ithout their knowledge. The Negroes were urged to demand
title to all buildings formerly used for Negro worship, and the
Constitutional Convention of Alabama in 1867 directed that such property
must be turned over to them when claimed.

The agents of the Northern churches were not greatly different from
other carpetbaggers and adventurers taking advantage of the general
confusion to seize a little power. Many were unscrupulous; others,
sincere and honest but narrow, bigoted, and intolerant, filled with
distrust of the Southern whites and with corresponding confidence in the
blacks and in themselves. The missionary and church publications were
quite as severe on the Southern people as any radical Congressman. The
publications of the Freedmen's Aid Society furnish illustrations of the
feelings and views of those engaged in the Southern work. They in turn
were made to feel the effects of a merciless social proscription. For
this some of them cared not at all, while others or their families felt
it keenly. One woman missionary wrote that she was delighted when a
Southern white would speak to her. A preacher in Virginia declared that
"the females, those especially whose pride has been humbled, are more
intense in their bitterness and endeavor to keep up a social ostracism
against Union and Northern people." The Ku Klux raids were directed
against preachers and congregations whose conduct was disagreeable to
the whites. Lakin asserted that while he was conducting a great revival
meeting among the hills of northern Alabama, Governor Smith and other
prominent and sinful scalawag politicians were there "under conviction"
and about to become converted. But in came the Klan and the congregation
scattered.

Smith and the others were so angry and frightened that their good
feelings were dissipated, and the devil reentered them, so that Lakin
said he was never able to "get a hold on them" again. For the souls lost
that night he held the Klan responsible. Lakin told several marvelous
stories of his hairbreadth escapes from death by assassination which, if
true, would be enough to ruin the reputation of northern Alabama men for
marksmanship.

The reconstruction ended with conditions in the churches similar to
those in politics: the races were separated and unfriendly; Northern and
Southern church organizations were divided; and between them, especially
in the border and mountain districts, there existed factional quarrels
of a polit