But because it was truthful, and honest, and candid, and popular, and reliable, it was pronounced disloyal and dangerous; and because it would not serve the cause of cruelty, confiscation, conflagration, desolation and destruction, and with the venom of a viper hound on the barbarous hordes with fire and sword to the commission of the foulest deeds of war; nor with sanctimonious hypocrisy sanctify the implements and instruments of blood and death, and canonize the vilest thieves, and robbers, and murderers; for these reasons the paper was set down by the enemies of the M. E. Church, South, as in the interest of treason and rebellion, and by them the military authorities wore induced to suppress the paper and arrest and imprison its editor. Of his arrest and long confinement in the Myrtle Street Military Prison, St. Louis, the reader will be more fully informed hereafter.
That the ministers of the M. E. Church, South, who suffered more than others during the war in Missouri, did not provoke the strife nor enhance its malignity, but, on the contrary, labored earnestly and prayed fervently for the return of peace to our distracted country, take the following from the St. Louis Christian Advocate, of June 18, 1861:
“Fasting and Prayer.
“To the Ministers and Members of the M. E. Church, South, in the Missouri and St. Louis Conferences.
“Dear Brethren and Sisters: Whereas, our once happy and prosperous country is now involved in the calamities of civil war, which threatens ruin to all our cherished hopes and interests; and whereas, God alone, in the exercise of his sovereign and gracious dispensations, can avert the terrible evil; and as he has promised to be inquired of by those that fear him, and to interpose for those who reverently and submissively supplicate his mercy and seek his Divine interposition, it therefore becomes to every Christian community both a high privilege and a solemn duty, in such times of serious and alarming trials, humbly and reverently to prostrate themselves before the mercy seat and supplicate that aid and deliverance which God only can afford.
“And, as I have been requested by many ministers and laymen of both Conferences (in view of my seniority as a minister) to designate and recommend a day of fasting and prayer, I would, therefore, most respectfully recommend that Wednesday, the third day of July, be set apart and observed for this solemn purpose, and that appropriate religious services be held in all our places of worship; and, in accordance with the expressed wishes of many, and, as I think, in accordance with manifest propriety, I tender most cordially, in behalf of the whole Church, an invitation to all Christian people of the State to unite with us on that day, humbly and devoutly to supplicate, in behalf of our common country, that God, who can turn the hearts of men as the streams in the south, would forgive our sins and in his merciful providence hasten the return of peace to our country—our entire country.
“Andrew Monroe.
“Fayette, Mo., June 5, 1861.
“The undersigned do most cordially approve the above proposition, and earnestly recommend its observance throughout the State.
“Joseph Boyle,