# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1864_S190
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

190 Church-Contemporary History.

-ized, do hereby, in the name and on behalf of the loyal members of the annual conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, assert their right, and claim the possession and administration of the said property in accordance with the original foundation of this beneficent institution; therefore be it resolved, that P. M. Pinckard, C. B. Parsons, and S. D. Baldwin are hereby appointed a Board of Commissioners, with full power and authority to protect the rights of the church in this matter, and to take all steps necessary and requisite to accomplish this, and to persist in the exercise of this power until a meeting of the General Conference shall otherwise direct.' The convention appeared, as the Apologist puts it, to display great concern over the occupation of southern Methodist churches by northern preachers under the authority of the Secretary of War. The following resolutions passed: "Whereas, under an order issued by the Secretary of War, the authorities of another ecclesiastical body, which is distinct from, if not hostile to, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, have been authorized to take possession of the houses of worship belonging to the said church; and whereas we have been informed and believe that the said order does not have the sanction of the President of the United States, and as we likewise believe that this order is regarded, according to the judgment and enlightened Christian sentiment of prudent officers of the land and naval forces, as an unjust and superfluous one, undermining the rights of a numerous Christian body, therefore be it resolved, that we respectfully protest against the execution of the said order, and request the President to check and prevent its enforcement."

Charleston, S.C. In an exchange paper we read that in Charleston all the church steeples have been taken down, so that the Union gunners might have no reference point by which to calculate distances.

The United Brethren in Christ (the so-called Otterbein people), who already have some mission stations among the freed colored people in the South, sent several delegates to Washington in order to secure for themselves some share in the transfer of confiscated church property. So reports the "Evangelist" of May 7. Why should they not, indeed, be entitled to claim their share of the spoils just as well as the Methodists, who are, as is well known, their blood relations! God grant only that the property be distributed as quickly as possible; otherwise there will in the end be a mad chase of the various sects here after church property, which is hardly likely to contribute to the building up of the kingdom of God. It is, incidentally, a remarkable sign that the sects here, which have hitherto raged in the most rabid manner against all state-churchism, have already succumbed so pitifully to the very first temptation to receive a few crumbs from the state. This shows all too plainly that the sects, in their expressions of moral indignation over the privileges of a state church, resemble the fox in the fable, who declared the juicy, sweet grapes he could not reach to be sour and harmful to health.

II. Foreign Countries.

Patriotism. In the Hermannsburg Mission paper of February of this year there is a dialogue concerning the affairs of Schleswig-Holstein, in which one of the interlocutors finally says: So I see you will probably not do much for Schleswig-Holstein? — to which the other replies: "More than all of you; I go every day to my God and pray for Schleswig-Holstein and for our German fatherland and for the precious Lutheran Church, and that God would set everything right, so that right may remain right and all pious hearts may fall in with it, and that God would strengthen the princes with power from on high, and enlighten them with wisdom from on high, and that God would convert the blinded men. I pray that God would end the war and preserve peace, so that God's kingdom might be built up in peace. The confusion is already great enough, and the moral degeneration keeps equal pace with it. Already it is being written from all quarters of Schleswig that the churches stand almost entirely empty. They are fairly empty in most parts of Germany even without a war. But if it should even succeed in inciting the middle states against the great powers, and the French