“Rev. W. M. Leftwich:
“Dear Sir—I have seen the proof sheets of a large portion of the first volume of ‘Martyrdom in Missouri,’ now soon to come from the press.
“The publication of this book meets my hearty approval. I have met with some who say, ‘Let the past sleep; let all its crimes, and the had blood engendered by them, be buried forever.’ I have not so learned Christ. He, the Incarnate Love, charged the blood of the prophets upon the sons of their murderers. The true work of Christian charity is to eradicate crime, not to ignore it. The maudlin sentiment that would daub over the great public crimes committed by the highest dignitaries of the Northern Methodist Church and their representatives in the South and along the border, is not charity. It is at best a clumsy counterfeit of that chief of the virtues. True charity will seek to bring them to confession and recantation of their deeds.
“To all their former misdeeds they now add, to avoid the shame of the past, denials, equivocation and, as in the case of the Holston property seized by them, false recriminations. The sober truth is that they never hesitated during the time of our public trouble to use the influence an active partisanship gave them with the party in power, to take possession of our property, either by military order, or terrorism, or mob violence. The public conscience of that Church seems to have been debauched by their efforts to defraud us of our property at the time of the division of the Church.
“But the stench of these recent atrocities is so strong in the nostrils of the people that the perpetrators resort to the ever open refuge of the evil-doer—denial. This book is opportune. The great body of the preachers and members of the Church North are honest men. The denials made by their leading men and Church papers they suppose to be true. Here are facts in detail, with places, names, dates, and copies of legal proceedings taken from official sources.
“Before the war, when Northern preachers were objects of suspicion, and public demonstrations were sometimes made against them, the editor of the St. Louis Christian Advocate, Rev. D. R. M‘Anally, raised his voice against all mobs and mob violence with a will and an emphasis that left no covert suggestions of encouragement to those who might have been disposed to resort to violent measures. Led by the Advocate, the whole Southern Church in the State gave its influence, publicly and privately, against all violent proceedings. If that paper and our Church had, at that time, pursued the course that the Northern preachers and papers did towards us during the war, they would have been driven from the State. As it was, in order to get credit for persecution, they had to resort to the most remarkable tricks. Take, for instance, the case, given with proper names in this book, of one of their camp meetings being broken up by the preacher in charge of it being caught in the act of adultery—broken up by their own members. This they published to the world as a case of persecution by Southern people.
“While I do not agree fully with all the views set forth in the preliminary chapters of this volume, I am prepared to say that the facts bearing on the main topic have been collected and verified with great care, and that there can be no doubt of the accuracy of the statements. You have been pleased to hold yourself responsible, giving proper names, dates, etc. I do not hesitate to invite upon myself a full share of the responsibility.
“Hoping that you will soon have the second volume, containing the names of our other murdered brethren, ready for the press,
“I am, very respectfully,
“E. M. MARVIN.”