In presenting this work to the public the author is fully conscious of its many literary defects. But for all that, he dare not sacrifice the facts of history, even to literary excellence. Many subjects possess an importance and a grandeur wholly independent of those who handle them. If, in treating of so many men and such recent events, injustice has been done the living or the dead, the author pleads the absence of intention and claims the benefit of a discriminating charity. Both the work and the author will receive the severest criticism—perhaps censure—possibly abuse. The first—he would not escape if he could; the second—he could not escape if he would; the third—well—it is no new thing under the sun for those who are set for the defense of truth and righteousness to be abused. The following prefatory notes, furnished by Dr. M‘Anally and Bishop Marvin, together with the Introduction by Dr. Summers, will not only assure the timid and establish the doubtful, but will be as grateful to the Methodist and general public as to the author: PREFATORY NOTE. “In the following pages the reader may find an account of some of those horrible outrages perpetrated on Christian ministers in Missouri, chiefly because they were Christian men and Christian ministers; but scarce a tenth of all such outrages have been, or likely ever will be, placed before the public. They have cast a foul and ineraseable blot upon the fame of the State of Missouri, and must consign the immediate perpetrators to an infamy as lasting and as hateful as that of the most cruel persecutors of Christians in gone-by ages. And what deepens, blackens and renders more odious the guilt of these things is, they were for the greater part done by, or under the sanction of, men professing to love and follow the Lord Jesus Christ; with a claim to, and under the pretext of, a purer patriotism and holier Christianity, they committed atrocities that would disgrace barbarians and savages. “It is well the record of these horrible deeds be preserved, that the better portion of the people in this and other States may have some knowledge of what was done and suffered here during the dark and bloody days, from 1861 to ’65.