nd even from above the Ohio, while
the Northern Methodist Church was able to organize only a few white
congregations outside of the stronger Unionist districts, but continued
to labor in the South as a missionary field.*

* The church situation after the war was well described in
1866 by an editorial writer in the "Nation" who pointed out
that the Northern churches thought the South determined to
make the religious division permanent, though "slavery no
longer furnishes a pretext for separation." "Too much pains
were taken to bring about an ecclesiastical reunion, and
irritating offers of reconciliation are made by the Northern
churches, all based on the assumption that the South has not
only sinned, but sinned knowingly, in slavery and in war. We
expect them to be penitent and to gladly accept our offers
of forgiveness. But the Southern people look upon a 'loyal'
missionary as a political emissary, and 'loyal' men do not
at present possess the necessary qualifications for
evangelizing the Southerners or softening their hearts, and
are sure not to succeed in doing so. We look upon their
defeat as retribution and expect them to do the same. It
will do no good if we tell the Southerner that 'we will
forgive them if they will confess that they are criminals,
offer to pray with them, preach with them, and labor with
them over their hideous sins.'"

But if the large Southern churches held their white membership and even
gained in numbers and territory, they fought a losing fight to retain
their black members. It was assumed by Northern ecclesiastics that
whether a reunion of whites took place or not, the Negroes would receive
spiritual guidance from the North. This was necessary, they said,
because the Southern whites were ignorant and impoverished and because
"the state of mind among even the best classes of Southern whites
rendered them incapable... of doing justice to the people whom they
had so long persistently wronged." Further, it was also necessary for
political reasons to remove the Negroes from Southern religious control.

For obvious reasons, however, the Southern churches wanted to hold their
Negro members. They declared themselves in favor of Negro education and
of better organized religious work among the blacks, and made every
sort of accommodation to hold them. The Baptists organized separate
congregation