William M. Leftwich

“ Among earthly institutions I expect and want nothing better. With it I find no fault. My complaint is against certain of its officers for the injustice and oppression with which they treat me. If you were in my place and I in your’s, what course would you wish me to pursue? If a peaceable and quiet citizen, such as I have always been, is not free from imprisonment or banishment, who is safe? Has justice forsaken the land? And is there no place where the oppressed may find redress? ”

“ We owe it to the ecclesiastical bodies of the South that posterity shall be told who invaded their rights; who robbed them of their churches, parsonages, cemeteries, and seminaries; who murdered, scourged, and plundered, and banished many of their ministers and lay members, including even women and children, because they would not compromise principles which they held dearer than life itself.
It is well for the world to be told that moral heroism has not, like Astræa, left the earth and ascended to the skies. Thank God! there have been heroes in our times ”

“ Every step beyond this is an arbitrary attack upon the constitutionally guaranteed right of religious freedom, and upon the fundamental law of the American Republican Government—separation of Church and State. The violation of the Constitution committed in the appointment of a Military Bishop—one would be forced to laugh if the affair were not so serious in principle—is so much the more outrageous and wicked, as it is attempted in States which, like Missouri, have never separated from the Union, and in which all the departments of civil administration are in regular activity. ”

“ The tendency in the public mind to skepticism was never more alarming, and the mystic vagaries of Andrew Jackson Davis stood in defiant competition with the New Testament. Lecturers appeared in every city and centre of population, haranguing the people upon the vain philosophies of men and questions of science, falsely so-called, seeking to turn away their ears from the truth unto fables, and “doting about questions and strifes of words” that would and did disturb the foundations of godliness. Nor could both the religions press and pulpit countervail their influence upon the public mind. ”

“ It is true, some ministers refused to be driven, but remained faithful to their trust, in the midst of many discouragements, much threatening, much murmuring, and not a little persecution. Such men, pursuing the even tenor of their way, neither turning to the right or left, reviled, but reviling not again, “counting not their lives dear unto themselves,” nor “conferring with flesh and blood,” deserve the most honorable mention; and with those who know the pressure of sentiment brought to bear upon them they will ever be revered as the finest models of moral heroism and ministerial fidelity. ”

“ The centres of population and power in the South will be put under loyal training and discipline, and a moral result will be reached which “military necessity” demands. All moral questions down in the presence of a war measure so manifestly right and proper. Military necessity has no conscience in the presence of a gigantic rebellion. What religious difference between a military and an ecclesiastical raid upon the property of rebels? Will the Government and the Church ever quarrel over the spoils of conquest, whether gained by an Episcopal General or a Military Bishop? ”

“ Missouri can not claim such exceptional distinction. In, perhaps, no State or country has denominational contention and strife been more general and uncompromising.
Not willing to accept the standards of doctrine published and recognized by each church, nor to abide by the verdict of learned debates upon all questions of difference, ministers and members, with astonishing freedom and with defiant presumption, enter the arena of controversy, public and private, with a zeal and a spirit equally hurtful to Christian charity and the general cause of true piety. ”

“ All that is wanted for the time being is control of trade. Trade, assisted by preaching and teaching, will soon control public opinion. Public opinion is mighty and will prevail. Lincoln will certainly be elected; we will then have the Indian nation, cost what it will; squatter sovereignty will prevail there as it has in Kansas. That accomplished, we have but one more step to take—one more struggle to make—that is, free Texas. We will then have a connected link from the Lakes to the Gulf. Slavery will then be surrounded, by land and water, and will soon sting itself to death. ”

“ Now, it may well and significantly be inquired how the civil war of 1861 could revive the title to property that had been extinguished, in fact and in law, by the will of its legal owners in 1845? Laws may be repealed, altered and amended, but not so as to affect the previous rights of property. Nothing is more sacredly guarded by civil legislation than the rights of property. Laws may change, but justice and equity remain the same; and courts of equity not unfrequently pronounce upon the equity of legislation in respect to the rights of property. ”

“ The faithful of our Church pursued the even tenor of their way, and when refused their own house of worship met in private houses for worship, and when denied this means of grace they kept up the sewing circle and mite society, and in this way the ‘faithful women not a few’ preserved an organization, a name and a life. While their harps were upon the willows they often sat down together and wept when they remembered their Zion, once so beautiful for situation—the joy of all hearts. ”

“ Society is, to a great extent, in a formative state. In very few places, if any, has society settled down into grooves, and channels, and circles, and social and church castes, as in the older States; and then society exists in a great variety of unassimilated elements, Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western; English, French, German, Scotch, Irish, with a hundred different shades of social and domestic life, which are too distinct to become homogeneous, and which seek in church creeds and church associations their social as, well as religious affinities. ”

