a salary. It seemed to them that a man could not be truly filled with the spirit of God and accept pay for doing the work inspired by Him. "Judas." they said, was the first to take pay."

Rev. J. M. Sturtevant tells of a sermon which he heard on the third Sabbath after his arrival in Jacksonville. Through a mistake, for which no one was to blame, the Presbyterians and Methodists found. themselves together in the court house. Each expected to hold services, but as the Methodists had already begun Mr. Sturtevant and his people joined the congregation, The minister was the famous Rev. Peter Cartwright, whose life work was certainly commendable; but such was the bitterness of the sectarian and sectional spirit of the time that he took occasion to make a bitter attack on Calvinism, caricaturing it and holding it up to ridicule; and, in the face of the young enterprise for a college in Jacksonville, he took particular pains to ridicule a college education, repeating the old saying: "I have never spent four years of my life in rubbing my back against the walls of a college."1

The native was much opposed to agitation in behalf of temperance societies. Strong liquors were used freely and there was much drunkenness. A definite crusade against intemperance seemed an infringement of personal rights, and the warmest opposers of temperance were said to be ministers and church members. The following notes taken from the anti-temperance lecture of a native preacher are typical of the times: "The temperance society is productive of more harm than good. It slanders those who do not fall in with it. Its documents were charged with falsehoods. The state legislatures are taking up the subject and it is high time to give the alarm. The heroes of the revolution were not temperance men. The subject of temperance is not in the Constitution of the United States, though the framers were wise men. It has religious and political designs. Massachusetts is in danger; its legislators are almost all temperance men. This society gives all the liquor to the clergymen and physicians, and that is popery. The Law of Moses was not against drinking. The more institutions there are, the more money will be wanted. The temperance society sows the seeds of discord in the church and community. The curse of God is now resting on Ireland in the shape of a famine, because so many Irish signed the pledge." To the Easterner, on the other hand, the man who pretending to be a spiritual leader could yet hobnob with his people at the grocery and tavern and join with them in drinking, seemed utterly disgusting.

Sunday schools, missionary societies, and even day schools, met with the same opposition. Even when education came in some degree to be desired, the people had not been trained to that united public action which would have secured it quickly. Often a community was in existence twenty or thirty years before there was any school house. Many of the people could not read and their preachers did not teach and insist that they have schools and instructors. This suggestive report was made in 1848 to the Missionary Society:

1 Julian M. Sturtevant. An Autobiography, 161.

2 Home Missionary, July, 1847.

"I know no other community in the state where a missionary of your society has labored one year that is not supplied with a good weekday school and a Sunday school, and I know of but few which have not been thus supplied that have such schools." In 1852 there was not a school in Pulaski or Alexander counties. In 1856 southern counties could not produce teachers who could pass the examinations required by law. On one occasion a school house was donated to a community by a man of some means, but with the distinct provision that no eastern teacher should be employed to teach in it 2

This spirit of prejudice and lack of public enterprise marked many of the undertakings of the earlier days. Illinois College first applied to the legislature for a charter in 1830. Prejudice against the "Yankees" and fear of ecclesiastical corporations defeated the charter.3 Said one member: "If they granted a charter at all, he was in favor of restricting the corporation to one quarter section of land; for otherwise, those college men, with their immense funds, would buy up new land in the northern part of the state and then put on tenants at will and finally sway the political destiny of Illinois. So, also, they opposed taxation for common schools on the ground that it worked injustice to those without children or those patronizing private schools. The bill for the Illinois and Michigan canal was opposed, because it would open an easy entrance to "Yankees" and the state would be flooded with them.4

Two citations in regard to the Mexican War will show the conflicting sentiments of eastern and native preachers on that subject. The native preacher said it would do the Mexicans good to give them a sound drubbing, and concluded with terrible denunciations upon those who spoke against the war; while the missionary lamented: Shame, indeed, that there should be a Massachusetts and a New England [How art thou fallen from heaven, O, Lucifer, son of the morning] regiment in this war. But when we look at the hordes which Illinois and Missouri have poured forth, we see where Satan's seat is."5

66

Of course, this division came out clearly in the agitation over slavery. In 1850, a spiritual appeal came from a Presbytery in Missouri; they wanted men of the right stamp, "rough and ready," who could preach at all times, let slavery alone, leave their eastern prejudices at home. Western people are born and grow up in excitement and their religion must have more or less of that ingredient." To this appeal there was the equally spirited reply: "Our Western friends may as well understand first as last, that the Eastern churches have a pretty well defined idea of what sort of religion they wish to propagate."

