The Daily Gate City

Reconstruction in the Church.

McCormick, of Chicago, a very rich and very venomous copperhead during the war, has undertaken the job of reconstructing the Old School Presbyterian Church on the rebel platform, and to that end is publishing a lengthy correspondence, carried on by him with his southern brethren. During the war the Old School General Assembly put itself on a loyal platform and declared that treason was not only a crime against the State, but a sin against the church, and required that those guilty of it should be received into fellowship again only upon confession and repentance. And that position of the loyal General Assembly, properly authenticated and duly recorded, stands as the law of the church.

Mr. McCormick and his followers contend that the action of the loyal General Assembly, which was and is, a mere 'rump' in the absence of the southern delegation, was unconstitutional and void. And he insists further that the action of the Confederate General Assembly was more Christian in its spirit and in stricter accordance with the principles and previous position and history of the church. This, of course, is taking the extreme copperhead rebel position in the matter as regards the church, and is a little in advance of the present political position, but as soon as the rebel States are admitted the position will be taken that Congress was a 'rump' through the war, and that its action in civil and political matters, like the action of the General Assembly in church affairs, was unconstitutional and void.

The General Assembly which is to meet in St. Louis next month will have, no doubt, an exciting session in view of the extreme measures, which will be pressed upon it by McCormick and the delegates both north and south, who will maintain their views with great desperation.