“ Missouri will ever be conspicuous in the annals of history as the only State in the American Union to inaugurate and authorize a formal opposition to Christianity, as an institution, and legalize the persecution of ministers of the gospel, as a class. The fact will not be denied, and the history furnishes the saddest, wisest lessons. Ministers of the gospel have been robbed, arrested, imprisoned, and even murdered, for no other cause than that they were ministers of the gospel. ”

“ Custom, tradition, my construction of the teachings of the Bible and ancient and modern history convinced me and established my belief to the effect that the institutions of the South were morally, socially, politically and religiously right, and I could not conscientiously say that I was not a Southern man.’ ‘Other men control their sympathies,’ said he, ‘why can you not do the same and harmonize with the North as well as the South?’ I frankly replied that I would not believe the man that would tell me so. ”

“ To say that public sentiment in the State was demoralized by such scenes before the end of 1861 is an expression too tame to reflect adequately the real fact. The moral forces of society were paralyzed, social restraints were broken down, and even religious character was powerless either for protection or public good. The old standards of virtue, integrity, honesty and right principle were borne down and swept away, and men became reckless of the laws of God and man. ”

“ It only remains to be noted here how readily ecclesiastical partisans take advantage of everything in political and civil strife that will confer upon them power and position. How readily they identify themselves with dominant parties, if by so doing they can damage their ecclesiastical opponents and gain position and power for themselves! How heartily they endorse the policy of the party in power, if by it their own disability is exchanged for temporary enfranchisement, and their own minority is invested with temporary power to oppress and persecute the hated majority! ”

“ To settle the difficulty and have peace, the rightful owners of the whole property had to quit-claim half of it to their enemies, and pay more than half the costs of suits, for the gracious favor of a quit-claim deed to the other half of their own property, and the peaceful possession of their own house of worship in a greatly damaged condition. But, then, our people have so long been inured to privation, wrong and persecution, that they will purchase peace and the privileges of unmolested worship at almost any price but that of honor and integrity. ”

“ It is sad to record the following details of suffering inflicted upon one of the oldest, most useful and honored members of the St. Louis Conference, M. E. Church, South; a man who for many years has been an humble, exemplary and influential member of the Conference, who occupied a high position in the confidence of the Church, and has been intrusted with high and responsible positions in her courts and councils. No man, perhaps, of any Church has stood higher in the esteem of all men of all Churches in Southwest Missouri, where he has so long lived and labored, than Marcus Arrington. ”

“ The ministers of the M. E. Church, South, were not the only sufferers. Persecution may sometimes be exclusive and exceptional, but oftener it is indiscriminate. The class of persons marked, or “spotted,” for proscription and persecution was not confined to any one Church. Religious creeds were not so much involved as sectarian domination and sectional hatred. To exterminate, or expel from the State, that class of men who had not received their tone and type from New England, or had not fallen in heartily with the loyal religion and the religious loyalty, seemed to be a settled purpose. ”

“ Some who in name had been with us, but were not in heart of us, went out from us to take shelter under their political banner, prove their loyalty to the Government, and—as they were told—save their property and their lives, and be fitted, as it proved, to enjoy the product of others’ labor and the spoils of pious conquest. ”

“ What was my offense? I labored to preserve the peace of my congregation. I thought that the Church was not the proper arena for the strife of those contending opinions that were convulsing the nation.
“Why did not Colhoun and Lyon of the Presbyterian Church offer such prayers as that offered by W. C. Toole? I will answer. They had too high a sense of religious propriety. Sir, political preaching has sown the seeds that are bringing forth the death of the nation. In more than twenty years in the ministry I have never given utterance to a political sentiment in the pulpit. ”

“ We owe it to those who were made widows and orphans by the monsters who enacted these bloody scenes, to let the world know that the husbands and fathers of these innocent sufferers were not rebels and traitors, but good men and true, “of whom the world was not worthy.”
We owe it to the institutions of our country to let it be known that the appalling scenes that were enacted during the late reign of terror were not the result of the principles which underlie our Federal and State governments, but of the palpable contravention of them. ”

“ A name however obscure, and a character however humble, become illustrious despite of history when associated with persecution, suffering and death, for a principle and a cause which invest humanity with the purer and higher types of intellectual, moral and religious life. ”

“ People lose their social characteristics much sooner and more easily than they do their religious peculiarities. The former are based on education, taste, association and habit, the latter on principles vital and divine. As every national and social characteristic known to American society has become mixed and blended in Missouri, so every shade of religious thought and feeling, every form of religious doctrine and dogma, together with every type of ecclesiasticism known to modern American civilization, exists in the hearts and homes of Missouri—at least to some extent. ”

“ According to my views, a religious congregation that can not endure prayers for its Government is disloyal; and a minister that encourages such a congregation in its course is also disloyal.
“I agree with you, that allegiance and protection are reciprocal. But allegiance requires the citizen to protect the Government against all enemies. This you not only refuse to do, but you are not willing to pray for the success of your Government over traitors. You claim to be neutral. A citizen has no right to be neutral when enemies are assailing his Government. ”