1 Home Missionary, May, 1848; July, 1852; May, 1856.

3 Historic Morgan and Classic Jacksonville.

2 Ibid, August, 1847.

4 Patterson, Early History in Southern Illinois (Fergus' Historical Series).

5 Home Missionary, May and December, 1847.

і

CHAPTER XII.

PURITANISM AND THE SLAVERY ISSUE.

The moral agitation that filled the country in regard to slavery, was manifest in these years in Illinois. There was never any uncertainty as to the attitude of the eastern missionary or his denomination upon this subject; but at first the missionary was not so outspoken as he became later. At times even there was a deprecating tone toward the hot-headed opponent of slavery and a tenderness and sympathy for the slave owner. These words from a missionary in Missouri, written in 1829, exhibit this feeling: "Let me mention what I fear will be a permanent obstacle to a regular and competent support of the ministry in this state. This obstacle is found in the existence of slavery. Slaveholders purchase extensive plantations, and in this way the inhabitants are kept in a scattered state. This evil, it is true, will not exist in towns, and many find a partial remedy in a minister's dividing his time between two or three settlements; but such a state of things will always diminish the effect attending the dispensation of God's word. I am aware that I have now touched a subject of very delicate nature. Slavery, perhaps, exists in its mildest form in this state, but it is still a great evil and one that is most sensibly felt by slaveholders themselves. How is this evil to be removed? Not by denouncing the slaveholder as an unprincipled and unfeeling man. This only tends to aggravate the difficulty. It must be removed by action, and not by declamation. The people at the east must feel that there is a duty devolving on them in relation to this subject. The evil is attached to us as a nation, and if it is ever removed we must, as individuals of this nation, contribute our proportion. When an owner of slaves tells me that he knows and feels that slavery is a crying sin and that he will freely relinquish his slaves, or even that he will relinquish one-half their value on condition that he be compensated for the other half and provisions be made for their transportation, I feel that he has made a generous proposal, and I cannot charge him with all the guilt of slavery, though he may continue to be a slaveholder. Some remarks have lately appeared in the eastern papers which will be hailed by many at the West and South as indications of the increasing prevalence of just views on this subject and as harbingers of good to the degraded blacks. Let it be acknowledged by the inhabitants of the free states that slavery is a national evil and that they are bound in duty to contribute to its removal, and there are thousands at the South and West who will join them heart and hand in the great work of emancipation."1

1 Home Missionary, February, 1829.

For many years few among the missionaries cared to own the name of "abolitionist." Yet in spite of this moderate position on the subject of slavery the missionary found his principles so at variance with those of the people about him in southern communities that his work languished. In Missouri, and the southern states generally, where much money had been spent and long continued effort had been made by the Home Missionary Society, it generally became evident that the struggle was a losing one. So much opposition was encountered that for years the work declined, and it was practically cut off when, in 1856, the society decided to grant no appropriations to the churches containing slaveholding members. At this time the situation was reviewed and it was shown that auxiliary societies and ecclesiastical bodies in the South and Southwest had withdrawn their support from the main society, less than $2,000 having been received from these states in the preceding year. In southern churches more slaveholders were being received into the membership than in former years, and ministers who owned slaves were advanced. Liberty of speech was no longer allowed and the ministry must even be champions of the "institution." The missionaries in slaveholding states were decreasing in spite of all efforts to increase their numbers. In Illinois there were many to sympathize with the southern cause, and, in some localities, a majority took the part of the South. This was especially true in the southern part of the state and in the river towns. Yet there was generally a chance for the growth and victory of contrary opinion.

