the government.
These are each of them vast powers. They are inherent in the very idea of government-that is, the power to make laws on the one hand, and on the other, the power to judge of these laws, and to execute them, or to see that they are executed. These vast powers are so related to each other in the structure of the government as to afford such a check upon each other, as to make the combination a strictly conservative, and not a destructive power.
The Methodist Episcopal church existed in Missouri before Missouri was a state. Missouri circuit was established in 1806, when the territory was less than three years old, and when there were only sixteen thousand people in it, including French and Spanish. Rev. John Travis was the preacher-in-charge of the Missouri circuit at this time, and Rev. William McKendree was the presiding elder.
Missouri district was formed in the year 1814.
The Missouri district embraced all the territory west of St. Louis, in the year 1829, and was traveled by Rev. Jesse Green. So far as we can ascertain, Rev. Jesse Green, assisted by others, organized the first society of the M. E. church in Johnson county, in the year 1830.
The next society was organized at Oak Grove by Rev. Thos. Wallace, in 1834.
After this a class was established in the neighborhood of what is now Chilhowee, in the year 1839. Other societies were formed in different parts of the county about this time, and thus, with the advancing tide of population, the Methodist church, through her alternating system of gos- pel preaching, spread all over the county. And from its introduction in 1830, to the present time (1881), it has not ceased to occupy the county in an organized form. There may have been some years or parts of years during the war of the states, when societies were disorganized, classes dis- membered, and the itinerant plan of circuit traveling suspended, but as an organized church, it has never been in any sense broken or dissolved from its present organization to the present day.
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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY.
WARRENSBURG .- Preaching by the Methodist church commenced in Warrensburg, as near as we can ascertain in the year 1838.
The first society was most probably organized by Rev. James Porter, and monthly service was held, in connection with the circuit, in the old log court house. This service was transferred to the new brick court house, now old, venerable in years, and not unknown to history. The service was held in this house, and the brick hall, still standing among the monu- ments of the past, till a church was erected of good and sufficient size and convenience for the congregation, in what is now known as Old Town. The Methodist church occupied the house and worshipped in it, being regularly supplied with preachers from the annual conference, with perhaps an interruption of a year or so from the vicissitudes of war, until it was burned down as a military necessity in 1864.
At the close of the war preaching was again commenced in connection with the Warrensburg circuit, and service was held in a hall on Holden street till the year 1868, when the present church edifice was built.
The present M. E. church, south, in Johnson county Missouri, is the indentical Methodist church of which we have been speaking, which was established here in 1830.
The suffix " south " attached to the name of the church, did not, in the least, affect the identity of the church, or indicate any change in doctrine, usage or polity, but simply a division of the whole church by an act of separation, into two divisions, north and south.
The suffix "north," and it was used by the bishops of the northern division of the church immediately after the adoption of the " plan of sep- aration," and the suffix " south " as used in the name of the church, have never had any political signification; they are simply words of place, hav- ing only a geographical meaning, designed to show where the church is and not what it is. Hence, M. E. church, south, is simply an abreviation of M. E. church in the south.
The "plan of separation" by which the M. E. church was divided in the year 1844, was adopted by the general conference, the supreme law mak- ing power of the church.
The principles on which the representatives of the annual conferences in the south asked for a separation, were
1. That the church of Christ is purely a spiritual kingdom. It is not a civil government in any sense of the word. It cannot claim, nor of right exercise any civil authority; nor has it any right to oppose, or to contra- vene, the civil law of the land on any purely political question; but on the contrary, is bound to defer to the civil authority in all cases. And,
2. That the constitution of the M. E. church made a division of that vast power inseparable from government, between a delegated general
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conference, designed to embody and express in the "rules and regula- tions" they made, the more popular mind and judgment of the church; and the superintendents or bishops, to whom appertain the function of judging, as a supreme judicial tribunal, the constitutionality of these laws, and the functions of administering them, in their capacity of presidents of the several annual conferences, and overseers of the work generally.
In 1844 the delegates from the slave holding states, and some from the free states, in the general conference, believed that the large majority of that body had utterly ignored, and, to a great extent, formally repudiated these great conservative principles in the action in the case of bishop James O. Andrew.
The church had uniformly borne an unqualified testimony against Afri- can slavery. There is not a vestige of proof that there was a dissenting opinion of any material weight, in the councils of the church at any time, on the subject of the undesirable nature of the institution.
The agitation turned chiefly upon the political character of the institu- tion, and the right of the church to legislate on it as such. For long years the doctrine prevailed that as a political institution, the church had no right to legislate on the subject at all.
The result of the discussions on the matter was the adoption in 1816 of the 9th section of the discipline on the subject of slavery, viz: .
