These northern men meant well but, as a rule, were incompetent as farmers and business men. Consequently they failed, and most of them never quite understood the reasons for their failure. They knew next to nothing of plantation economy, and the negroes were their only teachers. Most of them were from the West, and had never seen cotton growing before. It was almost pathetic to see these 5000 northerners risking all they possessed upon their faith in the negro, and losing. The northern merchant gave the negro unlimited credit and lost; the planter gave his tenant all he asked for, whenever it pleased him to ask. The farm stock was driven to camp-meetings and frolics while the grass was killing the cotton. Mills and factories were built and negro laborers employed, but the negroes, because of a lack of quickness and sensitiveness of touch, proved to be unfit for factory work. Besides, the noise of the machinery made them sleepy, and it was beyond their power to report for work at a regular hour each morning. At first, the negroes showed great confidence in the northern man and were glad to work for him, but too much was required of them, and after a year or two the disgust was mutual. The revulsion of feeling following failure and disappointment and ostracism injured the South by creating hostile opinion in the North. Nearly all the northern men went home, but the less desirable ones remained to assist in the political reconstruction of the state, when many of them became state officials.[837] Troubles in the Church At the close of the war, the churches were in a disturbed condition, owing to the attitude of the Washington government. Most of the southern churches held by the northern organizations were restored to their former owners. The northern Methodist Church caused irritation by retaining southern church property that had been placed under its control by the military authorities. But the most aggravated ill feeling was aroused in the Protestant Episcopal Church. After the collapse of the Confederate government, Bishop Wilmer of Alabama directed the Episcopal clergy to omit that portion of the prayer mentioning the President of the Confederate States. Further, he ordered that when civil authority should be restored, the prayer for the President of the United States should be used.[838] Bishop Wilmer, consecrated in 1862, had never made a declaration of conformity to the constitution and canons of the church in the United States, and, consequently, even by the northern Episcopal Church, was not considered amenable to its constitution.[839]