Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture;. Brownlow William Gannaway

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СКАЧАТЬ all the circumstances, as a display of the most brazen-faced assurance and the most unmitigated impudence I ever met with in my life! I have known for years that you were capable of great presumption, but in this insolent and dictatorial address you surpass yourself– you positively out-Herod Herod! In the whole history of the country, and of parties, I venture the assertion, that a parallel piece of impudence, and downright bold-faced assurance, cannot be pointed to, as the act of any partisan. It is really past all belief, if I had not your production before me. But more of this hereafter.

      Copies of your pamphlet were distributed through the aisles and seats of the Annual Conference room in Nashville, and have been sent all over the South, to members of other Conferences. Your proof-sheet was seen ten days before the meeting of the Middle Tennessee Conference, and your "work of faith and labor of love" was ready for distribution when the Conference first convened, but you held it back till the Conference was ready to adjourn, and to a period so late, that a reply, if one had been deemed necessary, could not be made. This was cowardly, and in keeping with your political tactics and code of morals. In saying that this was in keeping with your code of morals, I allude to the Woodberry affair.

      I shall now take up your address, Governor, and wade through its twenty-eight pages of double-distilled Sag Nichtism, sublimated impudence, and concealed advocacy of Romanism, mixed up with contradictions, false assertions, and glaring absurdities, as it is, from beginning to end. In the opening paragraph, you predicate your right to instruct the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers" of the entire Church, South, upon the real or assumed fact, that you are "The son of a now sainted father, who for forty years ministered at your altars, the co-laborer of that noble band of Christian ministers, who, under Asbury and Coke, founded your Church in America!"

      Alas, that any "sainted Father" should be represented by so degenerate a son – an irreligious son – not a member of any Church – but having the hardihood, in the face of those who know the facts, to disguise himself in the priestly robes of a "sainted Father" – like an ass in a lion's skin, to bray out against better men than himself, or, like a wolf in sheep's clothing, to steal into the fold, where that Father was accustomed to minister in holy things, and with soft and honeyed words, and hypocritical teachings, and Satan-like misrepresentations, seek whom he may devour! You tell the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," that you really "approve" their "creed," and, what is still more soul-cheering, you have "witnessed their growth and progress for years, with the highest satisfaction." This is very condescending in the "son of a now sainted father!" It is quite flattering! But these "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," would receive all this with a greater degree of allowance, if they did not believe that your generous patronage, so lavishly bestowed upon them and their "creed," was prompted by a principle of which selfishness is the soul! They believe, and so express themselves in conversation, that your forced smile of approbation, your reluctant eulogy, have both been wrung from you, because you are a sycophantic partisan suitor for patronage, in the way of votes for your party. These Clergymen whom you address, think it a great pity that the "son of a now sainted father" should exhibit so much "satisfaction" at witnessing their prosperity, in theory, and manifest not one particle in practice. They think that you would be in your proper place, to be found among the mourners, instead of the teachers in their Church; and that it is high time, considering your age in life, and the extent of your iniquities, that you should be found upon your knees, in an altar full of fresh straw, at an old-fashioned Camp-Meeting, asking the pious to pray for you, and God, for the sake of the forty years labors of "a now sainted father," to have mercy upon you, and save your sinful old soul from that death that never dies.

      Why, Sir, the Devil himself would blush to perpetrate such an act of arrogance as you have done, in thus volunteering your advice to the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers," of the Methodist Church. An old political party hack, who is not now, and never was, a member of any Church – an intriguing old sinner, who never even attends Church, and who, in this respect, shows that he neither fears God, respects the Christian Sabbath, nor "approves the creed" of any orthodox denomination, to be lecturing a numerous body of Clergymen, as to what they ought or ought not to do, it is the culmination of all that is called effrontery! The "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers" of the Methodist Church, wish the evidence of your conversion to God, before they consent to obey you, as "having the rule over them." Your approval of their "creed," and the "satisfaction" with which you have witnessed their progress, is not sufficient to satisfy their doubting minds, as long as you continue to ride into Nashville on Sabbath, and retail political slang at the Inn, or read Sag Nicht papers at the Union Office, to the neglect of the house of God, and the evil example set before young men, against the statute in such cases made and provided! We must, as Ministers, hear you relate your experience, in a regular class-meeting. Nay, more, knowing your raising, and your ability to "deceive, even the very elect," we must see you down upon your marrow-bones, surrounded by noisy and zealous officials, pounding you on the back, and exclaiming, as in the days of your "sainted father," Pray on, Aaron! We must hear you groan– we must see your sinful old bosom heave– we must witness the falling of big tears, as you publicly confess and manfully repent of your misdeeds – of the whole catalogue, of all the inward and outward iniquities of your past life – your sins of omission and commission, which God knows are more numerous than the hairs upon your old sinful head! I say we must see all this, and even more, before we can have faith in your teachings, as big as even a grain of mustard seed!

      But you are the "son of a now sainted father" – you derive great "satisfaction" from the "growth and progress" of Methodism – you "approve" the Methodist "creed" – and hence, a glorious future awaits the Methodist Church: provided always, that her "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers" hearken to and obey your teachings, a thing they are very certain not to do, in the matter under consideration. It is a melancholy fact, that many of the sons of Methodist, and other Ministers, are very wicked and unpromising men; and it is equally true, and certainly notorious, that where they turn out to be sinners, they are sinners above all offenders, dwelling either at Jerusalem or elsewhere! I have no hesitancy in pronouncing you as hard a case, in a moral point of view, as ever came before the Church, and the only appropriate reply her ecclesiastical dignitaries can make to your address, is to appoint a day of fasting and prayer to God, for your conversion, to be observed throughout her borders. I now, as the appointed organ of the Church, set apart the first day of January, 1856, and I pray you, as one desiring the salvation of your soul, to be in the spirit and in a proper frame of mind on that day! Humble yourself before God – tell him that you were in error in stealing the livery of Heaven to serve the Devil in! Tell him that you are an old worn-out political hack – that you have grown gray in the service of sin – that during the whole of a somewhat eventful life, your labors have been in the dirtiest pools of party politics – that you have been insincere and unscrupulous in all your teachings and acts – that you stand before the people of Tennessee publicly branded by eight respectable and reliable citizens of Wilson county, as a falsifier in the Know Nothing controversy of the past summer – and that you are sorry for having come forth steeped to the nose and chin in political profligacy, to lecture grave Clergymen upon subjects you ought to set at their feet and learn lessons about! Tell your God, what he doubtless knows, that though the "son of a now sainted father," you are as full of devils as ever Mary Magdalene was – that like the "Imps of Sin," in Milton, these "yelp all around" you – that this is no reflection upon a "now sainted father," whose seeming neglect of your early training grew out of his continual absence from home, as is the case with most Methodist Preachers, – aye, tell your God, that once out of this scrape, you will never be caught in another of the kind! You say,

      "From the foundation of our government, it has been a conceded and settled doctrine, that the various religious denominations should not, as such, intermeddle with the political contests of the day. No instance is now remembered where they have done so!"

      This is a remarkable sentence, and partakes of the nature of your Wilson county assertions! The history of the Church, and of the world, contradicts every word of the foregoing, and demonstrates that the "settled doctrine" of the Catholic Church, has СКАЧАТЬ