" We declare that we are as much as ever convinced of the great evil of slavery. Therefore no slaveholder shall be eligible to any official sta- tion in our church hereafter, when the laws of the state, in which he lives, will admit of emancipation and permit the liberated slave to enjoy free- dom."
It is here made the clear and distinct avowal of law; first, that in every state in which the civil law will permit a liberated slave to enjoy freedom, the holding of a slave in such state shall operate an utter disqualification to hold office in the church; but second, in whatever state the civil law would not allow the manumitted slave to enjoy freedom, there the holding of a slave should not operate such disqualification.
Thus the whole responsibility of the institution was thrown directly upon the state. This is on the grounds that the civil authority is supreme in the domain of political legislation; and that the institution of African slavery was a political question; and therefore belonged exclu- sively to the jurisdiction of the state-that no ecclesiastical legislation should be allowed to contravene the civil law on the subject. Such was the status of the church on the subject of slavery in 1844, the year of the separation.
Bishop James O. Andrew had become a slave-holder by marriage, and was a citizen of a state which did not allow a manúmitted slave to
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enjoy freedom. So far, therefore, as the holding of slaves was concerned, he was fully protected by the compromise of 1816.
Bishop Andrew was put upon trial regardless of any of the forms of law. He was arraigned, tried and deposed, whithout being formally charged with having violated any rule or law whatever, of the church. The verdict of the court was the only bill of indictment against him. Thus, without any charge or specification, or anything in the shape of a legal trial (such as is granted by the constitution to the humblest member of the church), he was deposed, by the will of the majority, from the high office which he had filled with the greatest acceptability. The ground taken was that the Episcopacy is the mere creature of the general con- ference; the incumbents mere officers of the conference. They made them bishops, and they could displace them at will-either with or with- out the forms of law. A large minority of the body, representing over half a million of laymen, entirely dissented from the positions, and main- tained:
1. That the constitutions of the several states, and the constitution of of the U. S., were supreme in all questions strictly political. That no church whatever, has any right to contravene their decisions on such cases.
2. In regard to the bishops; they held that they were a co-ordinate department of the government-the highest judicial as well as executive functionaries of the church; that they, as chief pastors, judging and administering the laws in combination with the general conference as a co-department of the government, made up the government proper of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
They also believed, that without this combination of powers, there could be no safe government at all. Thus the southern members of that general conference, who constituted the minority, were placed on great constitutional issues, in open antagonism to the northern majority. These issues they believed to be vital to the prosperity of the church. The great barriers of the constitution had been broken down. Every safe- guard was overborne by the weight of popular clamor. The judicial power of the government was lost to the constitution. The minority was laid at the feet of the majority. Nothing was left the southern delegates but to stand upon the platform of the constitution of the church. But to stand thus was to stand alone.
These representatives desired no schism of the body. All that was left them was the privilege of asking a separation, and their share of the common property.
. They respectfully asked for a plan of separation. It was granted by a large majority vote in a spirit of justice and kindness. It was accepted as 23
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a constitutional arrangement for a peaceable separation. With the almost unanimous consent of their laity they organized the M. E. church, south, under the " Plan of Separation " in 1845, and assembled in general con- ference at Petersburg, Va., in 1846.
Under the plan of separation adopted in 1844, provision was made for an equitable division of the property of the church, amounting to several hundred thousand dollars, and commissioners were appointed for that pur- pose. A board of commissioners was appointed by the M. E. church, south, to settle all property questions.
When the general conference of the M. E. church met in 1848, by the use of the convenient majority power, they declared the "Plan of Separa- tion" " unconstitutional, null and void," and refused to settle the property question.
In this condition of the logic of facts, the commissioners of the church, south, appealed to the only power on earth which could legally vindicate their constitutional rights of charter and property. They appealed to the civil courts of the country.
The circuit court (United States) for the southern district of New York decided the case in their favor.
The circuit court of Ohio, to which they applied for their portion of the Western Book Concern at Cincinnati, decided against them. They then appealed to the supreme court of the United States, Chief Justice Taney the chair. This court, after a full and careful consideration of the case, gave a final decision in favor of the M. E. church, south.
The court accompanied their decision with an elaborate argument. They fully sustained the convention which organized the M. E. church, south, under the plan of separation. On the ground that the conven- tion did not, in any sense, depart from the constitution and laws of the M. E. church, the court decided that the M. E. church, south, was not a schism-not a secession-but the legally constituted Methodist church, in the south. Slavery was the occasion of the separation, but not the cause. The cause will be found in great principles underlying church government. The sentiment of the northern part of the church was that the general conference was the supreme authority of the church, and that the bishops were the mere agents of that body.
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