Not all of the anti-slavery sentiment came from the East. In the early years the northwest was the only region into which the southerner could migrate when he became discontented with the conditions of society which he found becoming fixed about him. While many of the settlers were merely poor, and so without slaves and therefore content to settle in a region where slavery was forbidden, others came from principle. Many a Scotch Presbyterian came to Illinois from the Carolinas for conscience sake. These are facts, of which there are necessarily few records, but they are none the less true and interesting. It is, however, a matter of record that "the first settlement formed within its bounds, of emigrants from the United States, was made in Morgan county in 1781 by James Moore, who was a native of Maryland, but came to Illinois from Western Virginia. In 1785-6 this settlement was strengthened by a number of families from the same region. They were opposed to slavery and took up their long line of march for these wild regions that, themselves and their posterity, might enjoy the advantages of a country unembarassed by slavery. * The first Protestant church was a Baptist church at New Design, formed in 1796. This church was originally formed with rules opposed to slavery, and, in 1803, adopted a rule that no person guilty of slavery could be admitted to membership. It was constituted by Rev. Josiah Dodge, originally from Connecticut, who was one of the first two ministers who, with their congregations, separated from the Baptists in Kentucky on account of

*

1 Home Missionary, December, 1856.

slavery." The Union church of Edwards county was opposed to slavery and moved, as a church, from the South, though its leader, Rev. Stephen Bliss, was from New England.2

In the contest of 1823 over a new constitution which should permit slavery, the few New England missionaries made themselves felt by joining with laymen in the work to preserve a free state. Only two of the five newspapers stood for freedom, and one of these was edited by Hiram Eddy of New England. Rev Thomas Lippincott, an early missionary from New England, wrote fiery handbills, and contributed to one of these papers on the subject of slavery, while Rev. Stephen Bliss, just referred to, was elected to the Senate on the anti-slavery issue. Another powerful anti-slavery worker of those days was Rev. J. M. Peck, missionary of the Massachusetts Baptist Society, and later an agent of the American Bible Society. His constant travelling gave him opportunity to spread anti-slavery ideas. "His plan of organizing the counties by a central committee, with branches in every neighborhood, was carried out by his own exertions and personal supervision, and was greatly instrumental in saving the state." Another writer probably refers to the same plan when he says that J. M. Peck organized an anti-slavery society in St. Clair county, with which fourteen societies of other counties became affiliated.4

When this crisis was past, there was for many years a hopeful attitude on the part of the missionaries on the subject of the overthrow of slavery. It was felt that the spread of education, the growth of missions, the efforts of colonization societies would do away with the evil. Since Illinois herself was not facing the question, and since she had put an end to efforts to introduce slavery within her borders, the subject, for some ten or fifteen years, did not occupy the public mind so much as might now be supposed. Missionaries made their frequent reports to the home office, dwelling fully on all their difficulties and discouragements and extremely sensitive to the moral atmosphere about them; but little, in Illinois, was said about slavery. Then in the 30s, 1836–7 especially, came the attempt of the South to prevent free speech, a time noted for mobs and riots. Illinois, as a border state, was doomed to feel the evil of the troubled times and to contribute her victim.

Elijah P. Lovejoy was born at Albion, Maine, in 1802, the son of Rev. Daniel Lovejoy, a Congregational minister. He graduated at Waterville College, Maine, and went to St. Louis as school teacher and editor. Here he had a religious experience which led him to return East for theological training at Princeton, and, on his return to St. Louis in 1833, he was commissioned as missionary to that city by the Home Missionary Society. In addition to preaching, he edited and published the St. Louis Observer as an organ of the Presbyterians of Illinois and Missouri. His character was earnest and transparent,

1 Home Missionary, March, 1835. (Statement by Rev. Theron Baldwin, indebted to Rev. J. M. Peck.)

2 History of the Congregational Association of Southern Illinois (1892).

3 W. H. Brown, Early History of Illinois (Fergus' Historical Series).

4 Patterson, Early Society in Southern Illinois.