human
had been, both in character and in numbers. The greatest gains were among the negroes, and to the negroes the few whites secured were intensely hostile. In 1866, A. S. Lakin was sent to Alabama to organize the Northern Methodist Church.[1811] After two years' work the Alabama Conference was organized, with 9431 members, black and white.[1812] In 1871, Lakin reported 15,000 members, black and white.[1813] The whites were from the
gpt
element of the population. There was great opposition by the white people to the establishment of the northern church. Lakin and his associates excited the negroes against the whites and kept both races in a continual state of irritation. Governor Lindsay stated before the Ku Klux Committee that in his opinion the people bore with Lakin and his church with a remarkable degree of patience; that Lakin encouraged the negroes to force themselves into congregations where they did not belong and to obstruct the services; and that they also made attempts to get control of church property belonging to the southern churches.[1814] No progress was made among the whites, except in the white counties among the hills of north Alabama and in the pine barrens of the southeast. The congregations were small and were served by missionaries. Lakin and his assistants had a political as well as a religious mission--General Clanton said that they were
human
They claimed, nevertheless, that they never talked politics in the pulpit. Lakin once preached in Blountsville, and when he opened the doors of the church to new members, he said that there was no northern church, no southern church, there was only the Methodist Episcopal Church.[1815] But every member of this church, he added, must be loyal, and therefore no secessionist could join. He said that he had been ordered by his conference not to receive
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Republican Methodists, as distinguished from
human
Democratic